April 2004 - NANOG - lists.nanog.org

remote reboot power strips
by Christopher J. Wolff 20 Apr '04

20 Apr '04

Hello, Last time I researched remote reboot power strips it seemed like most of the power strips were garbage. Any recommendations for a solid performer would be appreciated. Thank you. Regards, Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO Broadband Laboratories, Inc. http://www.bblabs.com

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Backbone IP network Economics - peering and transit
by Gordon Cook 20 Apr '04

20 Apr '04

Peering? Who needs peering if transit can be had for $20 per megabit per second? I last had a detailed look at peering and transit economics in the summer of 2002. It is pretty amazing to see what has happened to prices since then. I have a private mail list underway on this subject and published the first part of a two part study on Saturday. Details available at http://cookreport.com/13.03.shtml Any opinions here on what MCI coming out of bankruptcy will mean? How will once mighty ATT compete? How can it possibly compete if it actually tries to pay the interest on its bonds? June 2004 COOK Report page one: Economic Pressure on Long Haul Fiber Five Years After Bubble Burst Prices Have Plunged Yet Nothing Fundamental Has Been Fixed Examination of Data Network Woes Shows Termite-Riddled Foundation Leading to More Bankruptcies in Absence of Broader Understanding Tech-Telcom Recovery, or just a pause before the next round of bankruptcies? In this issue we explain why we believe that competitive fiber backbones have a failing business model that has driven prices below the cost of maintenance and replacement. We point out that the carriers are making up the difference with cost cutting in every way imaginable and by subsidizing the loosing backbones with what profits remain from voice. As the voice profits disappear via government (GIG BE), corporate, and municipal networks that are buying and lighting their own strands of fiber, and hence leaving the PSTN, another round of bankruptcies looks to be inevitable. As Eli Noam has warned, when the dominoes start to fall again, the US government, rather than let the telecommunications system collapse, will have no choice but to step in and start regulating IP networks. The kind of regulation that is coming will have little to do with encouraging common carriage or wide spread access to broadband. Instead it will have everything to do with consolidating a few remaining survivors and enabling them to pay their bondholders. The scene is not a pretty one and the miserable policy is being made exacerbated by American bankruptcy law that permits bankrupt fiber carrier to reorganize through Chapter 11 rather than insisting on disbandment via Chapter 7. What is especially pernicious about this situation is that permitting bankrupt carriers such as MCI to reorganize makes a bad situation worse. It does nothing to get rid of the company's massive glut of fiber. Instead, by wiping out its debt, it ensures a cost cutting advantage to the reorganized company. Still, blessed with the same massive amount of fiber it had before, it can gain income by again cutting prices below what its not-yet-bankrupt cousins like ATT and Sprint can afford to sell, if they are to every pay off their bonds. Roxanne Googin, in an interview to be published next month, was scathing in her comments on MCI being allowed by the Bush Justice Department to file Chapter 11 rather than 7 - given the company's acknowledged massive fraud. She added that, given the MCI example, in her opinion any carrier that makes a good faith effort to pay back its bond holders is just plain foolish. With this issue we turn to the badly broken economics of peering and the attendant backbone business models. After three hours conversation with Farooq Hussain and ninety minutes with Farooq and Roxane Googin we have a clearer picture of where things went wrong beginning with the privatization of the NSF Net backbone in April 1995. The plan when implemented was a reasonable one, but it is fascinating to look back and understand how all the dominoes fell the wrong way. The result made a bad situation steadily worse until the Cable and Wireless bankruptcy of 2002 ripped a major hole in the Tier One hierarchical façade and pointed the way to the technology topology business case issues pointed out by Farooq during our conversation of April 4, 2004. This fairly short issue lays the foundations for the mail list discussion that began on March 18 and will be published in the next issue in about mid May. In focusing on the woes of the LECs during the past two years, we have overlooked the fact that the carriers are in worse shape and that the telcos are again speeding toward the precipice. Most everything is broken and, one of the frustrating issues, is that it is difficult to get agreement on just where. The phone companies do need to die and be replaced. But a huge problem that remains is that, unlike Japan, and many other countries, the US is in gridlock. For, in the US, the ILECS and IXCs "own" the FCC. There is still enough money left in the industry that government is hobbled by a political unwillingness to let the bond and equity holders take the consequences and get on with life. Looking for the Big Picture and By Passing the Carrier Let's look more closely at what is going on. One consequence of the fiber glut has been the emergence of a large number of ways to send one's "bits." By this we mean that there are: (a) At least three distinct technologies used in sending bits over glass - each with its own economics. Layer one technology: OBGP and User Controlled Light Paths technologies from Canarie that are just beginning to be used commercially. Layer two technology - namely Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gig Ethernet over fiber, sometimes using Sonet. But more often not. Layer three: IP often over ATM using MPLS rather than point-to-point links. (b) At least two different ways of interconnecting to (carrier pops and at IX's) and that these can be used by customers to ratchet prices down further and further (c) That high speed Ethernet VLAN and routed VPN services can be bought from carriers, they can also be used as ways to bypass carriers. One by pass business model is to set up a high speed VLAN transport service at numerous exchanges and then sell customers routes over that service. (d) That outright purchase of dark fiber is also among the ways to by pass carriers - ie corporate, research and education and municipal nets are all doing this. (e) That for municipal nets there is a new wrinkle being used by Terry McGarty of The Merton Group. Here anyone who puts 20% of the cost down and goes through the proper application procedures can borrow 80% from the Rural Utility Service (RUS) of the United States Department of Agriculture. The RUS fund has 1.2 billion dollars still unspoken for. Describing this business model at David Isenburg's WTF meeting on Saturday April 3, Terry explained how he is moving town-by-town through southern New Hampshire. He is applying a new and potentially powerful model of economic-broker-middleman in taking his consultancy's funds (20%) and getting the US government to match the remaining 80 percent. He shows town management (Hannover for example http://www.hanovernh.org/twn_minbos1-19-04.html ) what is possible. He then applies for the funds with the cooperation of the town. When the application is approved, both parties then jointly hire the contractor to build the network. I recorded his talk but stating that he is operating in stealth mode, he so far refuses permission to publish it. I assured him that I am a friend of what he is doing. However, it remains to be seen whether he will come to that conclusion. The essence of what he is doing is certainly clearly on the public record. Meanwhile http://www.townsfoum.com/HollisNHforum/viewtopic.php?p=583 describes Terry in Merrimac new Hampshire in January 2003 and www.mertongroup.com/ Municipal%20Broadband%20Networks.pdf is a 2002 paper laying out the Merton Group concept for building municipal networks. Think about this and hear the "great sucking sound." A question occurs. Once you do (d) and (e) have you doomed LECs as well as carriers? (f) That we can expect to hear an announcement before the end of the summer of a venture that will begin the role out of broadband wireless connectivity for video, audio, and data (g) That another carrier PSTN by pass is the global GIG BE net being paid for by the US DoD. (h) That all owners of fiber are so eager to sell access and get some income that they will do darn near anything to enable attachment, and that Level 3 and Global Crossing may find their infrastructure superfluous in parts of Europe and Asia when they run up against the national PTTs. As will Sprint, MCI and ATT (i) That profits from voice propping up the Swiss cheese edifice of fiber data nets are fast disappearing - that the center of the PSTN is being hollowed out every which way with wireless and cable waiting in the wings. As the wireline PSTN collapses perhaps cellular will be what remains? It would seem that only in this context could Verizon's amazing offer on April 12, to the FCC of five billion dollars for ten kilohertz of PCS spectrum make any sense. See http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/42022 (j) That the USA is in far worse shape than the rest of the world. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Contents Economic Pressure on Long Haul Fiber Five Years After Bubble Burst Prices Have Plunged Yet Nothing Fundamental Has Been Fixed Examination of Data Network Woes Shows Termite-Riddled Foundation Leading to More Bankruptcies in Absence of Broader Understanding p. 1 Backbone IP Networks: Why the Hierarchical Peering Model Is Broken Like Electric Grid - No One Wants to Pay for Connecting as Fiber Glut Overturns Dominant Position of Tier Ones p. 6 Some of the Business Model Issues of Peering and Interconnection Or Why the Government Could Eventually Be Forced to Take Over p. 19 We Are Now a Decade into IP Based Optical telecom without a Viable Business Model -- An Optical Network Designer Looks at the Collective Insanity of the Bubble and Calls for Fresh Assessment p. 23 Dave Hughes Explains Sip, VoIP and FW Dialup in Voice Communication with Nepal over the Internet p. 26 Digital Photography Comes of Age -- Two New O'Reilly Books Reviewed in the Context of New Tools p. 29 -- ============================================================= The COOK Report on Internet Protocol, 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA 609 882-2572 (PSTN) 703 738-6031 (Vonage) Subscription info & prices at http://cookreport.com/subscriptions.shtml Report on forthcoming backbone bank- ruptcies at: http://cookreport.com/13.03.shtml E-mail cook(a)cookreport.com =============================================================

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Re: Microsoft XP SP2 (was Re: Lazy network operators - NOT)
by Dr. Jeffrey Race 20 Apr '04

20 Apr '04

On Mon, 19 Apr 2004 17:53:45 -1000 (HST), Scott Weeks wrote: >Neither can happen. That's just another way of saying make all your users >skilled or go out of business. The SPs whose business model entails externalizing the costs SHOULD go out of business

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Re: Microsoft XP SP2 (was Re: Lazy network operators - NOT)
by Dr. Jeffrey Race 20 Apr '04

20 Apr '04

On Mon, 19 Apr 2004 06:12:16 -0400, Chris Brenton wrote: > An uneducated >end user is not something you can fix with a service pack. A profound point, again highlighting the fact that there are no technical solutions to this problem. (Though technical measures to enhance traceability are a big help.) So, the logical inference is training and licensing to get internet access. When I was 16 in Connecticut many many years ago, we had to take a driver-training course (given by a policeman) to get a driver's license. I see no discussion about this approach, here or elsewhere. Jeffrey Race

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Topics for SF
by Susan Harris 20 Apr '04

20 Apr '04

Greetings - here are the presentations we've lined up so far for San Francisco. Keep your eye on www.nanog.org for updates. Sunday Tutorials ---------------- - BGP Techniques for Service Providers Level: Introductory/Intermediate Philip Smith, Cisco - Using IPsec to Encrypt Your Wireless Traffic at NANOG Level: Introductory, Hands-on Duane Wessels, Measurement Factory - IS-IS Up to Date Level: Intermediate/Advanced Shankar Vemulapalli, Cisco General Session --------------- - Implications of Securing Backbone Router Infrastructure Ryan McDowell, Sprint - Panel: VoIP and Regulation - How Government and Telcos Expect to Regulate VoIP to the Disadvanatage of Smaller ISPs ... Or Not Bill Manning, moderator - Appropriate Layer 2 Interconnection Between IXPs Keith Mitchell, XchangePoint - Benefits of Negotiated Interdomain Traffic Engineering Ratul Mahajan, David Wetherall, and Thomas Anderson, University of Washington - Panel: Network Augmentation - Experiences in Adding IPv6 Services/Support to Existing IPv4 Networks Bill Manning, moderator - Verifying Wide-Area Routing Configuration Nick Feamster, MIT - Tulip: A Tool for Locating Performance Problems Along Internet Paths Ratul Mahajan, Neil Spring, David Wetherall, and Thomas Anderson, University of Washington - Case Studies in Intra-Domain Routing Instability Zhang Shu, Nat'l. Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan - Integrated Security for SNMP-Based Management Wes Hardaker, Sparta - Preparing RIR Allocation Data for Network Security Analysis Tasks Brian Trammell, CERT Research Forum -------------- - Predicting Public Internet Growth With Classical Economic Theory, or, The Wealth of Networks Tom Vest, AOL Monday Evening BOF ----------------- - ISP Security and NSP-SEC BOF VI Danny McPherson, Arbor, and Merike Kaeo, moderators

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Re: Anyone from AT&T here? (AT&T bogus DNSBL answers)
by jlewis＠lewis.org 19 Apr '04

19 Apr '04

Steve Linford wrote: > AT&T customers have contacted us saying they can't reach any of our > DNSBLs, seems AT&T have defined a fake sbl.spamhaus.org zone in their > DNS servers so when AT&T customers ask AT&T's NS 12.149.189.2 for > sbl.spamhaus.org they get: > ... I was looking at this some more last night, and noticed this appears to have been some kind of mistaken identity issue. Check the whois and PTR for 12.149.189.2. It certainly doesn't appear to be an AT&T maintained DNS server. If there really are/were AT&T customers who couldn't resolve the various popular DNSBLs, I wonder, was the issue caused by something else? Are they setup to query the wrong DNS servers...perhaps 12.149.189.2 used to be an AT&T DNS server before 2001-09-05, but since then, it's been an AT&T customer's machine. Maybe that customer is getting hammered with queries from old AT&T customers and is trying to encourage them to go elsewhere for DNS service. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Lewis *jlewis(a)lewis.org*| I route Senior Network Engineer | therefore you are Atlantic Net | _________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________

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Re: Microsoft XP SP2 (was Re: Lazy network operators - NOT)
by Robert Boyle 19 Apr '04

19 Apr '04

At 02:27 PM 4/19/2004, you wrote: > > >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. http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp?corporate=true You can download anything on Windows Update here. We make many of this update files part of our standard dialup install CD. Especially service packs. They aren't installed by default, but they are on the CD if they need them. No 24 hour downloads needed. R Tellurian Networks - The Ultimate Internet Connection http://www.tellurian.com | 888-TELLURIAN | 973-300-9211 "Good will, like a good name, is got by many actions, and lost by one." - Francis Jeffrey

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Re: Microsoft XP SP2 (was Re: Lazy network operators - NOT)
by Jonathan M. Slivko 19 Apr '04

19 Apr '04

Sorry about the double sending - I wasn't subscribed to nanog-post from this address. -- Jonathan -----Original Message----- From: "Jonathan M. Slivko" <jonathan.slivko(a)earthlink.net> Sent: Apr 19, 2004 1:51 PM To: Jeff Shultz <jeffshultz(a)wvi.com>, "'nanog(a)merit.edu'" <nanog(a)merit.edu> Cc: jonathan.slivko(a)earthlink.net Subject: Re: Microsoft XP SP2 (was Re: Lazy network operators - NOT) -----Original Message----- From: "Jeff Shultz, WIllamette Valley Internet" <jeffshultz(a)wvi.com> Sent: Apr 19, 2004 1:39 PM To: "'nanog(a)merit.edu'" <nanog(a)merit.edu> 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? 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. 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? -- Jonathan -- Jonathan M. Slivko - jonathan.slivko(a)earthlink.net "Linux: The Choice for the GNU Generation" - http://www.linux.org/ - Don't fear the penguin. .^. /V\ /( )\ ^^-^^ He's here to help. -- Jonathan M. Slivko - jonathan.slivko(a)earthlink.net "Linux: The Choice for the GNU Generation" - http://www.linux.org/ - Don't fear the penguin. .^. /V\ /( )\ ^^-^^ He's here to help.

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Re: Microsoft XP SP2 (was Re: Lazy network operators - NOT)
by John Neiberger 19 Apr '04

19 Apr '04

>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? Amen to that. My mom lives in a small town with very spotty Internet access. The fastest possible connection speed is 28.8 but her actual connection is usually slower than that, probably thanks to the quality of lines in the area. You wouldn't believe how long those patches take to download over 28.8. In fact, I've given up on it because the phone simply can't be tied up for that long and she's not going to get a second line for the sole purpose of downloading MS patches. Periodic Windows Update on a CD-ROM is a must-have until more of the world has high-speed access. John --

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RE: Anyone from AT&T here? (AT&T bogus DNSBL answers)
by Eric Krichbaum 19 Apr '04

19 Apr '04

I've personally seen them blackhole a customer ip and never contact them. The excuse was that, normally, their customers can't get the mail because it's a mailserver that gets blacklisted. I'm not sure that it's an excuse. I don't even mind that they blackholed a security problem. It's the lack of contact in association with the action that I consider bad customer service. Eric Krichbaum, Chief Engineer Citynet -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog(a)merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Patrick W.Gilmore Sent: Monday, April 19, 2004 12:26 PM To: nanog(a)merit.edu Cc: Patrick W.Gilmore Subject: Re: Anyone from AT&T here? (AT&T bogus DNSBL answers) On Apr 19, 2004, at 11:54 AM, Michael.Dillon(a)radianz.com wrote: >>> "I finally talked to someone who knows what the problem is. Your >>> sbl > sites >>> have been blocked by the standard DNS forwarders supplied by ATT. >>> This > is >>> due to the workload being generated on them from mailservers." >> >> Duh! This is really dumb. > > It's not dumb at all. Yes, it is. It is not only dumb, it is a disservice to their customers. AT&T is intentionally distributing known bad information. Worse, they hid this fact from their customer. When customers called the AT&T support line to find out what happened, they were told nothing was wrong and it must be on the customer side. My understanding is this was an intentional lie. Lying to your customers is a Bad Thing [tm], IMHO. Perhaps it was just a bunch of front line people who did not know / understand, but considering that they made a change which they knew - they *KNEW* - would break things, they should have made damned sure each and every front line person was prepared for the customer calls. They did not, so they are at best guilty of pathetically poor customer service, and possibly guilty of outright lying to their customers. If I paid AT&T for name service (even as part of a larger package of offerings - e.g. transit), I would be *VERY* upset. > DNSBLs are using the DNS to do general purpose database > lookups instead of using a generic database lookup > protocol like LDAP. It's not surprising that this sort > of ugly hack has unintended side effects. After all, people > who build DNS infrastructure intend it to be used to > for generic DNS translations, not generic database lookups. A DNS query is a database lookup. It is probably the most widely distributed, robust database ever designed an implemented. But it is a database, and the DNSBL queries are well formed DNS queries. The only difference between a DNSBL query and a normal host lookup is the source zone file and rate. I wonder if Google gets too many DNS hits if AT&T will decide to filter that zone? > Funny thing is that most mailer software that uses > DNSBLs also supports LDAP database lookups so there is > really no good reason why DNSBLs exist in the first > place. Have the mailers always supported LDAP? Do all firewalls which work as MTAs in many 1000s of corporations allow LDAP queries by default? Perhaps the creators and maintainers of the DNSBLs like to use DNS and do not like LDAP? There are many, many possible "good reasons" for the DNSBLs to exist. > IMHO, the DNSBL experiment has proved the usefulness > of having a variety of blacklist/whitelist/greylist databases > for mail servers to query. It's high time that folks > shift these databases onto a protocol that does not interfere > with the Internet's critical DNS systems and I believe that > LDAP is that protocol. That is possible, and much more reasonable than claiming that they have no good reason to exist in the first place. If you believe this so fervently, perhaps you should put in effort to make it happen, instead of discarding out of hand the effort, time, and money the current maintainers have donated out to make the community better. -- TTFN, patrick

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