Patent ID: 7953855

Claim:
A method of black-holing internet traffic in an internet service provider network, the method comprising: injecting, by a first router, an instruction into the internet service provider network; responding to the instruction, by a plurality of routers within the internet service provider network, such that a first number of routers become black-holing routers and a second number of routers become non-black-holing routers; routing internet traffic addressed for a first IP address, by the non-black-holing routers, to an internet application having the first IP address; and routing internet traffic addressed for the first IP address, by the black-holing routers, to a black-hole router having the first IP address, wherein routing internet traffic is consistent routing requiring the black-holing routers to route traffic having the first IP address to other black-holing routers and wherein the non-black-holing routers route the first IP address to other non-black-holing routers.