May 2001 - Test - lists.nanog.org

RE: Stealth Blocking
by Raul Hixie 25 May '01

25 May '01

NANOG, I don't like Outlook, nor do I like SPAM! I do, however like cupcakes! Can we please talk about cupcakes now? And perhaps domain-policy? I'd like a .cupcake TLD, can you please help me in setting this up!? Thank You NANOG! This is where I go for the best information on making my network and writing my policies. Most important it is the best place for hot intellectual discussion! I used to lurk, but this SPAM and EMAIL/FTP is good information and lots of STRONG OPINIONS! Good day NANOG, good NANOG, NANOG! Haul -- Sanrio Town is proud to announce that Hello Kitty's "World of Fairy Tales" Single Pack Stamps and First Day Cover series are available for purchase NOW! http://www.sanriotown.com Powered by Outblaze

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PacBell Frame Relay Outage?
by Roy 25 May '01

25 May '01

Is anyone else experiencing an outage in the PacBell Frame Relay cloud in the SF Bay area.? 75% of my PVCs are down and the trouble number is busy or you go into "hold" forever. Roy Engehausen

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RE: EMAIL != FTP
by Roeland Meyer 25 May '01

25 May '01

> From: Rowland, Alan D [mailto:alan_r1@corp.earthlink.net] > Sent: Friday, May 25, 2001 12:21 PM > > <snip> > At $99 per 40GB HDD, there is no excuse for lack of space. > <snip> > > And the source for this price point for a SPARC server would be? http://208.56.182.73/Products___Solutions/Appliances_Overview/R-Series_Main/ r-series_main.html That's at $20K per TB and quad PIII-1GHz are faster than quad SPARCs, for the money. > 40GB also doesn't scale well to 5,000,000 users. Do you have 5M users? > So let's say we double our user's boxes from 10MB to 20MB. > > 10MB X 5,000,000 = 50TB (assuming only one mail box per > customer, more like > two plus in the real world so you might consider trebling the > following > figures in the real world) > > 50TB/40GB = 1,250 HDD X $99 = $123,750 (at your PC price) plus the not > inconsiderable cost of the servers/raids to hold them and staff to > administer/maintain them. My WAG (wild ass guess) would place the true > multiple E-mail box/user cost at about $1/customer/month; > close to, if not > more than, most ISP's profit margin. (Profit, what profit?) Let's take your user figures and the RAIDZONE prices; 50TB x $20K = $1M $1M / 5M = $0.20 (20 cents per user, or 2 cents per MB) If you can't make "keystone" then that's a clear indication that your market will not support the service. > Now if we can just get the marketing folk to do a study to see if our > customers would be willing to pay that additional $1/month to > fund this in a market where more and more providers are offer additional "free" mail > boxes... Many of those "free" email boxen are underwritten by advertising revenue. In case you hadn't noticed, that market is collapsing. Others are bundeling that service with other services. Incremental cost factors still contribute to COGs and COGs should be no mkore than 60% of retail price, or you shouldn't be offering the service. No wonder many ISPs are going under.

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RE: EMAIL != FTP
by Rowland, Alan D 25 May '01

25 May '01

<snip> At $99 per 40GB HDD, there is no excuse for lack of space. <snip> And the source for this price point for a SPARC server would be? 40GB also doesn't scale well to 5,000,000 users. So let's say we double our user's boxes from 10MB to 20MB. 10MB X 5,000,000 = 50TB (assuming only one mail box per customer, more like two plus in the real world so you might consider trebling the following figures in the real world) 50TB/40GB = 1,250 HDD X $99 = $123,750 (at your PC price) plus the not inconsiderable cost of the servers/raids to hold them and staff to administer/maintain them. My WAG (wild ass guess) would place the true multiple E-mail box/user cost at about $1/customer/month; close to, if not more than, most ISP's profit margin. (Profit, what profit?) Now if we can just get the marketing folk to do a study to see if our customers would be willing to pay that additional $1/month to fund this in a market where more and more providers are offer additional "free" mail boxes... ___________________________________ Alan Rowland "Get Linked" -----Original Message----- From: Roeland Meyer [mailto:rmeyer@mhsc.com] Sent: Friday, May 25, 2001 9:05 AM To: 'Jim Mercer'; Mitch Halmu Cc: John Fraizer; Roeland Meyer; 'Steve Sobol'; Shawn McMahon; nanog(a)nanog.org Subject: RE: EMAIL != FTP > From: Jim Mercer [mailto:jim@reptiles.org] > Sent: Friday, May 25, 2001 4:03 AM > > On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 06:32:48AM -0400, Mitch Halmu wrote: > > So what's a regular user to do? Email it! Hence the > legitimate use of > > email for transmission of large files. Most ISPs know that > if they start > > limiting this privilege, users will migrate to someone that > allows it. > > i regularly configure ISP's with a limit on the size of email > messages. > (generally 10meg, although i think 100k is probably better). That's why most corps use their own MTA's. Sometimes, I run into a client that has such bigots running their systems. A few "failures to communicate" usually result in executive management applying the clue-by-four. Business rules drive technology, not the other way around. One clueless company even blocks attachments with more than one dot in the name. They are steadily losing business. One does not give access to passworded sites without an NDA. After the initial deal is set, one does NOT strike clients in the face with security. Security need to be transparent. > when they get a complaint, i then point them to the fact that > many of the > large email messages get stuck in the queue because the receiving side > is too slow or doesn't have enough disk, or the users quota is full. At $99 per 40GB HDD, there is no excuse for lack of space. MTAs should delete all messages once they are sent, or soon thereafter. My laptop is considered small ... at 12GB. BTW, end users DO know how to delete files and manage space. The file cabinet metaphor works well. > and of course, the sending user hears that it wasn't > received, and then assumes it was lost and resends it. ... and the system should accomodate them. > file transfer by email is evil. That's your unsupported opinion. > i've been saying that for literally 10 years now: ... and you never wondered why no one listened?

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RE: EMAIL != FTP
by Roeland Meyer 25 May '01

25 May '01

> From: Jim Mercer [mailto:jim@reptiles.org] > Sent: Friday, May 25, 2001 4:03 AM > > On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 06:32:48AM -0400, Mitch Halmu wrote: > > So what's a regular user to do? Email it! Hence the > legitimate use of > > email for transmission of large files. Most ISPs know that > if they start > > limiting this privilege, users will migrate to someone that > allows it. > > i regularly configure ISP's with a limit on the size of email > messages. > (generally 10meg, although i think 100k is probably better). That's why most corps use their own MTA's. Sometimes, I run into a client that has such bigots running their systems. A few "failures to communicate" usually result in executive management applying the clue-by-four. Business rules drive technology, not the other way around. One clueless company even blocks attachments with more than one dot in the name. They are steadily losing business. One does not give access to passworded sites without an NDA. After the initial deal is set, one does NOT strike clients in the face with security. Security need to be transparent. > when they get a complaint, i then point them to the fact that > many of the > large email messages get stuck in the queue because the receiving side > is too slow or doesn't have enough disk, or the users quota is full. At $99 per 40GB HDD, there is no excuse for lack of space. MTAs should delete all messages once they are sent, or soon thereafter. My laptop is considered small ... at 12GB. BTW, end users DO know how to delete files and manage space. The file cabinet metaphor works well. > and of course, the sending user hears that it wasn't > received, and then assumes it was lost and resends it. ... and the system should accomodate them. > file transfer by email is evil. That's your unsupported opinion. > i've been saying that for literally 10 years now: ... and you never wondered why no one listened?

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Re: Email Parcel Post is Good!
by owen＠dixon.delong.sj.ca.us 25 May '01

25 May '01

True. However, it's not arbitrary if the ISP says I'm not going to provide store and forward services for email over 100k (although I usually use 1Meg as the cutoff). If you want to do something different in your office or pay for the resources to host some sort of multi-terrabyte mailserver and the bandwidth to handle all the retries, latent failures, etc., go for it. Personally, I choose not to accept the headaches for users that don't know how to use computers. While "Parcel Post" is arguably valid, there are better methods of achieving the desired result that are much more net-friendly, user-polite, and efficient. To further your analogy, parcel post generally accepts packages up to 50#, nothing more. This is approximately 800 times the weight of a standard letter. (50 pounds == 800 ounces, and first class letter pricing is based on one ounce increments). A standard email message is usually less than 32k. 800 times 32k is 25600k, or about 25 Megabytes. Therefore, using your analogy, it is reasonable to limit parcel post to 25 Megs. This is giving you substantial bennefit of the doubt here, as the largest non-attachment email I could find in my inbox was about 10k (making the parallel limit more like 8 Megs). Denying other users resources on a store-and-forward system you don't own by sending large attachments is, in and of itself, arguably a denial of service attack. Owen > Arbitrarily denying the use of email for file transfer is, in and of itself, > tortuous interference with legitimate business of others. > - > James R. Cutler - EDS > 800 Tower Drive, Troy, MI 48098 > 1 248 265 7514 > james.cutler(a)eds.com > > > > > > > > >

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Re: Stealth Blocking
by Mitch Halmu 25 May '01

25 May '01

The material mentioned was first referenced in the following article: <A HREF="http://slashdot.org/yro/01/05/21/1944247.shtml">http://slashdot.org/yro/01/05/21/1944247.shtml</A> which refers to MAPS and Abovenet blackholing Macromedia. It appears as a slashdot sequel to 'MAPS RBL is now Censorware' (Dec 2000) by Jamie McCarthy. Notice the ACLU signature. You will find details on how they squeezed my company and our stand at <A HREF="http://www.dotcomeon.com">http://www.dotcomeon.com</A> Mitch NetSide

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Punch and Pie
by Raul Hixie 25 May '01

25 May '01

NANOG, I don't like Outlook, nor do I like SPAM! I do, however like cupcakes! Can we please talk about cupcakes now? And perhaps domain-policy? I'd like a .cupcake TLD, can you please help me in setting this up!? Thank You NANOG! This is where I go for the best information on making my network and writing my policies. Most important it is the best place for hot intellectual discussion! I used to lurk, but this SPAM and EMAIL/FTP is good information and lots of STRONG OPINIONS! Good day NANOG, good NANOG, NANOG! Haul -- Sanrio Town is proud to announce that Hello Kitty's "World of Fairy Tales" Single Pack Stamps and First Day Cover series are available for purchase NOW! http://www.sanriotown.com Powered by Outblaze

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Strange IPSEC activity over UUNet..
by Craig Holland 25 May '01

25 May '01

-Typed after no sleep...bear with me please- We use an IPSEC client for remote access to certain resources. I typically use a Ricochet modem at home, but a lot us use IPASS for general ISP dialup. Over the last week, I've been getting a lot of calls from people saying they had problems connecting to the remote access server, but I didn't seem to have any problems. Then a couple of days ago, my Ricochet connection stopped working. The only common denominator is any connection that passes through UUNet/AlterNet doesn't work. Crazy? I dialup to a Telia pop, no problem. I dial up to a WorldCom POP, no problem. I connect with a Ricochet (which goes through UUNet in this case)...broken. I dialup to a UUNet pop...broken. I don't get it. The client reports that it is receiving fragmented packets, and that it doesn't have the other fragment in its cache. Its almost like the packets are getting fragmented, and then some of those fragments are getting lost. Because of how the client works, this breaks its ability to connect. I've checked all my MTUs and circuits. I've reduced my MTU on the client to attempt to stop this from happening. I'm running clean as far as I can tell, and the good connections through other ISPs tells me my system is working OK. I've pinged my host from the destination network with large packets and don't lose any. Does anyone have any idea what this might be about? If this is rediculous...Great! Just want to get a fix for this or find out what is causing this. Can someone from UUNet say if you are doing some maint. that would cause this kind of activity? Thanks! Craig Holland Network Engineer Y!Messenger: cholland Ph: (408)349-3572 Fx: (408)349-3707

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network policy (was Re: Stealth Blocking)
by Paul Vixie 25 May '01

25 May '01

> > What's so bad about pre-emptive open-relay scanning is that if you feel > > that is justified, you pretty much have accepted that anybody who pleases > > may scan anybody else's network for any weakness he or she would like to > > probe for. > > Whether you like / agree with it or not, this is happening and you can't > stop it. That depends on the definition of "stop." If you mean, I can't stop it in all places for all time, that's true. If you mean, I can't stop it FROM all places at ANY time, that's also true. But if you mean, I can't stop it FROM a specific place AFTER a particular time, then it's false. Any network owner has the right to accept or reject traffic based on any criteria they select. If that criteria includes "reject all IP addresses ending in .42" then it will be inconvenient to be a customer of such a network but the owner is still within his or her rights to reject that traffic. (Such a network owner would soon have no customers, most likely.) But if a network owner gets port-scanned, or spammed, or relayspammed, or otherwise abused by some host or hosts, then she can absolutely complain to the owner of the network where those hosts are connected, and if she doesn't like their response to her complaint she can absolutely decide to reject all traffic from them. Perhaps her own customers will complain, and perhaps she will lose business. That's between her and her customers. A private matter. If the contract between the network owner and her customers does not allow this type of policy-level traffic rejection, then she may have to stop. At best this would be a matter for an arbitrator or civil court to determine. It's certainly not something that third parties, including third parties whose traffic is being rejected, to have any say in. Many restaurants have a "No shirt, no shoes, no service" sign out front. Perhaps they lose the business of shirtless and/or shoeless persons. But it's their business to lose. Outsider busybodies have no right to override the expressed wishes of business owners.

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