Re: qwest outage?

2008-01-19 Thread Jeff Shultz

Daniel wrote:
 Anyone currently aware of a Qwest outage? My qwest sites are down, even
 qwest.com http://qwest.com
  
 daniel

Nope.

traceroute www.qwest.com
traceroute to www.qwest.com (155.70.40.252), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
 1  192.168.255.1 (192.168.255.1)  0.287 ms   0.232 ms   0.332 ms
 2  stayton2-stinger-gw.wvi.com (67.43.68.1)  7.627 ms   7.986 ms   7.097 ms
 3  wvi-gw.wvi.com (204.119.27.254)  7.637 ms   8.202 ms   7.607 ms
 4  69.59.218.105 (69.59.218.105)  8.889 ms   9.814 ms   8.926 ms
 5  sst-6509-gi13-p2p-peak.silverstartelecom.com (12.111.189.105)
22.849 ms   20.245 ms   16.434 ms
 6  sst-m10-fe002-p2p-6509-fa347.silverstartelecom.com (12.111.189.233)
 10.069 ms   10.456 ms   9.801 ms
 7  12.118.177.73 (12.118.177.73)  10.369 ms   11.057 ms   9.951 ms
 8  gr1.st6wa.ip.att.net (12.123.44.122)  33.398 ms   32.790 ms   32.975 ms
 9  tbr1.st6wa.ip.att.net (12.122.12.157)  37.985 ms   38.693 ms   37.595 ms
10  tbr2.sffca.ip.att.net (12.122.12.113)  33.806 ms   34.252 ms   34.272 ms
11  ggr2.sffca.ip.att.net (12.123.13.185)  32.995 ms   32.302 ms   32.994 ms
12  * * *
(nothing after this, but I can bring up Qwest.com just fine.)


-- 
Jeff Shultz


Re: Internet access in Japan (was Re: BitTorrent swarms have a deadly bite on broadband nets)

2007-10-22 Thread Jeff Shultz


David Andersen wrote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082801990.html 

snip
Followed by a recent explosion in fiber-to-the-home buildout by NTT.  
About 8.8 million Japanese homes have fiber lines -- roughly nine times 
the number in the United States. -- particularly impressive when you 
count that in per-capita terms.


Nice article.  Makes you wish...



For the days when ATT ran all the phones? I don't think so...



Re: issues with qwest

2007-06-14 Thread Jeff Shultz


Philip Lavine wrote:

Is anybody having issues with qwest?


Always - but probably not in the fashion you presumably mean.

What sort of issues? I can probably traceroute through them and all that 
stuff if you provide more info.


--
Jeff Shultz



Re: ISP CALEA compliance

2007-05-10 Thread Jeff Shultz


Jason Frisvold wrote:


On 5/10/07, Jared Mauch [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

If you're not offering VoIP services, your life may be easier as
you will only need to intercept the data.  Depending on your environment
you could do this with something like port-mirroring, or something
more advanced.  There are a number of folks that offer TTP (Trusted
third-provider) services.  Verisign comes to mind.  But using a TTP
doesn't mean you can hide behind them.  Compliance is ultimately your
(the company that gets the subponea) responsibility.


Here's a question that's come up around here.  Does a CALEA intercept
include hairpining or is it *only* traffic leaving your network?
I'm of the opinion that a CALEA intercept request includes every bit
of traffic being sent or received by the targeted individual, but
there is strong opposition here that thinks only internet-related
traffic counts.


- Jared (IANAL!)




That would be something best brought up with a CALEA lawyer or one of 
the Trusted Third Party companies for an answer.


I suspect that you probably ought to have the capability of getting both 
ends of the conversation (incoming  outgoing) as the warrant may be 
written that way.


--
Jeff Shultz


Re: On-going Internet Emergency and Domain Names (kill this thread)

2007-03-31 Thread Jeff Shultz


Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:



On Mar 31, 2007, at 11:57 PM, Gadi Evron wrote:


You do realize this post is not about Microsoft or IE 0days, right?




Your words made it clear that it was.

Generalizing from Windows 0day to coordinate shutdown of DNS for
evil domain in a timely fashion is just obfuscating that the only
reason to do so is because Windows is the way it is.


As I see it, the problem at hand is the current Windows 0day. What Gadi
is doing is concentrating on a tactic it is using to justify solving
what he sees as a more general problem (DNS abuse) that could be used by 
an exploit to any operating system. By solving it, this could mitigate 
future problems.


We're looking at the alligators surrounding us. Gadi is trying to 
convince us to help him in draining the swamp (which may indeed be a 
positive thing in the long run).


Does that sound about right?

--
Jeff Shultz




Re: On-going Internet Emergency and Domain Names

2007-03-30 Thread Jeff Shultz


So, is there a list of domains that we could null-route if we could 
convince our DNS managers to set us up as the SOA for those domains on 
our local DNS servers - thus protecting our own customers somewhat?


I won't discount the assertion that there is some sort of emergency 
occurring. I would however, like to see a bit of a reference to where we 
can learn more about what is going on (I assume this is the javascript 
exploit I heard about a couple days ago).


Thanks.

Fergie wrote:

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

- -- Gadi Evron [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


There is a current on-going Internet emergency: a critical 0day
vulnerability currently exploited in the wild threatens numerous desktop
systems which are being compromised and turned into bots, and the domain
names hosting it are a significant part of the reason why this attack has
not yet been mitigated.

This incident is currenly being handled by several operational groups.




...and before people starting bashing Gadi for being off-topic, etc.,
I'll side with him on the fact that this particular issue appears to
be quite serious.

Please check the facts regarding this issue before firing up your
flame-throwers -- this weekend could prove to be a quite horrible
one.

- - ferg

-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: PGP Desktop 9.6.0 (Build 214)

wj8DBQFGDcayq1pz9mNUZTMRAj48AKCVdw3bZ63ryIAI6f/NSbABZR10VACg3iZf
thCHKv5hpQ6Dqrq+iY4j1J8=
=MoWp
-END PGP SIGNATURE-

--
Fergie, a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg(at)netzero.net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/



--
Jeff Shultz



Re: [funsec] Not so fast, broadband providers tell big users (fwd)

2007-03-13 Thread Jeff Shultz


Alexander Harrowell wrote:


On 3/13/07, Todd Vierling [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


Critical mass is approaching.  There's only so long that North
American consumers can be held back from bandwidth-hogging
applications and downloads while parts of the world have long since
upgraded to 10Mbit/s bidirectional (and beyond) consumer-grade access
speeds.

Both cable and DSL providers are about to have a very loud wake-up
call, and from here, I see absolutely zero uptake of newer technology
and infrastructure to offset the inevitable.


768 ain't broadband. Buy Cisco, Alcatel, and Akamai stock!



It certainly is - just ask the CALEA folks and as for who is pushing 
the bandwidth curve, for the most part it seems to be gamers in search 
of the ever shrinking ping time. I suspect they make up most of our 
1536kb/sec download customers.


What parts of the world have long since upgraded to those speeds - and 
how do they compare size-wise to the USA? We've got an awful lot of 
legacy infrastructure that would need to be overcome.


I will happily agree that it would be nice to have higher upload speeds 
than DSL generally provides nowadays. What are cable upload speeds like?


--
Jeff Shultz


Re: broadband routers security issues

2007-02-23 Thread Jeff Shultz


This is why we specify our DSL modems configured as transparent bridged 
(routing optional) and when they go out the door they're already set up 
as inaccessible from the outside, even if the customer enables routing 
(I've seen one case in 5 years where the customer has done this without 
calling us for help first).


Of course, I've discovered that we're also a bit unusual in that we use 
RFC 1483 Bridged mode and static IPs instead of PPPoE and DHCP for all 
our DSL connections.


We wouldn't accept this sort of default open accessability from Linksys, 
D-link, Netgear, etc... - why should we accept it on our DSL/cable modems?


Gadi Evron wrote:

Hi guys. A guy named Sid recently wrote on securiteam (where I write
as well) on an accidental discovery he made on the security of his home
broadband router with its default settings.

Apparently, he started by discovering he had port 23 open (which was
telnet for the router rather than for him - we have all been there
before).



--
Jeff Shultz


Re: AS41961 not seen in many networks

2007-01-04 Thread Jeff Shultz


Qwest appears not show it (traceroute dies at the first IP in their 
network) and Cogent and LambdaNET show a jump from 90ms to 170ms between 
their networks (in two different places depending on IP tracerouted) - 
but it does go through.


--
Jeff Shultz


Re: Comcast Routing Issues: Northern NJ: Random Failures

2007-01-03 Thread Jeff Shultz


Joseph S D Yao wrote:

On Wed, Jan 03, 2007 at 03:04:17PM -0800, Payam wrote:
Should have said... I wasn't aware that the Internet was a Male ... 
that needed cleaning of the pipes and see what they would have said! hahah

either way... go comcast go!

-Payam



I'm sorry, you'll have to explain that one to me.




No... that falls under TMI. Way TMI.

--
Jeff Shultz


Re: today's Wash Post Business section

2006-12-21 Thread Jeff Shultz


[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 05:59:21 CST, Robert Bonomi said:

How many people have a search engine as their 'home page' in their web
browser?

How many end-user types _don't_know_ about anything other than a web-browser/
mail-client for Internet access?


And what percent of our operational issues are caused by that mindset?

(Hint - how much smaller would the spam problem be if end users actually
looked at their cable or DSL modem and wondered why the Tx/Rx lights were
on steady even though nothing was apparently happening?)



Google and Yahoo (and their toolbars) have replaced the address line. 
Which can lead to some confusion when you think the customer has just 
gone to your homepage, but instead has gone to the Google search page 
for the URL... and then you just hope your homepage is the first hit on it.


What blows my mind is that from what I've seen the default install of 
IE7 doesn't include the Menu Bar displayed. :(


--
Jeff Shultz


Re: MCI - Savvis in Chicago

2006-11-13 Thread Jeff Shultz


From a Cogent link from Oregon:

7  v3490.mpd01.sjc03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.6.82)  18.385 ms  18.314
ms  18.809 ms
 8  g6-0-0.core01.sjc03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.6.86)  19.347 ms
18.610 ms  18.175 ms
 9  POS4-3.BR5.SAC1.ALTER.NET (204.255.174.209)  21.230 ms  21.989 ms
22.036 ms
10  0.so-2-1-0.XL1.SAC1.ALTER.NET (152.63.52.226)  22.185 ms  21.792 ms
 21.888 ms
11  0.so-6-0-0.XL1.CHI6.ALTER.NET (152.63.64.202)  72.864 ms  63.310 ms
 63.610 ms
12  POS6-0.GW6.CHI6.ALTER.NET (152.63.68.97)  67.207 ms  63.123 ms
63.336 ms
13  netlogic-gw.customer.alter.net (157.130.101.2)  63.872 ms  63.857 ms
 63.425 ms
14  206-80-93-67.chi.netlogic.net (206.80.93.67)  63.792 ms  65.463 ms
63.194 ms

Wallace Keith wrote:


Similar- Boston to Chicago MCI- seeing high latency

6 3 ms 3 ms 3 ms  544.at-5-0-0.xr1.bos4.alter.net 
[152.63.24.222]


7 3 ms 3 ms 3 ms  0.so-4-0-0.xl1.bos4.alter.net 
[152.63.16.121] 891 ms95 ms95 ms

0.so-7-0-0.XL1.CHI6.ALTER.NET [152.63.65.161] 993 ms95 ms
92 ms  pos6-0.gw6.chi6.alter.net [152.63.68.97] 1094 ms81 ms
83 ms  netlogic-gw.customer.alter.net [157.130.101.2] 1187 ms
80 ms89 ms  206-80-93-67.chi.netlogic.net [206.80.93.67]

Trace complete.

H:\





--
Jeff Shultz


Tech Support:
24/7/365
Stayton: 503-769-3331
Salem: 503-390-7000
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


Re: CO fire St. Johns Newfoundland

2006-10-21 Thread Jeff Shultz


Fergie wrote:

Bet it wasn't bizarre as the the fire tonight at Ft. Meade:

 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15354940/

- ferg


Hmmm. If it's the building I'm thinking of, it's in the oldest part of 
the base and well separated from the NSA compound.





Re: Broadband ISPs taxed for generating light energy

2006-10-11 Thread Jeff Shultz


Joseph S D Yao wrote:

On Wed, Oct 11, 2006 at 11:36:03AM -0700, Gregory Hicks wrote:
...

My wife (Korean) tole me yesterday that the past weekend was Chusok
(or Korean 'Thanksgiving' - Actually, the Harvest Festival)...  So
maybe India has something similar...?

...


But why would the Harvest Festival be the Trickster Day?


And next I expect to see a made-up etymology why Korean Chusok is so
like Hebrew Succoth.



You don't remember the Korean general on M*A*S*H toasting with L'chaim?

...as we swerve ever further off topic.

--
Jeff Shultz


Re: AOL Lameness

2006-10-02 Thread Jeff Shultz


Along the lines of a picture is worth...etc.. an actual example of an 
e-mail that is sent out generating that error would be very useful.


I'm guessing that, from the page at the URL provided, AOL has decided 
that banning dotted quads from e-mails will cut down on the spam and 
phishing scams. They very well might be right.




Mike Lyon wrote:


OK, I should clarify this. The description that is on that link I put
in my original e-mail doesn't actually describe what is happening, but
that is the error they spit back at me.

What really is happening is that the url that is in my e-mail and when
you reolve it to an IP, if you do a reverse lookup on that IP, it
comes back with a generic DNS entry that my colo provider has assigned
to it. So the issue seems to be that the reverse DNS entry and the
domain name don't match. But this isn't really an issue, a lot of
providers do it this way.

But why is AOL being lame with this?

-Mike


On 10/2/06, Matt Baldwin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Yes, I'm noticing this too.  Very lame indeed.  Doing a quick Google
on it in the Groups it seems that it was a feature that was enabled
earlier this year.  My guess is they turned it off, then turned it
back on. Anyone from AOL care to explain this behavior and what should
be communicated to the end-user?

Thanks.

-matt

On 10/2/06, Mike Lyon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Is anyone else noticing new AOL lameness that when you send an e-mail
 to an AOL user and if the e-mail has a URL in it but the reverse
 lookup of that url doesn't come back to that domain name that AOL's
 postmaster rejects it and gives you this URL:
 http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/554hvuip.html

 This has to be new policty for them because it never rejected them 
before...


 Ugh.

 -Mike







--
Jeff Shultz



Re: Armed Forces Information Service.

2006-09-28 Thread Jeff Shultz


Niels Bakker wrote:


* [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ryan Bays) [Thu 28 Sep 2006, 15:37 CEST]:

Greetings,
 Could someone responsible for the armed forces information service 
please contact me off list.  Thanks.

Best Regards,
Ryan Bays
Angelo State University


If you're looking for a way to keep those pesky recruiters off-campus, 
other forums may be more applicable


HTH HAND


-- Niels.



Considering that Goodfellow Air Force Base is located about 3-5 miles 
from the Angelo State campus (I was stationed there for 5 miserable 
months)I doubt this is a problem.


I doubt he wants AFIS though - they're basically a news service, not an 
internet one. If it is who he wants though, he should try this: 
http://www.defenselink.mil/


I suspect however he's looking for the Defense Information Systems 
Network (DISN) and might be best served by going here:

http://www.disa.mil/main/prodsol/data.html

Supposedly there is a www.nic.mil as well, but it doesn't seem to be 
accessible from my location currently.


--
Jeff Shultz


Re: Who wants to be in charge of the Internet today?

2006-06-23 Thread Jeff Shultz


Sean Donelan wrote:


The Business Roundtable, composed of the CEOs of 160 large U.S. companies,
said neither the government nor the private sector has a coordinated plan
to respond to an attack, natural disaster or other disruption of the
Internet. While individual government agencies and companies have their
own emergency plans in place, little coordination exists between the
groups, according to the study.

It's a matter of more clearly defining who has responsibility, said
Edward Rust Jr., CEO of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., who
leads the Roundtable's Internet-security effort.

[...]



Thus explainith why CEOs should not be responsible for this. I wonder if 
their CIOs or other techies have ever tried to explain the concept of a 
CERT to them.


--
Jeff Shultz


Re: WSJ: Big tech firms seeking power

2006-06-16 Thread Jeff Shultz


David Lesher wrote:


Speaking on Deep Background, the Press Secretary whispered:



I wonder just how much power it takes to cool 450,000 servers.

.

KwH = $111,000 /month in cooling.


I don't know the area; but gather it's hydro territory?

How about water-source heat pumps? It's lots easier to cool
25C air into say 10-15C water than into 30C outside air.

Open loop water source systems do have their issues [algae, etc]
but can save a lot of power




The Dalles, OR is on the Columbia River just upriver of Portland by 80 
miles or so. It has a large dam spanning what used to be Celilo Falls in 
it's front yard.


Hydro territory doesn't even begin to define it... :-)

Eco-freak territory also doesn't begin to define it, so the idea of 
piping water off the Columbia and returning it even 1/2 degree warmer is 
a non-starter.


I'm amazed they let them put up tall cooling towers in the historic, 
scenic Columbia River Gorge (sorry, old political battle flashback)


Re: Open Letter to D-Link about their NTP vandalism

2006-04-07 Thread Jeff Shultz


Rubens Kuhl Jr. wrote:

GPS.dix.dk service is described as:

DK Denmark GPS.dix.dk (192.38.7.240)
Location: Lyngby, Denmark
Geographic Coordinates: 55:47:03.36N, 12:03:21.48E
Synchronization: NTP V4 GPS with OCXO timebase
Service Area: Networks BGP-announced on the DIX
Access Policy: open access to servers, please, no client use
Contacts: Poul-Henning Kamp ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Note: timestamps better than +/-5 usec.

I think he should use dns views to answer the queries to gps.dix.dk and either:
( a ) answer 127.0.0.1 to all queries from outside his service area
( b ) answer a D-Link IP address to all queries from outside his
service area (which could lead to getting their attention; dunno if
from their engineers or from their lawyers).


Neither of which would solve the problem of his bandwidth being used by 
these, although (b) might actually serve to get their attention.


Perhaps as a thanks to him for the public service he provides the DIX, 
all of the users at DIX could set their external routers to reject 
incoming NTP packets from networks other than their own? Or even combine 
that with (b), although it might be more effective if it targeted, oh, 
www.dlink.com instead of an IP address.


Then at least it would not be taking up internal DIX bandwidth capacity.

By no means am I encouraging legally actionable activity, however, and 
as noted, (b) just might be.


--
Jeff Shultz


Re: Open Letter to D-Link about their NTP vandalism

2006-04-07 Thread Jeff Shultz


Rubens Kuhl Jr. wrote:

big snip


It still would require him to answer the DNS requests. Only way to
addres that is everybody outside DIX declare gps.dix.de as
www.dlink.com in their resolvers.



Oh, I see two things here - the first is that he's in charge of his DNS, 
which he probably isn't. DIX likely is, but that's minor. They'll 
probably support him in this.


The second is that I was concatenating this letter and the also 
referenced Netgear letter, where they were doing refs by IP address 
instead of DNS like the D-Link is.


Combine both of them - reject outside the DIX DNS requests outside the 
service area (or send them to a DLink CNAME as mentioned) and as a 
backup reject/redirect all NTP from outside to the gps.dix.de IP address 
at the edge.


Belt and Suspenders as such.

As for the bogus NTP data idea... how many people buying a consumer 
grade router like this even have a clue what NTP is, much less notice 
what it's doing to that box over in the corner? It won't affect their 
computer, therefore they won't care. It's just buzzwords on the box.


--
Jeff Shultz


Re: Fed Bill Would Restrict Web Server Logs

2006-02-14 Thread Jeff Shultz


Mark Borchers wrote:
 

Strange thing is that we have exact the opposite here in Europe. There
is a new bill that has been passed that forces us to keep al 
logs (mail and web) for at least 1 or 2 years.


Vriendelijke groeten,
Frank Louwers


That is far scarier.




Which hard drive vendor wrote that law? They're the only people who will 
benefit from it.


--
Jeff Shultz


Re: The Backhoe: A Real Cyberthreat?

2006-01-19 Thread Jeff Shultz


Jerry Pasker wrote:


While it is always fun to call the government stupid, or anyone else 
for that matter, there is a little more to the story.


- For one you do not need a backhoe to cut fiber
- Two, fiber carries a lot more than Internet traffic - cell phone, 
911, financial tranactions, etc. etc.
- Three, while it is very unlikely terrorists would only attack 
telecom infrastructure, a case can be made for a telecom attack that 
amplifies a primary conventional attack.  The loss of communications 
would complicate things quite a bit.


I'll agree it is very far fethced you could hatch an attack plan from 
FCC outage reports, but I would not call worrying about attacks on 
telecommunications infrastructure stupid.  Enough sobriety though, 
please return to the flaming.


I agree with you on all points except the one you didn't make.  :-)

The point is:  What's more damaging?  Being open with the maps to 
EVERYONE can see where the problem areas are so they can design around 
them? (or chose not to) or pulling the maps, and reports, and sticking 
our heads in the sand, and hoping that security through obscurity works.




The people who have the problem areas should already know about them and 
 be designing around them. I'm sure that Sprint, for example, knows 
very well where backhoes have gone through it's fiber. Although it 
sounds like they may not know where all their fiber is... sigh


Joe Schmuck down on 2nd Street doesn't need to know about the problem 
areas and his input would likely be unwelcome.


And no security or amount of redundancy is likely to be perfect - and 
these companies are in business to make money after all.


Obscurity is not the entire answer. But it should be part of it.

--
Jeff Shultz


Re: Cogent/Level 3 depeering

2005-10-05 Thread Jeff Shultz


Matthew Crocker wrote:


I opened a billing/support ticket with Cogent.   I'm not planning  on 
paying my bill or continuing the contract if they cannot  provide 
full BGP tables and full Internet transport (barring  outages).   
Luckily I have 2 other providers so I can still reach  Level 3.




I'm curious where in your contract you think Cogent guaranteed you  
connectivity to Level 3?




Undereducated rant to follow...

While I realize that the nuke survivable thing is probably an old 
wives tale, it seems ridiculous that the Internet can't adjust by 
routing any packets that used to go directly from Cogent to Level 3 
though some 3rd (and) 4th (and) 5th set of providers that are connected 
in some fashion to both...


Level 3 and Cogent can't be operating in a vacuums - if we can get to 
Kevin Bacon in 6 degrees, Level 3 and Cogent should be able to get to 
each other in under 30 hops through other providers.


And why isn't this apparently happening automatically? Pardon the 
density of my brain matter here, but I thought that was what BGP was all 
about?


I welcome any education the group wishes to drop on me in this matter.

--
Jeff Shultz


Re: Cogent/Level 3 depeering

2005-10-05 Thread Jeff Shultz


John Payne wrote:



If nobody filtered BGP at all (in or out), you would have the state you 
are expecting.  However, you would have both a capacity problem, and an 
economic failure, as you may well end up with cogent trying to send all 
(much) of it's level3 destined traffic through a customer's connection 
with much smaller pipes... or overloading it's connectivity to one of 
its other peers.  The economic failure comes because now you're 
expecting a third party to transit packets between cogent and level3 
without being paid for it (and some of those connections are metered).




Okay. I always figured that the difference between peering and transit 
was that you paid for one and not the other. I had no idea that when you 
bought transit from someone, you weren't automatically buying transit to 
_all_ of that providers other connections.


Interesting. Balkanization of the Internet anyone? As one other 
commenter hinted at, it does sound like a recipe for encouraging 
multi-homing, even at the lowest levels. How many ASN's can the system 
handle currently?


--
Jeff Shultz


Re: Cogent/Level 3 depeering

2005-10-05 Thread Jeff Shultz


Simon Lockhart wrote:


Yes, it could have - I'm led to believe that one of the parties does purchase
transit. However, moving all that traffic over transit rather than peering
would cost them a significant amount of money - and as they're running their
transit service at extremely low cost, they probably would find it hard to
fund the use of transit to reach the other party.

Simon


Okay, here is how I see this war... which seems to be the proper term 
for it.


1. Level 3 is probably annoyed at Cogent for doing the extremely low 
cost transit thing, thus putting price pressures on other providers - 
including them. So they declared war.


2. Level 3's assault method is to drop peering with Cogent, in hopes 
this will force Cogent to purchase transit to them in some fashion (does 
Level 3 have an inflated idea of their own worth?), also forcing them to 
raise prices and hopefully (for Level 3) returning some stability to the 
market.


3. Cogent's counter-attack is to instead offer free transit to all 
single homed Level 3 customers instead, effectively stealing them (and 
their revenue) from Level 3... and lowering the value of Level 3 service 
some amount as well.


4. Next move, if they choose to make one, is Level 3's.

Fun. I think I'll stay in the trenches.

--
Jeff Shultz


Re: Cogent/Level 3 depeering

2005-10-05 Thread Jeff Shultz


Alex Rubenstein wrote:




2. Level 3's assault method is to drop peering with Cogent, in
hopes this will force Cogent to purchase transit to them in some
fashion (does Level 3 have an inflated idea of their own worth?),
also forcing them to raise prices and hopefully (for Level 3)
returning some stability to the market.



I think I'd bet that if L3 depeered Cogent, the last place cogent
would go to buy transit to L3 would be L3.


I'm not making value judgements on anything that has happened - both
sides think that either tactically or strategically what they are doing
is for the best.

But when I said purchase transit to them in some fashion that allowed 
buying it from a third party as well - as long as it reaches L3 eventually.


--
Jeff Shultz
Network Technician
Willamette Valley Internet

Customer Service:
9am-5pm Weekdays
Stayton: 503-767-1984
Salem: 503-399-1984
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Tech Support:
24/7/365
Stayton: 503-769-3331
Salem: 503-390-7000
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


Re: New N.Y. Law Targets Hidden Net LD Tolls

2005-08-19 Thread Jeff Shultz


John Levine wrote:

That's why some states (e.g. Texas) require that all toll calls be
dialed as 1+ _regardless of area code_, and local calls cannot be
dialed as 1+.  If you dial a number wrong, you get a message
telling you how to do it properly (and why).




In some places that solution is _not_practical_.  As in where the same
three digit sequence is in use as a C.O. 'prefix', *and* as an areacode.
(an where, in some 'perverse' situations, the foreign area-code is a 
'non-toll' call, yet the bare prefix within the areacode is a toll call.



Oh, it works technically, local is 10D, toll is 1+10D, but since they
don't have permissive dialing, Texans have to memorize lists of local
prefixes in order to be able to use their phones.  Way to go.

I agree that life would be simpler if there were some straightforward
way to ask telcos whether a call from a-b was local or toll.

R's,
John



Part of the problem is EAS (Extended Area Service), where for a flat 
rate (anywhere from $3-$13 that I've seen) your local calling area is 
greatly increased. The problem is that if you don't get the flat rate 
plan, it's a toll charge... all without having to dial the 1- 
(everything here is already 10D). Fortunately we are part of a local 
phone company, so checking on the EAS status of customers and making 
sure they get the appropriate numbers is easy.


But we still make mistakes - and I'm sure it's very easy for other ISPs 
to give a new customer a number that's just in the big city next door 
(around 5-10 miles away), but is an EAS toll call.


Personally I think they ought to make flat rate EAS mandatory and just 
roll the cost into the phone bill.


--
Jeff Shultz


Re: Mega DOS tomorrow?

2004-08-25 Thread Jeff Shultz
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On Wed, 25 Aug 2004 14:53:44 EDT, Andy Dills said:
So, slashdot is linking to some news sites that are reporting that
Aleksandr Gostev from Kapersky Labs in Russia has predicted that a large
chunk of the net will be shut down tomorrow.

And here's the *real* reason why:
XP2 SP2 goes on AU tomorrow...
http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=23613category=main
Might be interesting to see how much of a traffic blip this causes.
The Home Version has been up for a week or so now, hasn't it? It'll be 
more interesting to see how many businesses temporarily go out of 
business as they go around disabling the firewall on all of their XP Pro 
systems...

--
Jeff Shultz
Network Technician
Willamette Valley Internet


Re: WashingtonPost computer security stories

2004-08-16 Thread Jeff Shultz
Joe Johnson wrote:
This was a great product, and the closest thing I have seen to a really
easy Linux.  I picked up an Lindows box for a friend that didn't have
much for a PC budget, and played with it for a little while.  It was
really the only version I would ever consider replacing my Windows box
with.
BTW, what versions of Linux does everyone consider the easiest?  I've
tried a few I would try in certain places, but which do you all think is
the easiest?
Joe Johnson
I don't know about easiest but I have a soft spot in my heart (and 
probably my head) for Mandrake Linux.

On the spyware topic... it doesn't take spyware to take a connection 
down weirdly. I have one in the shop today that does connect - you can 
ping - but neither IE nor any other graphical app (it's WinXP Media 
Center Ed.) could see the internet connection.

Ended up being Norton Internet Security's firewall - it was installed, 
but shouldn't have been running. No icon in the taskbar but 
uninstalling it did the trick.

I've had similar experiences with Zonealarm in the past as well.
--
Jeff Shultz
Network Technician
Willamette Valley Internet


Re: 2511 line break

2004-07-27 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Stephen J. Wilcox [EMAIL PROTECTED]
on Wed, 28 Jul 2004 00:50:19 +0100 (BST)

 On Tue, 27 Jul 2004, Richard Welty wrote:
 
  you can tell someone has become an intermediate driver because
  they start regularly trashing their brakes.
  
  you can tell someone has become an advanced driver when they
  learn how to go even faster while not trashing their brakes.
 
 brakes?? o thats what that other pedal is for..

Na - that's the clutch.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: Google?

2004-07-26 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Marco Davids (SARA) [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Mon,
26 Jul 2004 17:28:00 +0200

 Google seems to fail on every search containing the word 'mail' ?
 --
 Marco Davids
 SARA High Performance Networking - Amsterdam

Not for me:

http://www.google.com/search?q=mailsourceid=firefoxstart=0start=0ie=utf-8oe=utf-8

Results 1 - 10 of about 318,000,000 for mail [definition]. (0.27
seconds)

News results for mail - View today's top stories
E-mail turns the Smith and Spencer rivalry into a personal ... -
Telegraph.co.uk - Jul 24, 2004
Mail on Sunday - The Scotsman - Jul 24, 2004
Web-based e-mail serves individuals better than corporations - Newsday
- Jul 24, 2004

Mail.com
Full e-mail address Password Member Login Select Site: Mail.com
Mail.com Beta Forgot Your Password? Click here to sign up: ...
Copyright 2004 mail.com Corp. ...
www.mail.com/ - 10k - Cached - Similar pages - Stock quotes: EASY

Yahoo! Mail - The best web-based email!
Yahoo! Mail helps me stay in touch. New to Yahoo!? Get a free Yahoo!
Mail account ? it's a breeze to stay connected and manage your busy
life. ...
mail.yahoo.com/ - 24k - Cached - Similar pages

Sign-in Access Error
Free web-based e-mail. 2MB e-mail storage, signatures, stationery, HTML
compatible.
www.hotmail.com/ - 11k - Cached - Similar pages

--
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train.



Re: T1 short-haul vs. long-haul

2004-07-21 Thread Jeff Shultz

One word of caution on that - we had a customer who got 4 separate
1M/1.5M ADSL circuits - all to the same DSLAM. Ended up that the telco
had only provisioned that DSLAM with a single T1, and was apparently
unable to upgrade that, negating any advantage to the multiple DSL's.
It was a remote DSLAM, not in a CO, btw.

If you don't have a point to point circuit, make sure the upstream has
sufficient bandwidth to support what you are ordering. 

** Reply to message from Jon R. Kibler [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Wed,
21 Jul 2004 12:44:46 -0400

 Andre:
 
 If your distance for the short-haul is less than 10 miles or so
 (line-of-sight), I would go wireless. Reasons:
a) you can get 10-30MBps on wireless vs. 1.4Mbps for T1.
b) if you already have an antenna or other high-point, you can own
 the wireless network for about what the Telco would charge for a T-1
 over about a year.
 
 If you really want a wire circuit, for long-haul or short-haul,
 consider multiple xDSL connections. For example, under the current
 pricing we are seeing, we can install 8 ADSL circuits for about what
 one T-1 would cost. With 8 ADSLs, you would be getting 10 Mbps inbound
 and 2.8Mbps outbound -- equivalent to 8 inbound T-1s and 2 outbound
 T-1s for the same price as a single T-1.
 
 Just some thoughts.
 
 Jon Kibler
 -- 
 Jon R. Kibler
 Chief Technical Officer
 A.S.E.T., Inc.
 Charleston, SC  USA
 (843) 849-8214

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: Spyware becomes increasingly malicious

2004-07-15 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Alexei Roudnev [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Wed, 14
Jul 2004 22:52:07 -0700
 
 May be, idea was that people read 'license', click button (I agree) and
 follow it - never write a code which violates this license? But it is not
 true - 99.99% people do not read it  and behave as a common sense is saying
 not as [EMAIL PROTECTED] MS lawers fictioned... They see a wall wih a gates - and 
 they go
 thru this gates, no matter what is written on the posters around (except, as
 I said, if they see an angry dog next to the gate). /On the other hand, they
 knows that coffee is hot and waterfall is dangerous and dogs can bite -:)/.
 You must design yous system for this behavior, not for people who _read a
 license_. This licenses are good only for 2 goals - (1) use them as a toalet
 tissue; (2) in case of serious violation allows to suite user if he is in
 USA... -- they do not change people behavior even a bit. Unfortunately,
 Internet is not in USA, so even if we will have 100 strict laws prohibiting
 spyware, it will not help to fight this pests and pets...  System must
 defend itself.
 

For awhile there, one of the top tech support issues we had to deal
with was new - and automatically implemented - feature in Outlook
Express that blocked a person from running or saving something that
Microsoft considered a dangerous file attachment. 

Such dangerous file attachments included .jpg, .pdf and music files. 

Oddly enough, it didn't seem to include .doc or .xls files.  You know,
the ones that actually can contain macro viruses.

Because of Microsoft's ham-handed and all or nothing attempt at
security many people now don't trust or ignore any warning messages
they may receive - they simply want to view their file attachments.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: OT: Re: Critters

2004-07-12 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Tom (UnitedLayer) [EMAIL PROTECTED] on
Mon, 12 Jul 2004 12:31:07 -0700 (PDT)

 On Mon, 12 Jul 2004, Jeff Cole wrote:
  Marshall Eubanks wrote:
   Reliance Infocomm is installing 80,000 km of fiber in India. I wonder if
   they have any tiger stories.
 
  Oh no. You find lions only in Kenya
 
 Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!
 Err wait, which way to OZ again?

Follow the yellow brick road, follow the yellow brick road hmmm,
yellow. Does that mean it's a crossover?

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: Attn MCI/UUNet - Massive abuse from your network

2004-06-25 Thread Jeff Shultz

Has anyone noticed that the DHS plan is probably closer to the current
status of things than the FCC one is? 

AFAIK, Currently this information _isn't_ required to be publicly
reported. The FCC wants it to be. 

DHS would prefer that it be semi-public at best - just like Michael
Dillion wants.  

Three options:
1. Status quo - no gov't reporting requirements
2. FCC proposal - completely public reporting requirements 
3. DHS proposal - limited access reporting requirements

Food for thought: Could an analyst, looking at outage reports over a
period of time, build a schematic that would demonstrate that if you
took out  n points, you'd kill x% of data traffic in and out of
$pickyourmetropolitanarea? 

If this analyst were working for Bin Ladin

Some ad hoc terrorists, in a country crawling with US troops, with a
communications infrastructure nowhere as advanced as the USA just
managed to coordinate a multiple bomb attack simultaneously. 

What could they do here with the right information? 

Should we hand them this information freely? 

At least if someone in this clearing house sells it to the
terrorists, they will have had to work for it a bit, instead of having
us hand it to them on a silver platter, as the FCC seems to want.  

Let the flames continue.

** Reply to message from Scott McGrath [EMAIL PROTECTED] on
Fri, 25 Jun 2004 11:22:51 -0400 (EDT)

 Well said sir!
 
 Scott C. McGrath
 
 On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
 
   From the AOL theft article:
The revelations come as AOL and other Internet providers have
   ramped up their efforts to track down the purveyors of spam, which
   has grown into a maddening scourge that costs consumers and
   businesses billions of dollars a year.
 
  Interesting. An insider at a network operator steals
  a copy of some interesting operational data and sells
  it to a 3rd party with an interest in doing nasty things
  with said data.
 
  And if Homeland Security really does require all outages
  to be reported to a clearing house where only network
  operations insiders can get access to it, then what?
  Will someone sell this to a terrorist organization?
 
  Better to leave all this information semi-public as
  it is now so that we all know it is NOT acceptable
  to build insecure infrastructure or to leave infrastructure
  in an insecure state. Fear of a terrorist attack is
  a much stronger motive for doing the right thing
  than a government order to file secret reports to
  a secret bureaucratic agency.
 
  --Michael Dillon
 

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: Attn MCI/UUNet - Massive abuse from your network

2004-06-25 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Brad Knowles [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Fri,
25 Jun 2004 18:14:43 +0200

 At 8:44 AM -0700 2004-06-25, Jeff Shultz wrote:
 
   At least if someone in this clearing house sells it to the
   terrorists, they will have had to work for it a bit, instead of having
   us hand it to them on a silver platter, as the FCC seems to want.
 
   Not true.  If the information is forced to be completely in the 
 open, then everyone knows it's not insecure and no one depends on the 
 fact that it was supposed to be kept secret.  This is a case where 
 you are more secure the more open the information is -- indeed, as we 
 are in most cases, which is why we have the age-old security mantra 
 of security through obscurity is not secure.
 

Do you realize that the basic element of security, the password, is
based on the entire premise you just dismissed? And yet we still use
them - and depend on the fact that they are supposed to be kept secret.

The problem with being totally open about infrastructure is that there
are some vulnerabilities that simply cannot or will not be fixed -
wires sometimes have to run across bridges, redundant pumping stations
are too expensive... in these cases is it not better to hide where
these vulnerabilities are? 

The problem with your point is that even if the information is forced
to be completely in the open, that is no guarantee that it will be
fixed, and people _do_ depend on this stuff, regardless of its
reliability or security. 

Do you really think that if we publish all the insecurities of the
Internet infrastructure that anyone is gonna stop using it, or
business, government, and private citizens are going to quit depending
on it? 

Security through obscurity is not secure - but sometimes it's all you
have.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: Attn MCI/UUNet - Massive abuse from your network

2004-06-25 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Fri, 25 Jun 2004
17:12:45 +0100

 Remember, that packet switched networking 
 originated with the desire to build a telecom
 network that could survive massive destruction
 on the scale of a nuclear war, but continue to
 function. If we apply that kind of thinking to
 planning network deployment then there should be
 little extra risk from terrorist knowing where
 the vulnerable points are. Spread the risk
 by spreading the vulnerable points.

I thought the old nuclear survivable argument was killed off years
ago - I seem to rember it being refuted in Where Wizards Stay Up Late.

Packet switched networking originated with a desire to see if it would
work 

And you are welcome to assume the expense of spreading the vulnerable
points.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: Homeland Security now wants to restrict outage notifications

2004-06-24 Thread Jeff Shultz

I think you (and possibly The Register) are overreacting. 

The DHS is doing what it is paid to do: Look for the worst case
scenario, predict the damage. 

And the reporting requirements that the DHS is arguing against _aren't
even in effect yet._ 

** Reply to message from Scott McGrath [EMAIL PROTECTED] on
Thu, 24 Jun 2004 14:05:56 -0400 (EDT)

 I did read the article and having worked for gov't agencies twice in my
 career a proposal like the one floated by DHS is just the camel's nose.
 
 I should hope the carriers oppose this.
 
 Now a call comes into our ops center I cant reach my experiment at
 Stanford.  Ops looks up the outages Oh yeah there's a fiber cut affecting
 service we will let you know when it's fixed.   They check it's fixed they
 call the customer telling them to try it now.
 
 Under the proposed regime We know its dead do not know why or when it
 will be fixed because it' classified information  This makes for
 absolutely wonderful customer service and it protects public safety how?.
 
 
 
 Scott C. McGrath
 
 On Thu, 24 Jun 2004, Tad Grosvenor wrote:
 
  Did you read the article?  The DHS is urging that the FCC drop the proposal
  to require outage reporting for significant outages.   This isn't the DHS
  saying that outage notifications should be muted.  The article also
  mentions: Telecom companies are generally against the proposed new
  reporting requirements, arguing that the industry's voluntary efforts are
  sufficient.
 
  -Tad
 
 
 
  -Original Message-
  From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
  Scott McGrath
  Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2004 12:58 PM
  To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  Subject: Homeland Security now wants to restrict outage notifications
 
 
 
  See
 
  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/24/network_outages/
 
  for the gory details.  The Sean Gorman debacle was just the beginning
  this country is becoming more like the Soviet Union under Stalin every
  passing day in its xenophobic paranoia all we need now is a new version of
  the NKVD to enforce the homeland security directives.
 
  Scott C. McGrath
 
 

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: Unplugging spamming PCs

2004-06-24 Thread Jeff Shultz

And all the spammers move to China where the FBI, DHS and police have
no authority. 

Oh wait - you say they already have?

** Reply to message from Larry Pingree [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Thu,
24 Jun 2004 11:17:37 -0700

 Hi Joe,
 
   If only those who are approved email senders are allowed to be
 accepted, this allows police, FBI, or DHS to go after only those who are
 registered and abusing it. It's for the same purpose that we administer
 car registrations, so that at the end of the day, someone is responsible
 for the car. In this case, someone can be responsible for the domain and
 mail server. In its current state, we are left way in the open. I don't
 disagree that government control is un-desirable, but remember, at least
 in my mind, even though it may be undesirable, it may be a necessary
 action. Anyone know why we have to get a drivers license? How about a
 passport?  What about a SSN?  All of these things are ways in which we
 can have accountability. Without accountability we will remain in
 anarchy. All that government does is bridge a gap when corporations,
 which only do things for profit, will not collaborate on an appropriate
 solution to a problem, even though one exists.
 


-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: [Fwd: [IP] Feds: VoIP a potential haven for terrorists]

2004-06-18 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Scott Weeks [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Fri,
18 Jun 2004 09:30:03 -1000 (HST)

 On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
 
 : Feds: VoIP a potential haven for terrorists
 : By  Declan McCullagh
 
 : The Senate's action comes as the FCC considers a request submitted in
 : March by the FBI. If the request is approved, all broadband Internet
 : providers--including companies using cable and digital subscriber line
 : technology--will be required to rewire their networks to support easy
 : wiretapping by police.
 
 
 Anyone know yet if they've they said who would have to pay for it, and
 what they specifically mean by broadband Internet providers?
 
 scott

Pay for it? If I remember from CALEA, the providers pay for it (and
eventually their customers), and as for broadband Internet
providers... I'm guessing anyone who offers end user customers a
circuit bigger than 53.333k. 

I admit to having some sympathy for the FBI... they're in the middle of
getting ripped up, down and sideways over failures over Sept 11 and
other things, and yet when they ask for more surveilance capabilities,
they get ripped up, down and sideways for asking...

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: [Fwd: [IP] Feds: VoIP a potential haven for terrorists]

2004-06-18 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Randy Bush [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Fri, 18 Jun 2004
14:30:13 -0700

  I admit to having some sympathy for the FBI... they're in the middle of
  getting ripped up, down and sideways over failures over Sept 11 and
  other things,
 
 yep.  try http://www.caedefensefund.org/overview.html

Hmmm, but they aren't biased, are they? Any cites that aren't from the
defendants? I'm not saying they aren't right, but that does appear a
bit one-sided.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: Verisign vs. ICANN

2004-06-17 Thread Jeff Shultz

I'm having fun figuring out how altering BIND (since I assume that is
the basis of their arguements) rises to the level of conspiracy... 
IANAL, obviously. 

** Reply to message from Bob Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Thu, 17 Jun
2004 16:54:20 -0500

 Anything I/we can do to help the cause?
 
 Bob Martin
 
 Quoted from different thread:
 
 
 (note that verisign has amended their complaint against icann (since the
 court dismissed the first one) and i'm now named as a co-conspirator.  if
 you reply to this message, there's a good chance of your e-mail appearing
 in court filings at some point.)
  -- Paul Vixie

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: Even you can be hacked

2004-06-11 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Richard Welty [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Fri,
11 Jun 2004 18:33:00 -0400 (EDT)

 On Fri, 11 Jun 2004 17:51:00 -0400 (EDT) Scott McGrath [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  But wouldn't an interocitor with electron sorter option give you much more
  reliable packet delivery...
 
 that works fine until someone reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.

And I thought this thread had a whiff of unreality when Randy announced
that the internet would follow Henry's wishes, and Laurence thanked him
for it

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: Even you can be hacked

2004-06-10 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Laurence F. Sheldon, Jr.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] on Thu, 10 Jun 2004 12:39:41 -0500

 Sean Donelan wrote:
 
  Does the water company fix your toilet if it leaks water?  Or do you call
  a plumber?
 
 On the other hand, if the water company was sending pollutants in the
 water you bought, there was a perceived responsibility upon the water
 company.
 
 Now, which broken metaphor (leaky toilet, pollutant contaminated
 stream) best fits the problem at hand?
 
 Take all the time you need, we will wait.

That's an easy one.

Leaky toilet - a properly maintained toilet doesn't leak and waste
water, no matter what is in the inflow.  If you want to drink from your
toilet, that's your problem. 

 We offer spam and virus filtering. We block many of the popular worm
access ports at the edge and core (which can be a real pain). We offer
a CD full of firewall, AV, and anti-spyware programs for the asking. 

But ultimately, _you_ are responsible for your own systems.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: Even you can be hacked

2004-06-10 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Laurence F. Sheldon, Jr.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] on Thu, 10 Jun 2004 13:06:43 -0500

 Jeff Shultz wrote:
 
 
  But ultimately, _you_ are responsible for your own systems.
 
 Even if the water company is sending me 85% TriChlorEthane?
 
 Right.  Got it.  The victim is always responsible.
 
 There you have it folks.

A. Straw man
B. Apple/Kumquat arguement

Who is the victim here? The user who's computer was infected due to
their own lack of responsibilty (and was not fixed... remember that
part, _was_not_fixed_), or the ISP who isn't going to get a rebate on
their upstream bandwidth bill that was in turn inflated by that
customer.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: Even you can be hacked

2004-06-10 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Crist Clark [EMAIL PROTECTED] on
Thu, 10 Jun 2004 14:54:07 -0700

 
 It would be great if there always was a negligent party, but there is
 not always one. If Widgets Inc.'s otherwise ultra-secure web server gets
 0wn3d by a 0-day, there is no negligence[0]. Who eats it, Widgets Inc.
 or the ISP?
 

Just out of curiosity, what was the last 0-Day (not that I've heard of
any, really) that made itself obvious by chewing up tons of bandwidth?
Most of the nasty worms seem to be the ones that either do some
efficient social engineering, or exploit a hole MS patched 6 months
ago. In any case, I expect it would be negotiated on a case by case
basis. But Widgets Inc. would operating from a position of weakness.
Regardless of the circumstances, their systems did use the bandwidth. 

 So how about this analogy: Someone breaks into my house and spends a few
 hours on the phone to Hong Kong. Who eats the bill, me or my LD carrier?
 Neither of us was negligent.

Depends on how nice your LD carrier is - with a police report they
might cut you some slack. Otherwise... how many parents have been stuck
with the bills for their teenage kids $200+ SMS bills?

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: IT security people sleep well

2004-06-03 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Eric Kuhnke [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Thu, 03
Jun 2004 13:16:44 -0700

 
 The part about Telnet is truly scary...   Among people who have clue, 
 the biggest reason I have heard to continue running ssh1 is for 
 emergency access via hand-held smartphones or other pocket sized 
 devices.  The Handspring Treo 180 and similar keyboarded cellphone-pda 
 devices don't have the CPU power necessary for a SSH2 key exchange, 
 unless I'm drastically mistaken about the FPU abilities of a 33 MHz 
 Motorola Dragonball...

I wonder if they asked the people using Telnet if they were using over
the internet - or inside a corporate intranet, shielded from the
outside?

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: Lots of big web sites broken...SPOF

2004-05-24 Thread Jeff Shultz

Maybe someone at the NOC kicked out a cable celebrating Avi's finish at
the WSOP? (gotta tie the two threads together here...) 

** Reply to message from Scott Weeks [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Mon,
24 May 2004 05:15:27 -1000 (HST)

 Did they say what it was?  I'd have a hard time believing it was a DoS,
 given their architecture...
 
 scott
 
 
 On Mon, 24 May 2004, cisco wrote:
 
 :
 : looks like they are recovering now, akamai noc said its resolved.
 :
 :
 : --
 : Simar
 : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 :
 :

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: FW: Worms versus Bots

2004-05-07 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Chris Adams [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Fri, 7 May
2004 09:45:36 -0500

 Once upon a time, Alexei Roudnev [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
  Any simple NAT (PNAT, to be correct) box decrease a chance of infection by
  last worms to 0. Just 0.%.
 
 The problem is that Joe User (or his kid) wants to run some random P2P
 program without having to reconfigure NAT port mappings, so they have
 all inbound connections mapped to a static internal IP.  When the worms
 come knocking, the connections go right through and the static IP system
 gets infected, which then infects the Mom's computer, etc.; then you
 have 2+ times as much worm traffic sourced from that single public IP
 because there are multiple computers scanning.

If Joe (L)User  or his kid sets up his NAT that way... well, quite
honestly he gets what he deserves. Protecting against active,
deliberate stupidty is probably more than my job description coveres. I
do get paid to clean up the mess afterwards however. And in at least
one case I have set it up for a customer that they are behind a NAT
that they can't reconfigure - 3 strikes and I was out of patience. 

But I suggest that in my experience the above sort of thing is
relatively rare. 

 
 NAT does help if you just put necessary port mappings in place (and only
 for secure protocols).

I don't know about that last part - do you consider http and ftp to be
secure protocols?

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a grade crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: What percentage of the Internet Traffic is junk?

2004-05-05 Thread Jeff Shultz

So instead of trying to determine what percentage of internet traffic
is junk, why don't we set up categories (I saw someone make a start at
it a couple of messages back) and figure out what percentage of traffic
fits under each category. We can come up with our own opinions as to
which of those categories is junk. 

So I guess we would start with stuff that stands as a major category:
e-mail, nntp, ftp, telnet, ssh, web... and then you start doing a lot
of subcategorizations. I imagine it would start looking like a
hierarchical org chart. 

** Reply to message from Mike Damm [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Wed, 5
May 2004 11:51:19 -0700

 Very very very near to, but not quite 100%. Since almost all of the traffic
 on the Internet isn't sourced by or destined for me, I consider it junk.
 
 Also remember that to a packet kid, that insane flood of packets destined
 for his target is the most important traffic in the world. And to a spammer,
 the very mailings that are making him millions are more important than
 pictures of someone's grandkids.
 
 I guess my point is junk is a very relative term. A study would need to
 first be done to identify what junk actually is, then measuring it is
 trivial.
 
   -Mike
 
 -Original Message-
 From: William B. Norton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 11:21 AM
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: What percentage of the Internet Traffic is junk?
 
 
 With all the spam, infected e-mails, DOS attacks, ultimately blackholed 
 traffic, etc. I wonder if there has been a study that quantifies
 
 What percentage of the Internet traffic is junk?
 
 Bill

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a grade crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: Network Card Theft Causes Internet Outage

2004-05-04 Thread Jeff Shultz

I admit, my first reaction was, Maybe they should interview anyone
that just brought in an empty router chassis and now has  DS3's
running... (gotta keep a hot spare after all)

** Reply to message from Stephen Sprunk [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Tue,
4 May 2004 09:37:10 -0500

 Thus spake Andy Dills [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  Just in case any of you don't read slashdot:
 
  http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1583347,00.asp
 
  Law enforcement officials said four DS-3 cards were reported missing from
  a Manhattan co-location facility owned by Verizon Communications Inc. The
  theft at 240 E. 38th St. occurred just after 10:30 p.m. on Sunday and is
  being investigated by New York City Police and members of the joint
  terrorism task force, according to NYPD spokesman Lt. Brian Burke. 
 
 One must wonder why the headline is Network Card Theft Causes Internet
 Outage instead of Carrier Sercurity Negligence Causes Internet Outage.
 
 S
 
 Stephen SprunkStupid people surround themselves with smart
 CCIE #3723   people.  Smart people surround themselves with
 K5SSS smart people who disagree with them.  --Aaron Sorkin

-- 
Jeff Shultz
A railfan pulls up to a grade crossing hoping that
there will be a train. 



Re: Microsoft XP SP2 (was Re: Lazy network operators - NOT)

2004-04-19 Thread Jeff Shultz, WIllamette Valley Internet

** Reply to message from Brian Russo [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Mon, 19 Apr
2004 10:51:18 -0400

 As far as mainstream users..
 * Software needs to patch itself, users aren't going to do it.
 * Software needs to be intuitive, people interact with computers as if 
 they were doing 'real' things. Things like cut and paste are easy 
 because they make sense...
 * Software patches need to WORK and not screw up Joe User's system, 
 believe me they won't understand that software is never bug-free, 
 they'll instead swear off installing patches in future.
 * Software needs reasonable defaults.. this doesn't necessarily mean 
 turning every feature off.
 * Wizards and/or a choice of 'starter' confs can be great.

Patches either need to be of a size that a dialup user doesn't have to
be dialed in for 24 hours to download and install them.  Or .iso's
should be available for ISP's to download, turn into CD's and
distribute as appropriate. Wouldn't that be nice for a dialup user -
getting Windows Update on a CD-ROM from their ISP?
-- 
Jeff Shultz
Network Technician
Willamette Valley Internet


Re: Microsoft XP SP2 (was Re: Lazy network operators - NOT)

2004-04-19 Thread Jeff Shultz, WIllamette Valley Internet

** Reply to message from Drew Weaver [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Mon,
19 Apr 2004 13:42:53 -0400

 -- Jeff said -- 
 
 
 Patches either need to be of a size that a dialup user doesn't have to
 be dialed in for 24 hours to download and install them.  Or .iso's
 should be available for ISP's to download, turn into CD's and
 distribute as appropriate. Wouldn't that be nice for a dialup user -
 getting Windows Update on a CD-ROM from their ISP?
 
 To which I reply: 
 
   It is somewhat unreasonable to think that ISPs should be responsible
 for the security of its users' systems on a systematic basis. 

Responsible? No.
Able to assist in maintaining that security (and thus that of the ISP's
network)? Yes. 

Another reason
 the idea of a 'CD with updates' most likely wouldn't be effective is because
 by the time the ISP produced the CD, the user got the CD, and installed it,
 the patches would most likely not be the most recent available.

I can burn a CD from ISO in about 5 minutes - how about you? 
I'm talking about XP users who haven't even updated as far as SP1.
Win98 users who have never run an update in their life...  
Win2k users are usually the most patched up that I've seen - because
that went into mostly business environments. 
This would at least get them up to the level of the playing field,
where the routine updates are not as much of a hassle.  Sure, you'll
get the little old ladies and gentlemen who will drop by every month
for their service pack fix, but that's just customer service. 

 Also, do you
 realize how much the 'average technical school graduate type' makes just
 from acquaintances who complain that their computers are slow, by simply
 removing whatever flavor of the month backdoor spam proxy virus 

Ah, now you are talking about why I happily promote Ad-Aware and
Spybot. 

I bet a
 good number of 'tech service calls' that companies such as PC On Call and
 people who service residences get could've been avoided by patching in a
 reasonable time period.

And your problem with the local ISP having this stuff available for
their users is? 

   However, awhile ago we tried an idea of sending out E-Mail alerts to
 our customers whenever a critical update of Remote execution or worse was
 released. We found that most of our users were annoyed by this, a different
 time we used a network sniffing tool to find a few dozen handfuls of your
 average home Dial-Up users who were infected with various malicious agents
 (I.e. Nimda, et cetera) and we actually contacted those users, to let them
 know and again we were met with more hostility. 

You definitely don't have our customers then.  Our usually appreciate
being told that their systems are screwed up. 

   From this interesting pattern I would surmise that users want their
 ISPs to be hands-off unless the problem that they're causing is effecting
 them directly. End users on the Internet see their connectivity as a right,
 and not a privilege. I remember when I was 13 (that was only 11 years ago)

Some of ours are like that. Most seem to realize their limitations and
are happy to know that at some level we are looking out for them. BTW,
for me 13 was many more years ago than that... RTM wasn't even in
college yet, I imagine. 

 and I signed up for my Freenet account at the Columbus Public Library (I
 believe it was, ? still is? Through OSU), they really made me feel like it
 was a privilege to be using the Internet, and I honored that.

Dial-up, or using their systems at the library? And you weren't paying
for the privilege, at least not directly. 

 Its just difficult to explain from a professional level what the effects
 these peoples' behavior (or lack there of) is having on the rest of the
 community. Think of it like people who drive monster SUV's, they can afford
 the gas, and the insurance so they don't believe that the harm that these
 beasts do to our environment matter, because again its their god given right
 to drive them.
 
That's a whole 'nuther horse to kill there.
-- 
Jeff Shultz
Network Technician
Willamette Valley Internet


Re: Microsoft XP SP2 (was Re: Lazy network operators - NOT)

2004-04-19 Thread Jeff Shultz, WIllamette Valley Internet

** Reply to message from Jonathan M. Slivko
[EMAIL PROTECTED] on Mon, 19 Apr 2004 13:57:43 -0400
(GMT-04:00)

 -Original Message-
 From: Jeff Shultz, WIllamette Valley Internet [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Sent: Apr 19, 2004 1:39 PM
 To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: Re: Microsoft XP SP2 (was Re: Lazy network operators - NOT)
 
 I can burn a CD from ISO in about 5 minutes - how about you? 
 I'm talking about XP users who haven't even updated as far as SP1.
 Win98 users who have never run an update in their life...  
 Win2k users are usually the most patched up that I've seen - because
 that went into mostly business environments. 
 
 This would at least get them up to the level of the playing field,
 where the routine updates are not as much of a hassle.  Sure, you'll
 get the little old ladies and gentlemen who will drop by every month
 for their service pack fix, but that's just customer service. 
 
 Doesn't Windows XP automatically do this by default currently?

No, but it will ask you if you want to configure automatic updates.
That's still not going to do much for the dialup user who has to
download SP1.  And we're also talking about the majority of customers
who don't have WinXP - and won't be getting it. 

 If not,
 it's something that Microsoft should consider setting to ON
 automatically to help defend the users from hackers, and in the same
 turn, help defend the ISP's network from being maliciously attacked or
 used for illegitimate purposes. 

Then you come up against the I don't want MS messing with my machine
without my permission! bunch. Who, incidentally, have a valid point. 
Turning the firewall on by default in SP2 is going to have...
interesting results I imagine. Esp. in company environments that  use
Netbios over TCP/IP.  I assume it will firewall 137-140/445 by default. 

However - I do think that Windows needs
 some more improvements in the area of security (which UNIX/Linux
 already has). However - to Microsoft's credit, they seem to be doing a
 rather nice  job of actually beefing up their security practices. Now,
 if only they could figure out how to make Outlook/Outlook Express more
 security-concious because as of the time of this writing, the Outlook
 Express/Outlook defaults are extremely unsafe.
 
 Does anyone have/care to post a URL that explains how to set Outlook
 Express/Outlook to be more secure?
 

That's easy. In Outlook Express: Tools--Options--Read. Check the box
Read all messages in plain text 

You've just massively improved OE's security. Outlook doesn't do
this yet, does it? I haven't dug through Office 2003 much yet.
-- 
Jeff Shultz
Network Technician
Willamette Valley Internet


Re: google.

2004-04-16 Thread Jeff Shultz, WIllamette Valley Internet

** Reply to message from Micah McNelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Fri, 16
Apr 2004 15:08:27 -0700

 is anyone having google reachability issues?
 
 /m

Based on a traceroute I pulled as soon as I realized it, I think Savvis
had a router problem. See hops 11 through 30. 

[EMAIL PROTECTED]:/etc:633$ traceroute 216.239.53.99
traceroute to 216.239.53.99 (216.239.53.99), 30 hops max, 40 byte
packets
 1  wvi-gw.wvi.com (204.119.27.254)  1 ms  4 ms  1 ms
 2  d1-2-0-30.a01.ptldor02.us.ra.verio.net (206.58.80.161)  5 ms  2 ms 
5 ms
 3  ge-1-0-0.r01.ptldor01.us.bb.verio.net (129.250.30.145)  5 ms  5 ms 
5 ms
 4  p4-6-1-0.r04.sttlwa01.us.bb.verio.net (129.250.3.37)  10 ms  10 ms 
7 ms
 5  bpr2-so-5-2-0.SeattleSwitchDesign.savvis.net (208.173.50.65)  52 ms
51 ms  52 ms
 6  acr2-so-6-0-0.Seattle.savvis.net (208.172.81.186)  51 ms  51 ms  53
ms
 7  dcr1-loopback.SantaClara.savvis.net (208.172.146.99)  54 ms  73 ms 
53 ms
 8  bhr1-pos-0-0.SantaClarasc5.savvis.net (208.172.156.74)  53 ms  56
ms  53 ms
 9  csr23-ve240.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.98)  80 ms  81 ms 
79 ms
10  bhr1-g8-2.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.97)  53 ms  61 ms  53
ms
11  * csr21-ve240.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.2)  80 ms *
12  bhr1-g3-0.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.17)  58 ms  53 ms  53
ms
13  * * *
14  bhr1-g3-0.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.17)  53 ms  53 ms  55
ms
15  * * *
16  bhr1-g3-0.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.17)  53 ms  61 ms  53
ms
17  * * csr21-ve240.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.2)  81 ms
18  bhr1-g3-0.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.17)  53 ms  53 ms  53
ms
19  * * csr21-ve240.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.2)  82 ms
20  bhr1-g3-0.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.17)  54 ms  53 ms  53
ms
21  * * *
22  bhr1-g3-0.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.17)  56 ms  53 ms  53
ms
23  * * *
24  bhr1-g3-0.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.17)  53 ms  53 ms  54
ms
25  * * csr21-ve240.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.2)  83 ms
26  bhr1-g3-0.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.17)  56 ms  53 ms  58
ms
27  * csr21-ve240.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.2)  87 ms *
28  bhr1-g3-0.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.17)  55 ms  53 ms  53
ms
29  * csr21-ve240.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.2)  82 ms *
30  bhr1-g3-0.SantaClarasc4.savvis.net (216.34.3.17)  54 ms  53 ms  56
ms
-- 
Jeff Shultz
Network Technician
Willamette Valley Internet


Re: NetAdmin + sales on NANOG like places.

2004-03-17 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Gerald [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Wed, 17 Mar 2004
14:22:25 -0500 (EST)

 On Wed, 17 Mar 2004, Jonathan M. Slivko wrote:
 
 SNIP INTRO  SALES BLURB
 
  I look forward to talking to you soon.
 
  Jonathan M. Slivko [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  Sales/Network Operations   Invisible Hand Networks, Inc.
 
 I am currently doing a little of both sales/network admin at my company
 which competes directly with Jonathan's in the NYC market. I have some ?s
 about (network admins + sales people) for nanog folk:
 
 - As much as I sympathize with JS's desire to get his company name
 and information out, is this kind of E-mail encouraged/discouraged on
 NANOG? (AUP: Blatant product marketing is unacceptable. Does this fit?)
 
 
 
 Would NANOG as a group agree (I know...you can laugh now.) that requests
 made here for suggestions are more often looking for technical people that
 have purchased from a company than a slightly biased sales pitch from the
 company you work for?
 
 I'm not an anti-capitalist, but I do like to attempt to keep the SNR down
 and if companies force sales hats to the networking staff this will become
 much more prevalent. Jonathan this isn't intended to offend you either, so
 I hope you don't take it that way.
 

Not that I'm any sort of PTB here (or pretty much anywhere), but I
would prefer that sales pitches of the type referenced be taken off
list. 

So if we're polling  trolling, that's my opinion.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Loose nut behind the wheel. 



Re: Cisco website www.cisco.com 403 forbidden?

2004-03-15 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Todd Mitchell - lists [EMAIL PROTECTED] on
Mon, 15 Mar 2004 15:23:14 -0500

 | Behalf Of Jay Hennigan
 | Sent: March 15, 2004 3:19 PM
 | 
 | Is it just me that they don't like?
 
 Apparently they don't like me either.  On top of that, they're running
 Apache 1.0--not so good.
 
 Todd
 
 --

As of 12:40 Pacific whatever time, it's working for me. Metadata says
the updated the page March 12th.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Loose nut behind the wheel. 



Re: Verification required for steve@blueyonder.co.uk, protected by 0Spam.com.

2004-03-08 Thread Jeff Shultz

This is the future of e-mail, if something better at spam suppression
doesn't come along. 

** Reply to message from Stephen J. Wilcox [EMAIL PROTECTED]
on Mon, 8 Mar 2004 21:08:10 + (GMT)

 What is this.. I've had lots and lots from [EMAIL PROTECTED] whoever he is?!
 
 On Mon, 8 Mar 2004, James Edwards wrote:
 
  
  NO !
  
  On Mon, 2004-03-08 at 05:52, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   ATTENTION!
   A message you recently sent to a 0Spam.com user with the subject Re: Source 
   address validation (was Re: UUNet Offer... was not delivered because they are 
   using the 0Spam.com anti-spam service.  Please click the link below to confirm 
   that this is not spam. When you confirm, this message and all future messages 
   you send will automatically be accepted.
   
   http://www.0spam.com/verify.cgi?user=1079785893verify=568107
   
   
   
   This is an automated message from 0Spam.com.
   Please do not reply to this Email.
   
   Looking for a free anti-spam service?
   Visit us at http://www.0spam.com to find out more.
  
 

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Loose nut behind the wheel. 



Re: dealing with w32/bagle

2004-03-05 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from JC Dill [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Fri, 05 Mar
2004 00:11:48 -0800

 At 07:39 PM 3/4/2004, Curtis Maurand wrote:
 Too many steps.
 
 Once it's installed and configured, this one is drag and drop:
 
 http://www.hilgraeve.com/dropchute/
 
 They also have a solution for dynamic addressing:
 
 http://www.hilgraeve.com/KB/KnowledgeBase/index_html?topic=DropChutearticle=30002
 
 DropChute can work with and connect to dynamic IP addresses through the 
 use of the address server. ldap.dropchute.com. With the address server 
 available to you, you can wait for calls on the Internet using a dynamic 
 IP address assigned by your Internet service provider. Your DropChute will 
 post the address on the address server so others can connect to you.
 
 jc

Looks like IM with an accent on file transfer instead of chatting - if
I'm not mistaken it requires both computers to be on at the same time?
Please don't forget all those dialup users out there - they still
outnumber the DSL's and cablemodems of the world. This needs to be
store-n-forward in some way.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Loose nut behind the wheel. 



Re: dealing with w32/bagle

2004-03-04 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Laurence F. Sheldon, Jr.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] on Wed, 03 Mar 2004 22:04:44 -0600

 Curtis Maurand wrote:
 
 
   Until there's an easy way of getting a file to your friend down the 
  street that's as easy as sending an email, we're stuck with this.
 
 There are actually several, some with features much superior to using
 email as the truck.
 
 The problem with them is:  Nobody wants to consider them.

Okay, so what are several ways to share files with a friend, where you
don't share any accounts or passwords, and where only your friend will
be able to access them?

FTP'ing to a web site is out - you either have no guarantee that
they'll be the only one to be able to access the file, or you have to
mess with password protected websites, not something a person is going
to do to send the kids photos to Grandma.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Loose nut behind the wheel. 



Re: Possibly even yet another MS mail worm

2004-03-01 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Mike Nice [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Mon, 1 Mar
2004 07:23:07 -0500

 I just received 2 copies of Bagle.F, embedded inside a password-protected
 zip file.  Comes right through a full virus scan undetected.
 
 ---
 Sent: Sunday, February 29, 2004 7:04 PM
 Subject: Bad girl
 
 
 I am from Taiwan but I study in Camden, New Jersey now. I like to know
 people from different places .
  password for archive: 87326

Okay, from an operational standpoint, who really wants a customer who
would open this as a customer in the first place?  It seems like it
takes some seriously stubborn stupidity to do so.

slightly sarcastic suggstion follows

I'm beginning to think that we should start charging like insurance
companies do... the more dumb things you do on the network, like
opening stuff like this and spreading viruses, the more we get to
charge you. 

Of course we'd have to have someone maintain a central database of
customers that have suffered accidents like this so they couldn't
benefit from switching ISPs... too many offenses and you pay -a lot-
for your internet access on a tightly firewalled ISP where you can only
access stuff by proxy servers - I'm sure you all get the idea. 

There are of course a million different reasons this won't work, but it
is a nice dream, eh?

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Loose nut behind the wheel. 



Re: How relable does the Internet need to be? (Was: Re: Converged Network Threat)

2004-02-27 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Petri Helenius [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Fri, 27 Feb
2004 21:19:48 +0200

 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
 20 years ago, 911 was able to say unless you're the rare beast with a cell
 phone, basing it on the physical service address that the copper runs to would
 probably work alright in 99% of the cases.
 
 Let's not make the same mistake again.
 
   
 
 So all IP phones should be outside of buildings and equipped with GPS or 
 Galileo receivers?
 
 Pete

Does anyone actually offer a mobile IP phone service yet? Does anyone
plan to? 

With Vonage you have to tell them where you are located so they can set
your 911 service up to the proper 911 center.  

With cell phones it's based on the cell it comes into. If some sort of
truly mobile IP based phone comes in, I'd guess that the provider is
going to have to set it up to where the local router (or associated
VOIP device) listens to the VOIP traffic for a 911 call, intercepts
it and sends it to the local 911 center - my presumption is that
they'll have to have a router of some sort in the local area to handle
the mobile IP traffic.  The GPS idea isn't a bad one either - since I
think most new cell phones are coming out with this (it's been
mandated, right?) it's a cheap addition and can be used by whatever the
router redirects the call to for a better determination of the call
center if the phone has the info. 

The easier solution would probably be for the mobile IP phone service
to set it up as a dynamic address thing, where the phone number is
assigned to the MAC address and the system updates a central index of
what IP address is currently serving what phone number. And by whatever
DHCP server assigned the address, that would be used to determine the
911 center most appropriate. 

As for the varied emergency numbers used throughout the world and
such... if you are visiting a foreign country, take the time to figure
out what the local (national) emergency numbers are.  Much easier than
an overly complex technological solution. Or add an emergency button
on the phone that will send a signal that the switch will read as
whatever the national emergency number is. 

Experience here: last summer I was at Ft. Campbell, KY, and a friend
and I drove on the local interstate down to Nashville - when you get on
the Interstate there you are in Tennesse, then you are in Kentucky for
a short period (a few miles) and then back to Tennesse. I had to call
911on my cell for an accident and was connectted to a 911 center in
Tennesee... but since I was on the Kentucky stretch of freeway they had
to transfer me over to the local Kentucky 911 center.  No problem. I
suspect that as long as the VOIP 911 thing can get you close to the
correct 911 center, they'll be able to handle the rest of the switching
needed. And realistically - that's probably a better solution than
trying to come up with an overly complex technological solution. 

These are supposed to be phones after all, not dumb ELT devices.

Let the OT rants begin

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Loose nut behind the wheel. 



Re: Unbelievable Spam.

2004-02-02 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Ejay Hire [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Mon, 2 Feb
2004 15:01:19 -0600

 Personally, I don't like spam, but I tolerate the messages
 that slip through to my mailbox as a penalty for my own
 laziness in not tightening down my spam rules.  Today I got
 one that I couldn't believe.  
 
 --snip--
 Spam Hosting - from 20$ per mounth.
 Fraud Hosting - from 30$ per mounth.
 Stoln Credit Cards, Fake ID, DL's.
 Spam For free only from 1.02.2004 to 5.02.2004.
 --snip--
 
 
 It's just wrong in my opinion, and exacerbated by the fact
 that it was spammend to our abuse account.  Their /24 just
 fell off of my piece of the internet.  Have I just been
 blind to this all along, or are the spammers getting bolder?
 
 -Ejay

This is known as Rule #3 on n.a.n-a.e... Spammers are stupid.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Loose nut behind the wheel. 



Re: Verisign CRL single point of failure

2004-01-09 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Stephen J. Wilcox [EMAIL PROTECTED]
on Fri, 9 Jan 2004 13:20:18 + (GMT)

  The consolidation of network power in a single company creates its own threat
  to the critical infrastructure when a single certificate expires instead of
  being randomly distributed among several different organizations.
 
 I'm not sure whats involved in getting your own root certs added to browser/OS 
 distributions but theres nothing afaik that says Verisign is the sole company 
 providing this, presumably anyone else can agree with MS/whoever to have their 
 root certs added.. ?
 

I'm looking at the Certificate Authorities in my copy of Mozilla 1.5. I
don't think I've added any, but these are the ones that are there:
ABA.ECOM, Inc
AOL Time Warner Inc.
AddTrust AB
America Online Inc.
Baltimore
Digital Signature Trust Co.
Entrust.net
Equifax
Equifax Secure
Equifax Secure Inc.
GTE Corporation
GeoTrust Inc.
GlobalSign nv-sa
RSA Data Security, Inc.
RSA Security Inc
TC TrustCenter for Security in Data Networking
Thawte
Thawte Consulting
Thawte Consulting cc
The USERTRUST Network
VISA
ValiCert, Inc.
VeriSign, Inc. 
beTrusted 

And in IE 6.0 there seem to be about an equal number, many of them the
same. 

So there appear to be alternatives to VeriSign (why is it that most of
these companies have two capitals in their names?). I do remember
seeing someone elsewhere complaining that he'd been trying to get his
root cert added to Mozilla for two years now, so it may not be all that
simple.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Loose nut behind the wheel. 



Re: MS's new antispam idea

2003-12-26 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Stephen J. Wilcox [EMAIL PROTECTED]
on Fri, 26 Dec 2003 14:23:05 + (GMT)

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3324883.stm
 
 Ok so in summary you have to use a bit of CPU to solve a puzzle before it lets 
 you send email.
 
 So either this doesnt work because spammers dont actually use their own PCs to 
 send email or we are talking about a whole new mail protocol, either way I'm 
 thinking this isnt going to work and its yet another publicity stunt.
 
 Steve

I'm sure I've heard this one before, so it's not even a new idea...
hope whoever came up with it originally patented it. 8-) Then again,
maybe it was MS that I heard about the first time, and the Beeb is
simply late to the game here. 

Has anyone calculated the increased server load, the extra storage
needed for the now lengthened outgoing mail queue, and the extra
bandwidth required to handle all this extra back and forth puzzle
thing?  YahooGroups and the like would definitely be impacted. It would
be interesting to see what protections will be built into the puzzle
thing as well... I can see some joker setting up his server to require
that the sending computer calculate PI to some ridiculous number of
decimals... although that might make a good honeypot. Or, if the puzzle
is open source (which would be a good thing), how soon before the
spammers (or even legit MTA authors) hardcode the answers into the
server software? I suppose there would have to be some random elements. 

It is interesting as an extension it might be nice to be able to
set up a whitelist of trusted servers that don't have to go through
the computational gyrations to send you mail - that way it would,
hopefully, eventually impact the spammers more than it would impact
legitimate e-mail servers.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Loose nut behind the wheel. 



Re: Anit-Virus help for all of us??????

2003-11-24 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from Sean Donelan [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Mon, 24 Nov
2003 13:29:57 -0500 (EST)

 On Mon, 24 Nov 2003, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
  Most if not all computers that are sold (branded ones at least) do come
  with an antivirus + personal firewall (aka snake oil firewall, as
  vernon schryver keeps saying on news.admin.net-abuse.email and
  elsewhere) package, with 6 months to a year of free updates.
 
 If most if not all computers that are sold include antivirus + personal
 firewalls, who is selling all the computers being infected with worms,
 virus, malware?

You know that the best AV program in the world isn't going to amount to
a hill of beans if the user doesn't 1. download updates, 2. run the
occasional scan [1], and 3. pay for more updates past the 1 year mark
(for those for which this is a requirement). 

Firewalls at least tend to be a bit more hands off... and I'd like to
hear more about the snake oil parts. Doesn't the 1/2wall that XP
ships with default to disabled? 

As for Malware... right now neither firewalls nor AV programs seem to
stop it's installation. Personally I wish that there was something that
we could install on customer machines that would absolutely and totally
block the installation of net.net stuff, to the point of deleting any
installation files that have been downloaded. 

[1] When cleaning a customer's Nachi infected machine, I discovered
that the installed copy of NAV was completely up to date - but a system
scan hadn't been run since July 2002.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Loose nut behind the wheel. 



Re: Anit-Virus help for all of us??????

2003-11-24 Thread Jeff Shultz

** Reply to message from [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Mon, 24 Nov 2003
15:43:34 -0500

 On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 22:24:58 +0200, Petri Helenius said:

  that windowsupdate provided with 10+ critical and 10+ other updates (the OS
  had Service Pack 1 installed)
 
  The box should have been labeled donĀ“t connect this device to the
  public internet.

 Question: What speed access is needed to guarantee mean time to download
 patches is significantly less than mean time to probed by packet-to-0wn
 (significantly == 20x lower still gives a 5% chance of getting 0wned while
 patching)?

I tend to install the freebie Zonealarm before hooking those systems up
to the Internet
Snake-Oil they may claim, but it does seem to chop the chances of my
getting wormed before getting the updates downloaded.

--
Jeff Shultz
Loose nut behind the wheel.



RE: more on VeriSign to revive redirect service

2003-10-16 Thread Jeff Shultz

ICANN threatened legal action before, effectively. Are they doing
anything this time? 


On Thu, 16 Oct 2003 08:56:47 -0700, Owen DeLong wrote:


He's right, and we should actually take our business elsewhere. 
Unfortunately,
we can't.  They have a monopoly.  No matter what registrar we use to 
register
our domains, that registrar is paying the part of Verislime that is 
inflicting
this on us to run the REGISTRY for .com and .net.

The only way to actually vote with our feet is to get ICANN to start working
on finding an alternative registry and cancel their contract with Verislime.
This will be difficult, awkward, and, may introduce short-term instabilities
in the network.

I suspect Verisign will not participate in an orderly hand-over of the
necessary data without a court order, in spite of the provisions in their
contract requiring them to do just that.

Owen


--On Thursday, October 16, 2003 9:31 AM -0400 McBurnett, Jim 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


 All,
 I hate to agree but he is right.
 With companies like godaddy out there.
 Does it make sense to pay Verislime money to fund sitefinder and our
 headaches?

 To change this: what else can we do to prevent this?  Does the last BIND
 version truly break sitefinder?


 Later,
 Jim

 --Original Message-
 -From: Miles Fidelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 -Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2003 9:24 AM
 -To: nanog list
 -Subject: Re: more on VeriSign to revive redirect service
 -
 -
 -
 -Just out of curiousity, I wonder how many domain
 -registrations those of us
 -on nanog represent?  Contract sanctions from ICANN are one
 -thing, taking
 -all of our business elsewhere might also be effective at
 -getting a point
 -across (though it might also backfire - pushing Verisign to
 -be even more
 -agressive at taking advantage of their positioning).
 -
 -Miles
 -
 -



-- 
Jeff Shultz
Network Support
Willamette Valley Internet
[EMAIL PROTECTED]




Re: VeriSign to Sell Network Solutions Business

2003-10-16 Thread Jeff Shultz

On Thu, 16 Oct 2003 17:41:52 +0100, Ray Bellis wrote:


 Does anyone know if this includes ALL of Network
 Solutions or just the Registrar?  Does Verisign
 plan to keep the Registry or does it go along
 with the Network Solutions sale?

According to the press release they plan to keep the registry.

Ray

Wouldn't it be funny if after they sold the Registrar biz, ICANN took
the Registry away from them for contract violations? 

We can only hope.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Network Support
Willamette Valley Internet
[EMAIL PROTECTED]




Re: Blocking servers: Comcast accidently blocks gamers

2003-10-15 Thread Jeff Shultz

Does anyone know what ports were blocked? 


On Tue, 14 Oct 2003 23:14:47 -0400 (EDT), Sean Donelan wrote:



People use the Internet for a lot of different reasons.  Its not
all client/server access.  End-to-end communications occurs between
many applications.  Its always interesting to watch what things
break when ISPs start filtering ports, even if it happens accidently.

http://news.com.com/2100-1043_3-5091176.html

A Comcast representative confirmed that the problem was with the cable
company. A routine upgrade of the software some Comcast routers use
inadvertently blocked access to certain server ports, the representative
said, adding that the problem was fixed late Monday. ISPs commonly use
port-blocking rules to restrict access to a server that may be generating
hacking attacks or other objectionable activity.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Network Support
Willamette Valley Internet
[EMAIL PROTECTED]




Re: ICANN Targets DDoS Attacks

2002-10-29 Thread Jeff Shultz



*** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***

On 10/29/2002 at 3:40 PM [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

On Tue, 29 Oct 2002 22:25:44 +0200, Petri Helenius [EMAIL PROTECTED]
said:

 Why would you like to regulate my ability to transmit and receive
data
 using ECHO and ECHO_REPLY packets? Why they are considered
 harmful?

Smurf.


Okay. What will this do to my user's ping and traceroute times, if
anything? I've got users who tend to panic if their latency hits 250ms
between here and the moon (slight exaggeration, but only slight). 

I just love it when I've got people blaming me because the 20th hop on
a traceroute starts returning  * * * instead of times. 

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Network Support Technician
Willamette Valley Internet
Not speaking for anyone but myself here.  




Re: More federal management of key components of the Internet needed

2002-10-24 Thread Jeff Shultz

I saw in a forum on ExtremeTech (where they had an article ranting
about how the internet was almost brought to it's
knees)http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,646157,00.asp that
after the root servers attack the gTLD's were attacked as well, taking
out .biz, .info, and .gov ... can anyone verify if anything happened? 

*** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***

On 10/23/2002 at 10:05 PM Alan Hannan wrote:

 I don't understand how giving the US federal government management
control
 of key components of the Internet will make it more secure. 

  It worked for airline security.


-- 
Jeff Shultz
Network Support Technician
Willamette Valley Internet
503-769-3331 (Stayton)
503-390-7000 (Salem)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 

...most of us have as our claim to fame the ability to talk to 
inanimate objects and convince them they want to listen to us.
-- Valdis Kletnieks in a.s.r




Re: i think terroists are going to love ipv6

2002-09-25 Thread Jeff Shultz




*** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***

On 9/25/2002 at 9:04 AM Joe Baptista wrote:


hey - the chiness are a speciality of mine ;)

But spelling obviously isn't. 
-- 
Jeff Shultz
Network Support Technician
Willamette Valley Internet
503-769-3331 (Stayton)
503-390-7000 (Salem)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 

...most of us have as our claim to fame the ability to talk to 
inanimate objects and convince them they want to listen to us.
-- Valdis Kletnieks in a.s.r




RE: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection

2002-09-06 Thread Jeff Shultz




*** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***

On 9/6/2002 at 1:42 PM Al Rowland wrote:

Okay,

If we're going to go off the deep end here, how about the effect of a
small yield air burst over $importantplace? Not designed to maximize
casualties/damage but rather EMP? A large number of senior military
officials got that 'deer-in-the-headlights' look a few decades back
when
a deserter supplied Soviet state of the art fighter turned out to
have
tube based electronics. :)

Said tube electronics were apparently more survivable against EMP
effects. Or was that the point you were making? I think the real
surprise was a toggle switch that Belenko said was supposed to be
flipped only when told over the radio by higher headquarters. It
changed the characteristics of the radar sort of a go to war mode
vs. the standard training mode. 

An interesting, if not totally professional evaluation of something
like this is in Steven Coonts book America where terrorists take over
an American nuclear submarine armed with a new type of Tomahawk warhead
- an EMP warhead. One of the early targets is AOL HQ in Reston, VA., (I
almost cheered). 

Coonts has an inflated idea of what an outage there would do the the
internet... but there is a lot of other stuff fairly nearby, isn't
there? 

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Network Support Technician
Willamette Valley Internet
503-769-3331 (Stayton)
503-390-7000 (Salem)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 

...most of us have as our claim to fame the ability to talk to 
inanimate objects and convince them they want to listen to us.
-- Valdis Kletnieks in a.s.r




RE: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection

2002-09-06 Thread Jeff Shultz




*** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***

On 9/6/2002 at 11:26 PM Brad Knowles wrote:

At 2:01 PM -0700 2002/09/06, Jeff Shultz wrote:

  Said tube electronics were apparently more survivable against EMP
  effects. Or was that the point you were making? I think the real
  surprise was a toggle switch that Belenko said was supposed to be
  flipped only when told over the radio by higher headquarters. It
  changed the characteristics of the radar sort of a go to war
mode
  vs. the standard training mode.

   I wouldn't be too surprised.  The Patriot has a clock problem, 
and can't be left turned on for an extended period of time.  There 
are plenty of military systems everywhere in the world that have 
various operational issues that may not materially reduce their 
effectiveness in their official role, but which may make them less 
suitable for other roles.

Actually I suspect it was an anti-jamming feature. Think about it
the jammers would all be programmed based on the training mode, which
presumably we would have heard before. All off the sudden this thing is
broadcasting an entirely new signal... 

snip

  Coonts has an inflated idea of what an outage there would do the
the
  internet... but there is a lot of other stuff fairly nearby, isn't
  there?

   What do you mean by nearby?  Do you count the TerraPOP?  Do 
you count Langley?

I thought that MAE-East was somewhere around there? I know that there
is a fair amount of high-tech in that particular area. I don't know how
far away Langley itself is another target was basically The Mall
where it took out a couple of fly-by-wire Airbuses. Interesting book
from a techno-thriller standpoint. Just don't confuse it with
reality.G 


-- 
Jeff Shultz
Network Support Technician
Willamette Valley Internet
503-769-3331 (Stayton)
503-390-7000 (Salem)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 

...most of us have as our claim to fame the ability to talk to 
inanimate objects and convince them they want to listen to us.
-- Valdis Kletnieks in a.s.r




Re: IP address fee??

2002-09-05 Thread Jeff Shultz


Possibly because that is what they are still teaching them as in
school? 

Seriously... I'm not sure that the teachers I had for networking and
systems admin had ever heard of CIDR. 

The textbooks hadn't. It was a nice bump in the learning curve when I
hit the real world. 

*** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***

On 9/5/2002 at 1:48 PM Richard A Steenbergen wrote:

On Thu, Sep 05, 2002 at 01:36:27PM -0400, Derek Samford wrote:
 Shane,
 There is a practice on that (At least here.). Generally
we
 provide a Class C to our customers at no additional charge, but we
have

Why in this day and age, 9 years after the invention of CIDR, are we
still 
refering to class C's?

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
PGP Key ID: 0x138EA177  (67 29 D7 BC E8 18 3E DA  B2 46 B3 D8 14 36 FE
B6)


-- 
Jeff Shultz
Network Support Technician
Willamette Valley Internet
503-769-3331 (Stayton)
503-390-7000 (Salem)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 

...most of us have as our claim to fame the ability to talk to 
inanimate objects and convince them they want to listen to us.
-- Valdis Kletnieks in a.s.r