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NOC Contacts
by Leo Bicknell 14 Jul '98

14 Jul '98

Here's an idea, I'm not sure if it could work. Set up a small "verification company" (or maybe even non-profit org). For a small fee ($50/month?) you could have your contact information entered, and the company would randomly check it frequently (once every 2-3 weeks?). Failure to have current contact info would result in a penalty ($5000?) to stay in the program. Then, networks could require as part of peering agreements and such that both sides participate. For their $50/month each side knows the verification company has current contact info, and they can get it from the company via web sites or monthly news letters. It's a very rough idea, but is there a business model and support for such a thing? -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell(a)dimension.net Network Engineer (CCIE #3440) - Dimension Enterprises 1-703-709-7500, fax, 1-703-709-7699

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MAJOR OUTAGE NYC
by alex＠nac.net 14 Jul '98

14 Jul '98

MFS has a major outage in NYC according to 800-MFS-CITY, which began 24 minutes ago. Details to follow... -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Atheism is a non-prophet organization. I route, therefore I am. Alex Rubenstein, alex(a)nac.net, KC2BUO, ISP/C Charter Member Father of the Network and Head Bottle-Washer Net Access Corporation, 9 Mt. Pleasant Tpk., Denville, NJ 07834 Don't choose a spineless ISP! We have more backbone! http://www.nac.net -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

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Re: Smurf Prevention
by Richard Thomas 13 Jul '98

13 Jul '98

-----Original Message----- From: Joe Shaw <jshaw(a)insync.net> To: Richard Thomas <buglord(a)ex-pressnet.com> Cc: nanog(a)merit.edu <nanog(a)merit.edu> Date: Monday, July 13, 1998 10:44 AM Subject: Re: Smurf Prevention >On Mon, 13 Jul 1998, Richard Thomas wrote: > >> HOW HARD CAN IT BE to take care of 500 broadcasts? Very hard, since the only >> bcasts still left are those with broken contact information and upstreams >> who haven't been informed or who don't give a damn. Maybe if we all picked >> 10 of the worst offenders every day, picked up the phone, and started >> informing people who have missed the boat... > >I'm still quite fond of blackholing entities which are completely >irresponsible, though for the larger carriers this wouldn't be much of a >threat. But after having tried to track down smurfers, I'm wondering if >anyone has ever actually done it. I would think you would have to either >get in touch with a smurf amplifier or their upstream to track the DoS, >but how successful has anyone been in doing so? I would think that >since smurfs have been popular amongst the script kiddies for so long >that all the entities that are easy to get in touch with have already >heard from victims and hopefully fixed the situation. Also, I wonder if >there is any way to hold the amplifiers legally responsible for smurfs >that use their networks after being given repeated notice? I certainly know people who have had it traced back (when a bcast being used is on a major backbone, or after 2-3 days of being attacked), but I have not actually heard of anyone being "caught". In all cases the smurfer was on a university network, several times in euro, a few in the US, and no attempts were made to find the kid involved. Besides we all know the only thing they would find is someone's wingate. As for holding amplifiers responsible, everyone talks about it, nobody does it, and if they are liable for being a broadcast you're not gonna get much of a judgement, since you can't prove malicious intent.

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NeTraMet
by Chris Cappuccio 13 Jul '98

13 Jul '98

I would like to get in touch with someone who has implemented NeTraMet for the purpose of bandwidth accounting. I'm wondering if there are some skeleton configuration files available for implementing this sort of accounting in a relatively simple manner. //chris

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Re: SPAM, RE: Internic and there lame response
by Anthony Sticha 13 Jul '98

13 Jul '98

OK so what to do if their upstream does nothing? Like PBI >>There are many other ways to track a spammer. >> >>- Do nslookup on the IP that originated the spam (sometimes this takes a >>bit of detective work to find what IP actually originated the spam). >>- Traceroute to the originating IP. Email the ISP that is directly upstream. > >*I* know these techniques. Joe User who's irritated at his spam likely >does not. > >>- Look in the Whois information for contact emails and nameservers - if >>these are for the upstream ISP, or some ISP other than the spammer, report >>it to them. > >But there's the rub. A great deal of the information (including >delegations) in domain registrations by net.abusers is complete >fabrication. InterNIC refuses to deal with it, even when it's pointed out >to them. > >>- If they are advertising a web page, track the web page host, and their >>upstream, and report it to them. > >All the time :> >> >>>What do spammers and nails have in common? They're both intended for >>>hammering. >> >>Amen. > >Witnesses available at www.witness.com...:) > > >What do spammers and nails have in common? They're both intended for >hammering. > >Dean Robb >PC-Easy >On-site computer services >(757) 495-EASY [3279] > > >

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Re: NOC communications (was Re: Process management)
by Sean Donelan 13 Jul '98

13 Jul '98

>You bring up an interesting (if unspoken) point in your prior statement, >and that is: "Communications between entities is worthwhile if the >communications facility has a high signal-to-noise rate." While I am not >certain, I have strong suspicions that the SS7 NOCs pushed their emergency >directory numbers to the general number due to useless, misdirected calls. Most of the SS7 providers involved reported no problems with misuse of their contact information. A couple of providers said they were changing the contact information out of fear the information might be misused. One provider stated they had problems, but didn't give any specifics. As some anecdotal evidence I've found our WHOIS e-mail contact information tends to get spammed by the small time bulk mailers, usually whose own contact information is bogus. While our phone information tends to get junk calls by large corporations, usually one particular major ISP's telemarketing operation trying to sell Internet service. Handling such calls through the general purpose number can work well, IF and I repeat IF, the staff at the general purpose number is trained how to handle the calls and direct the information expeditiously. Unfortunately, it seems the person changing the emergency contact information forgets to inform the customer service operation they will now be getting those calls. Some companies seem to do this well, some seem to do this poorly. As I found out, you never know when it will be your newest, greenest tech who happens to get the call at the exact same time the senior engineer is in the bathroom. Even though the calls are fairly rare, it is an ongoing training process. Of course, if the general purpose contact number was working well, there wouldn't be a need for another contact method. > Being a secretary is not something that a NOC can afford to do. Being a secretary is also something most NOCs don't do well. It is a different set of skills. Dealing with a good receptionist is a pleasure. On the other hand, a bad receptionist is really bad. How many folks remember the recurring receptionist character sketch on Saturday Night Live. I doubt most NOC engineers would last 30 minutes on the front desk of a large law firm. >Therefore, to avoid this problem, one must limit the ubiquity of the >contact mechanism and increase the value of each message. Using a medium >like a phone number is of course the standard method for contact in any >emergency situation (email is great, but it lacks a rapid >question-answer-experiment ability) but phones also carry with them the >ease of use that works against them, as well as for them. A phone number >gets handed out on web sites, "emergency call" sheets, etc. and soon >people who do not have anything directly relating to operations are calling >the operations hot line. Either more staff is required to start answering >these questions, or (more likely) the "hot line" becomes not-so-hot and it >will go unanswered or not taken seriously, or simply nobody will care about >it and it will get forwarded to the Void. Yes, I'm aware of the 9-1-1 problem. If you make something that works well, everyone is afraid it will be overwhelmed with all sorts of calls not relevant to its primary purpose. On the other hand, if you make a something that is so restricted, it will never be abused, but it will also likely never get used or important pieces of information won't get through. How do you set things up to create a 'shared fate' among all the participants? Do you need a strong moderator, editor or dispatcher to make such a system work? To avoid the 'whose in charge' problem do we draw lots each week for the moderator position? If each of the participants don't feel some pressure from their management, shareholders, customers to make a good faith effort; will any and every system fail of active neglect? There have been several attempts in the past, and have not had a sucessfull track record. I'm going to keep throwing ideas against the wall to see what sticks. Are any of these ideas even close to being useful? Or do people think there is not a problem and I should just shut up. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation

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Re: Smurf Prevention
by Richard Thomas 13 Jul '98

13 Jul '98

-----Original Message----- From: Dalvenjah FoxFire <dalvenjah(a)dal.net> To: Richard Thomas <buglord(a)ex-pressnet.com> Cc: nanog(a)merit.edu <nanog(a)merit.edu> Date: Sunday, July 12, 1998 6:24 PM Subject: Re: Smurf Prevention >On Mon, Jul 13, 1998 at 04:48:41AM -0400, Richard Thomas put this into my mailbox: > >> Perhaps we might have some success preventing smurfs from the most common >> sources, hacked machines on university dorm networks, by getting the >> university backbones to filter spoofs. Things like SUnet, FUnet, NYSERnet, >> etc, account for a large portion of universities used to smurf from, and it >> might be easier then trying to get each school to filter individually. I >> found the following two addresses for nysernet and funet but was unable to >> read or translate the Swedish on www.sunet.se. > >That's one solution. What might be a better solution would be if the Big Few >networks (MCI, Sprint, UUnet, etc.) were to take the list of smurf amplifiers >from something like the SAR, *verify* that they're still smurf amplifiers, >and then refuse to route traffic from those networks. > >Not only would it cut the smurfs down cold, but it would also get the folks >responsible for those networks to fix things. > >Then again, if the big-bandwidth folks cared about such things, perhaps they >would have done so already. Unfortunately the big guys have no incentive to deal with it on a large-scale basis. The amount of traffic involved is insignificant to them, they're making money off the bandwidth used, and of course the "filtering smurfs takes too much cpu time on our routers" answer (they don't seem to realize that as soon as the kids loose the instant gratification of seeing a ping timeout they will get bored and stop). You know several global broadcast scans have been conducted, I've submitted them all to the Smurf Archive Registry, and we now seem stuck at around 14,000. That leads one to believe maybe this is all there ARE (of the .0 and .255 variety anyhow). 10,000 of those are < 10 dupes, and only 500 or so are > 30 dupes. Also remember that SAR doesn't scan to remove dead ones by itself (something I am currently working to create in my bcast databases), so a good many of those are probably fixed by now. HOW HARD CAN IT BE to take care of 500 broadcasts? Very hard, since the only bcasts still left are those with broken contact information and upstreams who haven't been informed or who don't give a damn. Maybe if we all picked 10 of the worst offenders every day, picked up the phone, and started informing people who have missed the boat...

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Simulating full BGP peers
by Jon Green 13 Jul '98

13 Jul '98

Hi all- Does anyone know of a way to simulate about three BGP peers with full Internet routing tables in a lab environment? Preferably this would be something I could run on a Sparc. Thanks for any ideas -Jon ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Jon Green * "Life's a dance * * jcgreen(a)netINS.net * you learn as you go" * * Finger for Geek Code/PGP * * * #include "std_disclaimer.h" * http://www.netins.net/showcase/jcgreen * -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: NOC communications (was Re: Process management)
by John Todd 13 Jul '98

13 Jul '98

At 04:30 PM 7/11/98 -0500, Sean Donelan wrote: >>> >establish a out-of-band communication system [...] connected via >>> >nationwide system which doesn't rely on IP, ATM, or SS7 >>> >>> I'm not sure where you'd find such a beast anymore. Maybe an SS7 and >>> an Iridium system, side-by-side, would do the trick. >> >>HF radio, more likely. Those of you without roof-rights, you better >>ask building management about getting same for the triband beam.... > >Actually I was thinking of a combination of 'order wires' with a combination >of VSAT and in-band network conference bridges for backup. However several >people of indicated that level of backup was too expensive. > >This problem isn't really unique to the Internet. I was looking at the >backup communications network for SS7 providers and noticed a couple >of major SS7 network providers don't give out their direct contact >information even to other SS7 network operators anymore. They changed >their listings in the emergency directory to general customer service >numbers. You bring up an interesting (if unspoken) point in your prior statement, and that is: "Communications between entities is worthwhile if the communications facility has a high signal-to-noise rate." While I am not certain, I have strong suspicions that the SS7 NOCs pushed their emergency directory numbers to the general number due to useless, misdirected calls. Being a secretary is not something that a NOC can afford to do. The same is the case with the administrator of an AS number - this is the real point of contact that providers use to work out issues with each other. Therefore, to avoid this problem, one must limit the ubiquity of the contact mechanism and increase the value of each message. Using a medium like a phone number is of course the standard method for contact in any emergency situation (email is great, but it lacks a rapid question-answer-experiment ability) but phones also carry with them the ease of use that works against them, as well as for them. A phone number gets handed out on web sites, "emergency call" sheets, etc. and soon people who do not have anything directly relating to operations are calling the operations hot line. Either more staff is required to start answering these questions, or (more likely) the "hot line" becomes not-so-hot and it will go unanswered or not taken seriously, or simply nobody will care about it and it will get forwarded to the Void. Email has the same problems, but with the a benefit of being a one-to-many broadcast service, where a phone is point-to-point. (email = multicast messaging? Better not go there. ;) However, email is not what you'd want to use in the event of an outage (for obvious reasons) for both incoming notifications as well as outgoing queries. Additionally, email is more easily ignored by a group of people than it is by an individual (how many times have you said "I thought you took care of that problem!" to someone on your "staff" list?) The Fantasy: Using a REAL out-of-band system for notifications of regional or "national" outages would be the best method for inter-provider communication, IMHO. However, Iridium phones, HF radios, or carrier pigeons are all too complex and too expensive for deployment into any organization other than the largest ISP/NSP circles. While I'd LOVE to see a line printer banging away in a corner on a 2400 baud Ku band "gas-station" style uplink, I don't see that happening. Besides, someone would have to centrally coordinate that - you think ARIN would mind taking on a multi-national satellite communications network? Sure - just hike the price for an AS number to, say, $4000 a year and make it mandatory that each AS has one of these systems in house. Right. The Reality: Reality is ugly. The phones and email are all we've got to work with. The trick is to make them more useful. Part 1: ARIN should be a fascist for maintaining correct information. The best method for allowing interprovider communications to work smoothly is to keep the NOC phone numbers and NOC email addresses valid and responsive. Maintainers of ASes should be correctly identified in the ARIN database. Phone numbers should be audited. I'm a big fan of "turn it off and see who comes running" update procedures. If someone doesn't respond within a reasonable number of attempts, or information is out of date for X period of time, enforce policy by denial of service. (I will leave "turn off" as an exercise to the reader - this could merely be administrative, or it could actually be a DOS on the AS. You could even do it during more-or-less standard early-morning maintenance windows that were pre-announced - enough pain for a few hours to encourage repair, but not total and permanent disability.) I guarantee that this will cause apoplexy, foaming at the mouth, and certain members of this list threatening lawyer/orifice interaction with ARIN or perhaps wondering if that's my black Sikorsky parked on the pad out back... but the database will quickly come up to date, and I'll bet that nobody is actually turned off. The amount of time saved during real DOS attacks, security breaches, peering problems, and route-mangling will far outweigh the actual number of lost dollars due to policy-enforcement outages. Part 2: Separate your handles for your domain names and your AS number. A smart provider will have a friendly front-end (perhaps a general number) on their domain name, since this is what the majority of the world will look at when trying to get a point of contact. Standard SPAM complaints, sales questions, joe-user will be getting a (hopefully) responsive interaction, but he won't be talking to the NOC at 3:00AM when he can't get to the Doom server off your network. The contact information for the AS number should be direct, always staffed, and clued appropriately. Even forwarding it to a pager is better than RNA. There are spaces for "alternate contacts" on the ARIN forms - _use them_. You might have a head routing person listed as #1 option, but put your NOC as #2 - it's free! "Operational" enough? Long-winded enough? JT

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Re: MAJOR OUTAGE NYC
by Sean Donelan 13 Jul '98

13 Jul '98

>MFS has a major outage in NYC according to 800-MFS-CITY, which began 24 >minutes ago. It must be peak digging season. I saw tickets for four 'fiber cuts' in the last 7 days. Florida, Minnesota, Maryland, and now New York. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation

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