The researchers who analyzed this attack call it a "Man-In-the-Middle (MITM) hijack", which makes this whole subthread kind of pointless since the journalist is just using the terminology of the original research.

Check out the researchers' article for tracerout data and other interesting details: http://www.renesys.com/2013/11/mitm-internet-hijacking/

And if you're interested in how the internet works at this level (BGP, peering, ISPs), the book "Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet" is interesting reading.