Re: sniffer/promisc detector

2004-01-18 Thread E.B. Dreger

DJ> Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 14:57:19 -0500
DJ> From: Deepak Jain


DJ> I know most people don't take the time to hard code their
DJ> MACs onto their switch ports, but it really only takes a few
DJ> seconds per switch with a little cutting & pasting -- as
DJ> customer switches a network port, they just need to open a
DJ> ticket to have the address changed.

In the same vein, hardcoded router ARP entries in router configs
also help.  Yes, spoofed gratuitous ARP packets are detectable,
but they can still cause trouble.


Eddy
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Brotsman & Dreger, Inc. - EverQuick Internet Division
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Phone: +1 785 865 5885 Lawrence and [inter]national
Phone: +1 316 794 8922 Wichita
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Re: SMTP problems from *.ipt.aol.com

2004-01-18 Thread E.B. Dreger

SR> Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 08:24:06 +0530
SR> From: Suresh Ramasubramanian


SR> AOL has, since the past several months (over a year I think)
SR> set up their dynamic IP pool *.ipt.aol.com to hijack port 25

I recall seeing this in November 2002, and believe it had already
been in place for a few months...


SR> outbound requests and reroute it through a set of their own
SR> mailservers, that do some elementary rate limiting and
SR> filtering.


Eddy
--
Brotsman & Dreger, Inc. - EverQuick Internet Division
Bandwidth, consulting, e-commerce, hosting, and network building
Phone: +1 785 865 5885 Lawrence and [inter]national
Phone: +1 316 794 8922 Wichita
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Re: What's the best way to wiretap a network?

2004-01-18 Thread Sean Donelan

On Sun, 18 Jan 2004, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Paul Vixie writes:
> >i'm fairly sure that this is what law enforcement uses for wiretap warrants.
>
> I believe you're correct.  In fact, I first learned of these devices
> from government documents during the Carnivore discussions a few years
> ago.

Lots of people seem to be making the assumption that all networks work
the same way or everyone wants the same data. Tapping an OC192 SONET
circuit is expensive, but relatively straightforward.  Tapping a V.92
analog modem is expensive and not straightforward.  Tapping WiFi-to-WiFi
traffic is cheap, but only if you are local.  A sniffer on an upstream
switch won't see the traffic below a network access point.

But a Title III warrant for "full content" is relatively difficult to
obtain in the US.  The public reports filed with the courts show a small
percentage of wiretaps require full content.  What's also interesting is
if you read the various public submissions to many different working
groups since the Carnivore discussions a few years a go, you'll notice a
dramatic re-definition of more and more data as "call identification
information" instead of "content."

The public proposals also seems to be somewhat arbitrary which provider
gets "tasked" with collecting the wiretap data.  Should the first mile or
last mile or middle mile provider be tasked with isolating call
identification information and decoding it?

So what is the best way to wiretap a target using public WiFi hotspots
connected through multiple wholesale providers and service providers
to collect call identificaiton information to call identification
information about who the target is communicating with through multiple
application protocols including Webmail, IM and massively multi-player
role playing games.






Re: What's the best way to wiretap a network?

2004-01-18 Thread Bohdan Tashchuk
> You can plug a mini-hub in line and use that as a tap point to monitor
> the stream. Up side is its cheap and easy. Down side is you have to
> drop to half duplex. Not a problem in most situations but in some the
> drop in performance can be an issue.
Don't throw out your old hubs. It's hard to find a 10/100 hub for sale 
any more. Even the cheap consumer devices are switches. I picked up a 
$25 hub at Fry's a few weeks ago just in case I ever wanted to casually 
snoop some traffic. But Fry's is sold out.

The netoptics.com link posted was "priceless". I'm always wary of
simple products that are expensive enough to have a request for quote,
rather than a price, on their web page.


Re: Nanog30 socialising

2004-01-18 Thread Bill Woodcock


If your too-many-frequent-flyer-miles aren't on United, you may not have
noticed the following:

http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/three/2003/south-beach.htm

This month's "Three Perfect Days" column in the United in-flight magazine
features South Beach.  And they have a previous one on Miami generally:

http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/three/1998/miami.htm


-Bill




OT: tos bits - current usage

2004-01-18 Thread Simon Waters
Can anyone point me to any resources describing the current usage of the
  tos precedence bits.

Specifically what happens in practice, not what is suppose to happen (I
can find the RFC's and IETF documents okay).

Prompted by noting that a lot of spambots set the lowest precedence bit
(tos 0x20 in tcpdump), I assume this is just a reflection of what
operating system is in use/has been compromised?

Internet search engines seem to think the whole point of the tos bits is
to allow you to more accurately fingerprint remote operating systems, at
least that is what the naive searcher might conclude.


pgp0.pgp
Description: PGP signature


Re: What's the best way to wiretap a network?

2004-01-18 Thread Steven M. Bellovin

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Paul Vixie writes:
>

>i'm fairly sure that this is what law enforcement uses for wiretap warrants.

I believe you're correct.  In fact, I first learned of these devices 
from government documents during the Carnivore discussions a few years 
ago.

--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb




Re: What's the best way to wiretap a network?

2004-01-18 Thread Paul Vixie

> > Assuming lawful purposes, what is the best way to tap a network
> > undetectable
> 
> ...
> The best solution I've found is to use an Ethernet tap. It allows you to
> piggy back off of an existing connection and monitor all the traffic
> going to and from that system. Its pretty undetectable, does not use any
> additional switch ports, and allows you to run full duplex. A number of
> vendors sell them and a Google will give you sites on how to make them.
> ...

i hadn't thought of making my own -- that sounds like a fun project.

for f-root, we've (isc) been installing the netoptics version of this:

http://www.netoptics.com/products/product_family.asp?cid=1&Section=products&sid=439813.237927026&menuitem=1

works great.  it's basically a hub, but with the interesting feature of
letting you monitor TX and RX separately, and full duplex is preserved.
(it takes 2x100Mbit to fully monitor a full duplex 100Mbit link.)  it
also fails into "connected" mode if power is dropped.  so if both power
blobs die, you lose monitoring, but not connectivity.

there are also 1000-TX, 1000-SX, DS3, sonet and other versions, plus combos.

i'm fairly sure that this is what law enforcement uses for wiretap warrants.
-- 
Paul Vixie


Re: New IPv4 Allocation to ARIN

2004-01-18 Thread jlewis

On Sun, 18 Jan 2004, Petri Helenius wrote:

> >It's those dang Nachi-sized ICMP echo/echo-replies.  We block those at all 
> >our transit points and dial-up ports.  Nachi was killing our cisco 
  ^^^
> >access-servers until we did this to stop the spread.
   

> I know what they are and how to get around them. I just look down on people
> dropping my packets in their backbones without reason.

I wasn't joking or kidding about the above.  Many others who run dialup 
services saw similar problems (both with cisco and other vendor's gear).  
Blocking these size/type packets, as per suggestions from cisco's web site 
was the easiest way to keep our network up, and prevent additional 
infections both into and out from our customers.

Have others who implemented them dropped their echo/echo-reply 92-byte 
filters?

If tracert defaulted to udp like just about every "unix" traceroute or 
allowed you to vary the packet size or protocol, this wouldn't be as much 
of an issue.
  
--
 Jon Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED]|  I route
 Senior Network Engineer |  therefore you are
 Atlantic Net|  
_ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_



Re: New IPv4 Allocation to ARIN

2004-01-18 Thread Petri Helenius
Pete Templin wrote:

He has a reason: that virus was melting down his network (and was 
melting down lots of networks).

I point to the word "backbone". If your dial servers melt, block the 
packets at dial
servers, don´t launch weapon of mass packet destruction to all traffic. 
Filtering
should be more targeted so it does not kill or hamper what it´s supposed 
to protect
in the first place.

Pete




Re: New IPv4 Allocation to ARIN

2004-01-18 Thread Pete Templin


Petri Helenius wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

It's those dang Nachi-sized ICMP echo/echo-replies.  We block those at 
all our transit points and dial-up ports.  Nachi was killing our cisco 
access-servers until we did this to stop the spread.

I know what they are and how to get around them. I just look down on people
dropping my packets in their backbones without reason.
He has a reason: that virus was melting down his network (and was 
melting down lots of networks).

If viruses came with instructions, documentation, and source code, we 
could all rest assured that it did completely self-destruct this month. 
 Instead, we're all watching in wait, and leaving filters handy or in 
place.

(I'd mention the Nachi filtering I had to do and the implications of how 
I had to do it based on the platform I'm using, but my flamesuit is all 
tattered just trying to find a safe tool to read my mail.)

pt


Re: New IPv4 Allocation to ARIN

2004-01-18 Thread Petri Helenius
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

It's those dang Nachi-sized ICMP echo/echo-replies.  We block those at all 
our transit points and dial-up ports.  Nachi was killing our cisco 
access-servers until we did this to stop the spread.

Unfortunately, this breaks Windows tracert as it uses 92-byte echo 
requests.  Use a "real" traceroute, and you won't see this problem.

 

I know what they are and how to get around them. I just look down on people
dropping my packets in their backbones without reason.
Pete




Re: What's the best way to wiretap a network?

2004-01-18 Thread Chris Brenton

On Sat, 2004-01-17 at 21:08, Sean Donelan wrote:
>
> Assuming lawful purposes, what is the best way to tap a network
> undetectable

The best way to go undetectable is easy, run the sniffer without an IP
address. The best way to tap a network varies with your setup. If your
repeated, just plug in and go. If your switched (which most of us are),
you need to figure out how to get in the middle of the data stream you
want to monitor.

The best solution I've found is to use an Ethernet tap. It allows you to
piggy back off of an existing connection and monitor all the traffic
going to and from that system. Its pretty undetectable, does not use any
additional switch ports, and allows you to run full duplex. A number of
vendors sell them and a Google will give you sites on how to make them.

You can plug a mini-hub in line and use that as a tap point to monitor
the stream. Up side is its cheap and easy. Down side is you have to drop
to half duplex. Not a problem in most situations but in some the drop in
performance can be an issue.

Many switch vendors include a copy or mirror port that allows you to
replicate all traffic to and from a specific port, to some other port
where you can plug in your sniffer. Up side here is ease of
configuration. If you want to start monitoring a different port its a
simple configuration change within your switch. Down side is you could
end up missing packets (I've run into this myself). Seems when some/many
switches get busy the first thing they stop doing is copying packets to
the mirror port.

There are tools out there like Dsniff and Ettercap that allow you to
sniff in a switched environment. I recommend you avoid them because they
tend to either work or hose your network. You don't want to DoS
yourself. ;-)

>  to the surveillance subject, not missing any
> relevant data, and not exposing the installer to undue risk?

Sniffing is a passive function so its always possible you are going to
miss data. It all depends on the capabilities of the box recording the
packets.

As for "risk", that's always there as well. For example check the
Bugtraq archives and you are going to find exploits that work against
tools like Tcpdump and Snort. The attacks go after the way the software
processes the packet. So even if you are running without an IP address
its possible that someone with malicious intent can DoS the box.

HTH,
C 




Re: One-element vs two-element design

2004-01-18 Thread Petri Helenius
Eric Kuhnke wrote:



Last year, a Boeing in flight over the middle of the pacific ocean had 
its entire glass cockpit system go dark.  After frantic conversation 
with the air traffic controllers a decision was made to toggle the 
circuit breakers for the TRIPLE-REDUNDANT computer system onboard, 
which brought back the displays.  Even with a 2+1 setup, things can 
still go wrong...


Most, if not all, redundant systems have a single instance of  
synchronization protocol.
One significant vendor of packet forwarding gear was known for hanging 
the secondary
RP almost every time when the primary failed. The hang was usually 
associated with
chatter failing with the failed card :-)

Pete