A black hole, in the context of computer networks, is a place where incoming packets are destroyed or discarded without informing the sender or the recipient of their failed delivery. Data packets are sent to a black hole when they are directed to an offline or disconnected router. When this happens, all the packets forwarded to that router are discarded and lost. Routers are "dumb" and cannot transmit any notification regarding their status back to the sender and are virtually invisible to the entire network hence the term black hole.
A computer communication network is composed of many different networks. Each is managed by a router enabling communications to be routed toward or away from that domain. If any particular router goes offline, a condition is created in which all the packets directed toward that router (or the connecting network) are lost as soon as they reach the point in the network where that router is installed. This is known as a black hole in the computer network.Black holes may also be created by other circumstances. For instance, when a host in unreachable due to its offline state, or the recipient address belongs to bogus IP address, an unconfigured router will not be able to handle such packets. This also creates black holes where data packets traveling toward them, and the traffic routed toward them, are lost.
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