> Frankly, I am having a hard time believing that HE.NET failed that badly.

Believe it. HE has many, many netiron-based routers in their network and many, many ASNs as transit customers. the hardware doesn't have the capacity to implement complete filtering for everyone.

between hardware-constrained equipment being replaced and the tireless work Job Snijders (& others) are doing with route security, these kinds of episodes will become far more difficult and occur much, much less.