A state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm "hijacked" Internet traffic in April, affecting traffic from U.S. government domains and raising serious implications for Internet safety, according to a report by a Congressional commission.
For about 18 minutes on April 8, 2010, China Telecom diverted U.S. and other foreign Internet traffic through servers in China, according to an annual report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (PDF) released Wednesday.

Affected was traffic going to and from U.S. .gov and .mil sites, including sites for the Senate, the four main armed services branches, the office of the Secretary of Defense, NASA, the Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and others, according to the report.

Commercial websites for large technology companies -- including Dell, Yahoo, Microsoft and IBM -- also were re-routed during the diversion period.

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