July 1997 - NANOG - lists.nanog.org

Re: Aggressive route flap dampening
by Vadim Antonov 08 Jul '97

08 Jul '97

Sean's scheme is quite interesting, but it violates one of my test rules: "Never attempt to change society when you can change technology to achieve the same result". For one, i do not see any practical way to introduce the micropayment based routing anytime soon. Second, if and when it'll be introduced, an alternative technology for scalable routing will become available. Guess which one will win. --vadim

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Re: Anti-trust Investigation of Network Solutions (fwd)
by Carl Oppedahl 08 Jul '97

08 Jul '97

At 10:15 AM 07/07/97 -0400, Gordon Cook wrote: >Carl says: >At <http://www.netsol.com/announcements/MYTHS4.html> NSI says: > 16. Myth: In April 1998 there will be significant changes > to the .com, .org, and .net registration process. > > Fact: There will be no operational changes to domain name > registrations in .com, .org and .net. Registrations and > updates in these registries will continue as they > are today with the likely addition of new service offerings. >I don't know how NSI can state this as a fact, given that under the terms >of the contract that will expire in April 1998, NSF has the power to >require NSI to hand over *everything* necessary for someone else to >administer .com, .org and .net. >Cook: Disclaimer - I am not an enemy of NSI. I consider it a decent >company run by decent people. *BUT* >If this is the only entry in their prospectus I consider this a very >misleading description of reality.....so misleading that some one ought to >come out to force a change. A minor point -- the "Myth" quotation is from NSI's web site, not from the prospectus. >The possibility that you list is correct. There are two other >possibilities that I can think of that are also correct. > >1. The prospectus does or does not say anything about the NTIA issued NOI >of July 1? Well, the prospectus is dated July 3, 1997. I did a text search on the SEC filing and did not see any mention of the NTIA notice. >This noi was disclosed in my newsletter of june 24 and >basically means that the US government is embarking on its own course of >action to consider whether to redesign DNS. The exact decisions resulting >from this process may become known by the end of this year. Depnding on >what they are, they may create a situation where the NSF is *FORCED* to >extend the cooperate agreement by at least another year to allow them to >be implemented. That, or maybe NSF would get forced to write The Letter (the one that says NSI has to hand over the database to some new administrator) some time prior to April of 1998. >NSI has a valuable business based on .com NOW. The idea that it will >have this business *AFTER* april 1 of next year is I believe way less than >50/50. > >If NSI has other assets than .com to use an IPO to raisemoney with fine. >(I believe they do have other assets.) To be doing an IPO founded in ANY >way on their status as the proprietor of .com seems to me to be >questionable. What's more is that NSI didn't invent or otherwise originate .com. NSI merely landed a five-year contract to administer it, and happened to be standing there when it became trendy. As I recall, .com was previously administered by SRI.

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Re: Aggressive route flap dampening
by Sean M. Doran 07 Jul '97

07 Jul '97

| Can aggressive route flap dampening replace the need for /19 prefix filtering? | For instance, could the old Class C space be filtered on the /24 boundary | if this sort of flap dampening was put in place? In an abstract fashion filtering is the ultimate in aggressive flap dampening. Dampening, extreme or not, is a form of routing announcement settlement: a prefix+path is given N flaps per time period, with a (theoretically) understood value for N depending on where in the unicast address space and how much of the space is covered. I have explained a couple ideas for adjusting the "N" above based on a cost + profit charging scheme. Fundamentally, if you want to have less stringent antidampening applied to your prefix(es), you pay money. If you don't want to pay money then you do the normal things: keep very stable or aggregate into a stable block. The "N" should be reduced (or the time period lengthened) and the cost of increasing that ratio should increase with the length of the prefix, in order to encourage topologically sound aggregation either through traditional means or through NAT and NAT-like boxes such as the one described and implemented by Paul Vixie. The point at which the price of increasing "N" becomes infinite would be up to the marketplace based on available and deployed technology. Whether or not /24s or /25s or /26s could be seen in the important parts of the Internet was the topic of a series of long arguments during walks along some beaches in Southern California somoe time ago. Some say categorically no, that is, you could never guarantee universal reachability for very long prefixes indefinitely. On the other hand, a model which allows for flexible adjustment of dampening policy applied against specific chunks of address space is very attractive, and seems tractable. Micropayments accompanying NLRI, with payees being attached to prefix announcements much in the same way BGP community attributes are, is an attractive scheme for me. It would then be up to various providers to adjust dampening policy based on these payment attributes much as routing announcement policies are adjusted. (cf RFC 1997-1998) There are bookkeeping difficulties involved that should be familiar to most telephone companies who do international settlements, but which may be perceived as challenging to small fry used to an environment with no settlements, and annoying to people who are unusued to debugging flappy networks. (One could also think of this as a small fee for the equivalent of typing "clear ip bgp damp prefix mask" at routers, which think should already be charged for.) There are other (mostly bilateral) flap-settlement/dampening-modification schemes which have been talked about here and there (piara comes to mind), but the micropayments scheme has the advantages that the footwork needs to be done by the announcers longer prefixes to determine whether they want or need to pay particular providers for having their routes remain visible (or be visible at all). In other words, this is an easy way of making it *possible* to announce even /32s nearly globally, although doing so obviously could be very expensive and certainly would involve determining which of the potentially large numbers of networks would need to be paid to make the /32s in question reachable in their routing domains. [long prefix] | >announcements were responsible for the majority of the routing | >instability, and that simply blocking these announcements at | >an arbitrary prefix length would be the simplest way to 'fix' | >the problem. It fixed two problems simultaneously: firstly, there is lots of flap and flap is most irritating when relatively unimportant (and statistically small is likely to be less important than large) NLRI is responsible for a disproportionally large amount of it. Secondly, there are lots of networks which really ought to be aggregated. When a single up/down or up/down/up flap makes the network unusable for an hour or two, people generally become motivated either to be very very stable or to aggregate even adjacent aggregatable /24s in order to suffer fewer disconnectivities. | >This may be true, but an alternate method of | >approach for this problem could solve all of this squabbling | >once and for all, at least in regard to this issue. Sure. It's a race between the potential buckets of revenues in getting a flap/route settlement scheme in place in the face of people screaming who have long prefixes and unstable networks -- in a sense _charging for the consumption of a currently scarce resource_ -- and eliminating the scarcity by doing aggressive large scale involuntary NAT on one's peers (or customers or both), aggressive proxy aggregation, and the like. Sean.

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Re: Aggressive route flap dampening
by Sean M. Doran 07 Jul '97

07 Jul '97

| Michael, | I believe the primary purpose of the /19 filtering was to reduce the | size of the route table. The increased stability this caused was just | a happy side affect. This matches my memory. I believe filtering predated the implementation of flap dampening in IOS, but I could be wrong. The idea of using very strict dampening as a means of accomplishing the same goals as filtering was a later development, and came with the expectation of crunchy routers being able to handle large stable routing tables and distribute and process large amounts of NLRI in reasonable amounts of time. Sean.

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Aggressive route flap dampening
by michael＠priori.net 07 Jul '97

07 Jul '97

Can aggressive route flap dampening replace the need for /19 prefix filtering? For instance, could the old Class C space be filtered on the /24 boundary if this sort of flap dampening was put in place? Here is Paul Ferguson's comments from the pagan mailing list: >Again, I mention the fact that aggressive route-flap dampening >could be used in the place of prefix length traffic filters, but >someone/something needs to educate the latter group to implement >a less draconian method of protecting themselves from misbehaving >announcements. If I am not remiss, the predominate reasoning for >filtering on /19's and longer was an assumption that smaller >announcements were responsible for the majority of the routing >instability, and that simply blocking these announcements at >an arbitrary prefix length would be the simplest way to 'fix' >the problem. This may be true, but an alternate method of >approach for this problem could solve all of this squabbling >once and for all, at least in regard to this issue. ******************************************************** Michael Dillon voice: +1-415-482-2840 Senior Systems Architect fax: +1-415-482-2844 PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net "The People You Know. The People You Trust." ********************************************************

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Re: Anti-trust Investigation of Network Solutions (fwd)
by Carl Oppedahl 07 Jul '97

07 Jul '97

At 07:47 AM 07/07/97 -0400, Jamie Rishaw wrote: >This came across com-priv - I'm not supporting it in >any way, this is the second thing I've seen come from >the WP that gives no actual fact to back up its assertion, >but nonetheless .. > >-- From com-priv -- > >"DOMAIN" ASSIGNMENT EXAMINED BY ANTITRUST INVESTIGATORS > >Network Solutions Inc. (NSI), the Herndon, Virginia company >selected by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1995 to >control the assignment of all Internet domain names, is now >under scrutiny by the Justice Department for possible violation >of antitrust laws. The actual fact that backs up this assertion is NSI's filing with the SEC. You can see the filing at <ftp://www.sec.gov/edgar/data/1030341/0000950133-97-002418.txt>, and when that page is in your browser (it's a couple of hundred K in size) just search for "justice". NSI discloses the Justice Department action in that filing. >NSF intends not to renew NSI's contract when it expires next >year, but the company says it does not plan to give up its >responsibility for the domains it registers (.com, .edu., .net., >and .org). The company is also in the process of going public >and is planning a stock offering worth as much as $35 million. At <http://www.netsol.com/announcements/MYTHS4.html> NSI says: 16. Myth: In April 1998 there will be significant changes to the .com, .org, and .net registration process. Fact: There will be no operational changes to domain name registrations in .com, .org and .net. Registrations and updates in these registries will continue as they are today with the likely addition of new service offerings. I don't know how NSI can state this as a fact, given that under the terms of the contract that will expire in April 1998, NSF has the power to require NSI to hand over *everything* necessary for someone else to administer .com, .org and .net.

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GIGASwitch Upgrades
by Robert J. Rhodes 07 Jul '97

07 Jul '97

Hello, I am considering a firmware upgrade to our DEC FDDI GIGASwitches (rev 3.0 to 3.2). I have read the release notes for the new versions, and I was hoping that someone on this list may have performed a similar upgrade and would be willing to comment on their experience. Are there any specific steps that should be taken (or avoided) in this type of upgrade? My apology in advance if this is an inappropriate topic. Regards, Robert

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Re: Keynote/Boardwatch Internet Backbone Index A bettertest!!!
by Jack Rickard 07 Jul '97

07 Jul '97

Yes. The cities and networks are listed in the article. Jack Rickard Jack Rickard 8500 West Bowles Ave, Ste 210 Editor/Publisher Littleton, CO 80123 Boardwatch Magazine (303)973-6038 voice http://www.boardwatch.com (303)973-3731 fax ---------- > From: Hank Nussbacher <hank(a)ibm.net.il> > To: Jack Rickard <jack.rickard(a)boardwatch.com>; Randy Bush <randy(a)psg.com>; nanog(a)merit.edu > Subject: Re: Keynote/Boardwatch Internet Backbone Index A bettertest!!! > Date: Saturday, June 28, 1997 2:01 PM > > At 04:43 PM 6/27/97 -0600, Jack Rickard wrote: > >Randy: > > > >I'm with you to a point. But NONE of the measurements were taken from > >Jack's house. None were taken from Boardwatch's office. And in fact, the > >measurements were taken from 27 different geographic locations. I think > >that is a somewhat critical element here. We failed to come up with a > >methodology that could be performed from "Jack's House" without primarily > >measuring "Jack's connectivity" more than anything else. Obviously, that > >is what I would have liked. Never could come up with an idea on how to do > >that effectively. > > I'm curious - to which ISPs were these 27 sites connected? Can we get a list? > > Thanks, > Hank

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Justice Department starts Network Solns antitrust probe
by Declan McCullagh 07 Jul '97

07 Jul '97

Here's more info... --Declan ---------- Forwarded message ---------- X-Sender: declan(a)mail.pathfinder.com X-FC-URL: Fight-Censorship is at http://www.eff.org/~declan/fc/ X-FC-URL: To join send "subscribe" to fight-censorship-request(a)vorlon.mit.edu Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 19:57:32 -0400 From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> Sender: owner-fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Justice Department starts Network Solns antitrust probe Internet-Address Assigner in Va. Is Focus of Justice Department Antitrust Probe By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 6, 1997; Page A13 The Washington Post The Justice Department has begun investigating whether the process of assigning Internet addresses in the United States, a process almost entirely controlled by Herndon-based Network Solutions Inc., violates antitrust laws. Network Solutions said it received a request for documents and information relating to its Internet address registration business from the Justice Department's antitrust division on June 27, according to a document the company filed last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Justice Department also is seeking information from Science Applications International Corp., Network Solutions' parent company, the document said. Network Solutions is the only company in the world authorized to assign some of the Internet's most widely used "domains," or addresses, specifically those that end in ".com," ".edu," ".net" and ".org." Critics have complained that Network Solutions, which charges $100 to assign a domain, has an unfair monopoly that has led to a high registration price and poor service. The Justice Department's request is a standard preliminary step in antitrust investigations. But the government has rarely looked into the governing processes of the Internet, the global computer network that has become a vital communication medium for millions of businesses and individuals worldwide. Registering a domain is a necessary step for any person or business that wants a unique address, such as disney.com or cocacola.com. The registered domains serve as a sort of Zip code for the Internet, allowing users to send electronic mail and locate pages on the graphical World Wide Web. Gabriel A. Battista, Network Solutions' chief executive, said yesterday the company intends to fulfill the request. "We've received the notification and we will comply with whatever they ask for," Battista said. Battista declined to comment further, citing the "quiet period" the SEC requires of executives when their company's stock is being offered to the public for the first time. Network Solutions on Thursday notified the SEC, in the same document that disclosed the antitrust investigation, that it is planning a stock offering worth as much as $35 million. In the document, Network Solutions said it "cannot predict whether a civil action will ultimately be filed by the [Justice Department] or by private litigants as a result of the [Justice Department] investigation or, if filed, what such action would entail." The document also states that "neither SAIC nor [Network Solutions] is aware of the scope or nature of the investigation." [...] ------------------------- Declan McCullagh Time Inc. The Netly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/

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Anti-trust Investigation of Network Solutions (fwd)
by jamie＠intuition.iagnet.net 07 Jul '97

07 Jul '97

This came across com-priv - I'm not supporting it in any way, this is the second thing I've seen come from the WP that gives no actual fact to back up its assertion, but nonetheless .. -- From com-priv -- "DOMAIN" ASSIGNMENT EXAMINED BY ANTITRUST INVESTIGATORS Network Solutions Inc. (NSI), the Herndon, Virginia company selected by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1995 to control the assignment of all Internet domain names, is now under scrutiny by the Justice Department for possible violation of antitrust laws. NSF intends not to renew NSI's contract when it expires next year, but the company says it does not plan to give up its responsibility for the domains it registers (.com, .edu., .net., and .org). The company is also in the process of going public and is planning a stock offering worth as much as $35 million. source: Washington Post July 6, 1997 via edupage -- end forward -- -- jamie g.k. rishaw dal/efnet:gavroche Internet Access Group 'whois JGR2' for PGP keyID/Fingerprint __ Network Operations/TSD DID:216.902.5455 FAX:216.623.3566 \/ 800.637.4IAGx5455 "The machine's fine. It just doesn't work." -dan(a)nic.net

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