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OT: The bubble and the economy
by Conrad Watson 09 Sep '04

09 Sep '04

Hi, I am preparing to write a research paper for my economics class on the effect of the internet bubble and burst on the economy. Also, what part (if any) it played in the most recent recession. If anyone could point me to any sites with data on the economy at the time and after I would really appreciate it. I haven't looked myself yet but I wanted to try to run it by you guys first and see if I can get a good starting point. With all the opinions on this list, I'm sure someone will give me a place to start. Thank you. Conrad

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New IANA IPv6 allocation for RIPE NCC (2001:5000::/20)
by Doug Barton 09 Sep '04

09 Sep '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Greetings, This is to inform you that the IANA has allocated the following eight (8) IPv6 /23 blocks to the RIPE NCC: 2001:5000::/23 RIPE NCC 2001:5200::/23 RIPE NCC 2001:5400::/23 RIPE NCC 2001:5600::/23 RIPE NCC 2001:5800::/23 RIPE NCC 2001:5A00::/23 RIPE NCC 2001:5C00::/23 RIPE NCC 2001:5E00::/23 RIPE NCC For a full list of IANA IPv6 allocations please see: <http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv6-tla-assignments> - -- Doug Barton General Manager, The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFBQMQKwtDPyTesBYwRApYAAJ9Hcp2S2wPrTHIh4pGE3jGR3YHdKwCdG2KB 8U+gB3PS1sW5nrAtkW8hllY= =4TnN -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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who's next?
by Paul Vixie 09 Sep '04

09 Sep '04

in <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3634572.stm> we see: Campaigners against spam on the internet have won a major battle against the world's second largest internet service provider. US firm Savvis was allegedly earning up to $2 million a month from 148 of the world's worst spammers, a former employee had claimed. Following talks with anti-spam groups, Savvis has now promised to get rid of the spammers using its network. ... i guess this is progress. the press keeps bleating about stopping spam from being received -- perhaps if they start paying attention to how it gets sent and how many supposedly-legitimate businesses profit from the sending, there could be some flattening of the spam growth curve.

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Spammers Skirt IP Authentication Attempts
by Henry Linneweh 09 Sep '04

09 Sep '04

This is not a good beginning http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1642848,00.asp

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RE: who's next?
by Michel Py 09 Sep '04

09 Sep '04

[Disclaimer: I do not intend to aim at Savvis in particular. It just happens that they make the news today. For all practical purposes, s/Savvis/your_favorite_operator] > <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3634572.stm>: > Mr McCormick promised that within the next 10 days all > spammers will be taken off their network. I think this is a bunch of PR BS. They say they'll do it, but in the real world nobody throws two million bucks a month (*) in the toilet like this, they know it, and here's why: 1. Although some spammers may be dumb, out of 148 of them there are a lot that are actually smart and more than a few that are very smart. Just because we don't like spammers means they are dumb. Face it, people: spammers have outsmarted us every step of the way so far. A lot of us have tried to get rid of them, and obviously failed, because we still get craploads of it. 2. Thanks to our marvelous legal system, the smart spammer will seek a TRO against Savvis preventing them to cut them loose within 10 days, make it last a few months, and finally double-flip Savvis about the bill for the last few months. Nothing new here either; spammers do not pay their bills when it can be avoided. 3. Even a blatant violation of the AUP does not shield from a TRO. Why I say this is a bunch of PR BS is that many people at Savvis are totally aware of what I wrote above. The sad part is: although many people at Savvis are totally aware of what I wrote above, there also are a few execs that can't find the power switch on their own computer without the help desk that don't, and the bottom line is that this is going cost Savvis 2 million bucks a month for some months plus another million bucks a month in legal fees from law experts that don't know jack but are good at kissing exec @55. In the end, it turns out to be simple mathematics: 10 begin 20 Savvis is going to spend $10M-$20M to buy a "clean reputation". 30 ## Some exec bozo thinks that doing so will save the world. 40 ## Regardless of 30, some guys there actually know exactly 50 ## what they are doing, they just manipulate the bozo as a 60 ## fuse in case something does not go according to plan. 70 ## I don't challenge the strategy. A few million bucks to 80 ## look clean actually is a heck of a good deal if one is 90 ## big enough to afford it; sacrificing the gullible bozo 100 ## that bought the BS about saving the world by getting 110 ## rid of spammers is class-1 collateral. (**) 120 41% of the spammers will get 4-8 months free. 130 41% of the spammers will stay with Savvis. (***) 140 18% of the spammers will not survive the renumbering. 150 The next one will gladly host the 41% in 120 for a million bucks a month (for a while). 160 s/Savvis/the next one 170 goto 10 Read the subject line again: who's next? I don't compliment Savvis for cleaning up. If they have to do so, it's because they (or C&W, or whoever they acquired) have been complacent about hosting spammers in the first place. After someone pays the bill, I hope said someone will pay more attention to topics such as qualifying customers by looking them up in the BBB database and related issues. Nevertheless, this _is_ good. Trouble is, spammers have incorporated it in their cost of doing business a long time ago. One more time, too little too late. So, out of 148 Savvis spammers, 18 of them (the dumbest ones) will not survive the move/renumbering at a cost of US$18M. Savvis' money, not mine. Who's next? Michel. (*) Just think about how many 4-port-OC192-IR for their brand stinking new CRS-1 they could buy with 2 million bucks a month ;-) (**) Heard first hand from a three-star general: "in the infantry, the cheapest hardware to replace is personnel." (***) Legal compromise. Even if there is a political will to get all spammers out, economic realities, legal bills and battles of "experts" will eventually quick in, and the good ol' "a bad settlement is better than a good trial" will prevail in number of cases. Spammers will not spam as openly as they used to, Savvis will keep a million bucks a months revenue, and everyone is happy.

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North American, Ricardo "Rick" Gonzalez has invited you to open a Google mail account
by Ricardo "Rick" Gonzalez 09 Sep '04

09 Sep '04

I've been using Gmail and thought you might like to try it out. Here's an invitation to create an account. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ricardo "Rick" Gonzalez has invited you to open a free Gmail account. The invitation will expire in three weeks and can only be used to set up one account. To accept this invitation and register for your account, visit http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-a546a320ad-a8d13e3016-ba630c1ee9 Once you create your account, Ricardo "Rick" Gonzalez will be notified with your new @gmail.com address so you can stay in touch with Gmail! If you haven't already heard about Gmail, it's a new search-based webmail service that offers: - 1,000 megabytes (one gigabyte) of free storage - Built-in Google search that instantly finds any message you want - Automatic arrangement of messages and related replies into "conversations" - Text ads and related pages that are relevant to the content of your messages Gmail is still in an early stage of development. If you set up an account, you'll be able to keep it even after we make Gmail more widely available and as one of the system's early testers, you will be helping us improve the service through your feedback. We might ask for your comments and suggestions periodically and we appreciate your help in making Gmail even better. Thanks, The Gmail Team To learn more about Gmail before registering, visit: http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/benefits.html (If clicking the URLs in this message does not work, copy and paste them into the address bar of your browser).

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RE: ISP Policies
by Michel Py 09 Sep '04

09 Sep '04

> Tulip Rasputin wrote: > That's why i explicitly asked for some "social/political/etc." > reasons where an ISP may not want his traffic to traverse some > particular AS number(s). Something which is beyond BGP to > determine as of now ! :-) FWIW, this is exactly how I understood the question. It's all about "non-BGP" issues. > I believe with the responses that i received both on the list > and offline, that it is indeed quite normal for ISPs to filter > routes based on the AS Paths for 'other' reasons. Reasons, > quite beyond BGP as a protocol to handle! And this can happen, > when an ISP doesnt want its traffic to traverse some AS(es). I'm not sure I agree with "normal", but it is common practice indeed, a significant part being in a <cough> grey <cough> area, and notice that nobody dared to post the reasons on the ML. Trying to stay intellectually honest, there are "good" and "bad" reasons for it. Using my well-known politically incorrect bluntness, I would say this (words borrowed from several people) (disclaimer #2: this is somehow exaggerated, but here it is anyway): God has given men a brain and a penis, but not enough blood to operate both of them at the same time. Although there are exceptions, when the blood flows to the brain, men use BGP; when the blood flows to the penis, men manipulate the AS_PATH and/or create route-maps :-D Michel.

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ISP Policies
by Tulip Rasputin 09 Sep '04

09 Sep '04

Hi, I have a general policy question. Do the ISPs ever look for some particular AS number in the BGP AS_PATH and then decide what action/preference/priority they need to take/give based on the AS number(s) present in the BGP AS_PATH_SEQ/SET? For instance, does it happen that an ISP receives some BGP paths, but because of some political, social, economical, DOS attack, etc. reasons decides that it doesn't want to accept this path because some particular AS number is present in the BGP UPDATE. Basically, it doesn't want *its* traffic to flow via that particular AS number(s). Or, if there is a mutual disagreement between two ISPs, and one doesn't want his traffic to traverse the other's AS number. Does this sort of thing ever happen? Are such restrictive policies normal in the ISP/IX scenarios? Thanks, Tulip

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AT&T Wireless IP Clue
by Steve Rubin 08 Sep '04

08 Sep '04

Does anyone have an IP clue contact at AT&T Wireless? They have some sort of filter blocking most (all?) of 69/8 to their SMS email gateway, and even the AT&T Wireless NOC can't seem to find the problem (800-832-6662, option 6, ticket #1087071). I was leaning towards 69/8 bogon filters until I noticed that twice a day for about 30 minutes everything works.

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Re: Spammers Skirt IP Authentication Attempts
by Robert Bonomi 08 Sep '04

08 Sep '04

> From owner-nanog(a)merit.edu Wed Sep 8 12:05:02 2004 > To: nanog(a)merit.edu > Subject: Re: Spammers Skirt IP Authentication Attempts > From: Paul Vixie <vixie(a)vix.com> > Date: 08 Sep 2004 16:59:51 +0000 > > > vgill(a)vijaygill.com (vijay gill) writes: > > > ... That means that if I do get a mail purporting to be from citi from > > randomgibberish, I can junk it without hesitation. > > agreed, that is what it means. > > however, and this is the important part so everybody please pay attention, > if you can junk something "without hesitation," then spammers will stop > sending that kind of "something." they make their money on clickthroughs, > final sales, and referrals, which translates to one thing and one thing > only: "volume." if the way to keep their volume up means "put SPF metadata > in for the domains they use" or even just "stop forging mail from domains > that have SPF metadata" then that is exactly what they will do. guaranteed. > > there's a bet here. you could bet that by closing off this avenue, SPF will > force spammers to use other methods that are more easily detected/filtered, > and that if you play this cat&mouse game long enough, it will drive the cost > of spam so high (or drive the volume benefit so low) that it'll just die out. > I, for one, don't think that SPF is a FUSSP (tm vernon), or anything close to it. I _do_ think that it is _a_step_ 'in the right direction'. I'd *love* to see SPF-type data returned on rDNS queries -- that would practically put the zombie spam-sending machines out of business. SPF _can_ serve a 'useful function' in spam-fighting. As follows: SPF verification query gets returns one of three kinds of result: 1) MISMATCH on point-of-origin vs domain 'authorized' senders. *VERY* probably spam. Need a white-list check of the specific sender e-mail, and if that fails, an SMTP-session rejection is indicated. 2) MATCH on point-of-origin for domain vs domain 'authorized' senders. 'reliable' data-point that the domain owner 'authorized' the use of the domain-name. Now it makes sense to query an _internally_ _maintained_ database of 'familiar to me' domains, to see what types of prior mail from this domain have been seen. This is a much simpler, quicker, less CPU-intensive test than the 'full' set of spam checks. Match on 'known spammer' domain causes immediate SMTP-time rejection; match on 'known NON-ISP, non-spammer' domain and one is quite 'safe' in accepting the message without further checks. Messages from 'unfamiliar' domains, and/or 'ISP' domains, get the full spam-check treatment. 3) NO DATA. In this scenario, doing the full set of spam checks, is unavoidable. Unless you reject traffic based on the lack of SPF data; which is a non-starter strategy, until such time as SPF is near-universally deployed. If _nobody_ published SPF data, then the situation degenerates into case 3), as a worst-case scenario. This is no worse than the situation _without_ SPF checking. (For the nit-pickers, yes, it is a _little_ worse, by the overhead of the 100% no-constructive-date SPF queries.) If a 'non trivial' share of the incoming message traffic falls into case 1) and/or case 2), then the use of SPF is a net 'win' for the recipient. *IF* the time comes when SPF deployment is near-univeral, then case 3) drops out of the picture. _IN_THAT_CASE_, spammers pretty much _have_ to publish SPF data for their outgoing mail sources, to have any 'hope' of delivery. Whereupon, either they're sending from 'known spammer' domains, or the 'unfamiliar domain' handling kicks in. It aint the (or even 'a') FUSSP, But it is a _big_ win for places that handle large volumes of e-mail. For those big shops, it doesn't take long for a spammer domain to get out of the 'unrecognied' category, and into the 'known spammer' class. Whereupon, one SPF check, plus one internal database dip, and they can dump the mail as from 'known spammers'. The savings in system resources, by using such an approach on several _billion_ pieces of mail per day is definitely non-trivial. It takes a while for wide-spread acceptance/implementation, but when that state of affairs _is_ achieved, large-scale spammers have a serious problem: Messages claiming to be from sources lacking SPF validation get rejected. Messages with SPF-mismatch get bit-bucketed. Messages with SPF-validation from identified spammer domains get bit-bucketed What's an _honest_ spammer to do? <muffled snicker>

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