----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 1:09 AM
Subject: Re: GoDaddy.com shuts down entire data center?
On Jan 17, 2006, at 1:32 AM, Jim Popovitch wrote:
I want to say, from an outsider's perspective, that I whole heartily
applaud GoDaddy on the actions they took [...]
There seems to be a wide split on this topic. I was wondering if people
would privately tell me yes or no on a few questions so I can understand
the issue better.
1) Do you think it is acceptable to cause any collateral damage to
innocent bystanders if it will stop network abuse?
If the damage of the persistant abuse is greater than the lost of the
innocent persons, yes.
2) If yes, do you still think it is acceptable to take down 100s of
innocent bystanders because one customer of a provider is misbehaving?
Yes I do and more than likely, so do you. If you are a common end point for
all of my users and I'm the common end point for yours, either of us has the
right to deny access to the other at any point for no reason really. Now,
should your network start flooding me or vice versa, one of us, if not both,
will toss up some filters. If either of our networks is larger than the
other and causing a dos for the other end, the effected one of us would have
no recourse but to contact the upstream of the source point and request
assistance.
3) If yes, do you still think it is acceptable if the "misbehaving"
customer is not intentionally misbehaving - i.e. they've been hacked?
Intentional or not, it doesn't negate the fact that the system has been
hacked and is now owned by someone other than the actual owner. If one of my
systems were to be hacked and I miss it, and it starts causing problems for
your network, I expect my network to be filtered. If your filters aren't
effective enough to deal with the issue, and I'm not helping you to correct
the problem, I expect you to go to my carrier to file a complaint.
3) If yes, do you still think it is acceptable if the collateral damage
(taking out 100s of innocent businesses) doesn't actually stop the spam
run / DoS attack / etc.?
There is no simple yes / no for this one. It would depend on the
circumstances of the issue.
<snip>
Using the case under discussion as an example, I am wondering why anyone
thinks taking down 100s of innocent domains is a good way to stop a
single hacked machine from doing whatever it is doing? If you somehow
think all that is worth it, take a close look at your cost / benefit
analysis. At this rate, every business on the Internet will be out of
business before we take out even a single moderately large botnet.
You can wonder why, however I, IMHO, think that if more carriers would take
that stance, then the problems that we face daily would be much less severe.
Currently, there's not much to keep the big players in check when it comes
to their network. Now, imagine, what could happen if they were forced to
play by the same rules that we have to go by? If our network is causing
problems, our uplink(s) have the authority to disconnect them for that
generally. Can you see Sprint, SBC/AT&T, L3, Cogent, AOL, Cox, etc having
those same rules applicable to them or be depeered from all peers and become
network dead? Now, is it feasible to do such a thing? Not usually because it
causes financial issues on both sides of the depeering. That's because the
internet that we have is used as a means of financial gain and isn't geared
for being easily segregated in the event of compromise. Yet, that's the
current mechanism for a compromised end user. The same means should be used
all the way to the NAP imo.
I am also wondering why anyone thinks the miscreant will stop just
because the legitimate owner's domain no longer resolves? Not only is
the machine likely to continue sending spam as if nothing happened, we
aren't even "catching" the guy. I guess you could say "well, it put
pressure on his hosting provider to clean the infected machine", which is
true. I just think that's a bit silly. But maybe I'm the one who's
silly.
Why should you or I be the ones responsible for catching the miscreant when
the compromised system isn't on our network? If it were, then that task
would fall to us to do so. If the threat of a delinking were over our heads,
we'd have some major incentive to find the idiot and make sure he's not on
our net anymore wouldn't we.
Lastly, I wonder what "average" people - people who run businesses on
hosting providers who really don't understand all this computer stuff -
think about such actions. How many 100s of people have we just alienated
for life to stop - er, NOT stop - a single zombie? And how many of their
friends are going to hear over an over how the Internet is not a real
business and no one should put any faith in it?
Average people think email is secure.
Average people think that email is instant.
Average people think that updates and patches are a hinderance and not
necessary.
Average people think that the internet is flawless.
Average people think that their current provider is the internet.
Average people don't care what happens outside of their cable/dsl modem or
their linksys/dlink router.
Average people just want it to work and don't want to know what's behind the
scenes to make the *magic*.
Is this really a good thing?
Yes, they need to know that the net is like a shark in the water. It may not
get you today, tommorrow or never. But that doesn't mean you want to swim in
shark infested waters without taking proper precautions.
--
TTFN,
patrick
:)
Mike P.