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UK Web Press coverage of the NSI root outage
by Jay R. Ashworth 21 Jul '97

21 Jul '97

The text of a website article pointed out to the list last week was: > > > A series of major systems failures in the week ending July 18 have > > > called Internet security and robustness into question. Problems > > > started over the weekend of July 12 and 13 when a hacker is > > > believed to have penetrated the Internet's root nameserver, causing > > > severe disruption of the entire Domain Name system. E.mail messages > > > to .com and .net and attempts to access .com and .net sites > > > received 'unresolvable address' or 'host unreachable' responses. I wrote these folks a note, sufficiently vitriolic that I'm almost embarrased to include it here, pointing out that perhaps that article could have used a _bit_ more research... and got this reply: On Mon, Jul 21, 1997 at 10:26:38AM +0000, MMP wrote: > When an editor returns from vacation, there's always one major error > to deal with. I guess the InterNIC news item is my problem. I have > spoken with the responsible news writer and will be removing the > item from our server. <chuckle> > Quality journalism is so often enhanced by quality readership Nicely done. I'm carboning your response to the NANOG mailing list, where the original pointer was raised. > Thanks for your letter No problem. > Andrew Craig > Editor > -- > Andrew Craig Phone: +44 (0)1273 380040 > Editor Fax: +44 (0)1273 380043 > Internet IT Informer Email: andrew-craig(a)mmp.co.uk > http://www.mmp.co.uk/mmp Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth jra(a)baylink.com Member of the Technical Staff Unsolicited Commercial Emailers Sued The Suncoast Freenet "People propose, science studies, technology Tampa Bay, Florida conforms." -- Dr. Don Norman +1 813 790 7592

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Re: Quote of the day!
by Eric Germann 21 Jul '97

21 Jul '97

Quote from an Ameritech rep after being verbally abused in a meeting for them dropping a clients T-1 FOUR times cause nobody would write it down in the book: "We may suck, but we suck less!" At 10:04 PM 7/19/97 -0500, you wrote: >> From someone-I-can't-name-cuzza-their-job: >> "MFS is the spawn of satan, it's all a conspiracy to send us back to the >> dark ages of hand-written communication." > >How about the words that summ up MFS's (WorldCom's) entry into the local >phone market: > >My Fone Sucks... > >Also works with Amerisuck - Your Link to Pain and Suffering! > >After working with these kinds of telco problems all week you just have to >make up nice titles for them ;-) >-- Jason >Jason Vanick ------------------------------------------ jvanick(a)megsinet.net >Network Operations Manager V: 312-245-9015 >MegsInet, Inc. 225 West Ohio St. Suite #400 Chicago, Il 60610 > > ============================================================================ ==== Eric Germann Computer and Communications Technologies ekgermann(a)cctec.com Van Wert, OH 45891 Phone: 419 968 2640 http://www.cctec.com Fax: 419 968 2641 Network Design, Connectivity & System Integration Services A Microsoft Solution Provider

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tiers?
by Danny 21 Jul '97

21 Jul '97

Anyone care to take a stab at what places a provider in a given "tier-group"? Seems to me as though the large(st) providers are a bit harsher (naturally) than the smaller providers. Danny (just wondering)

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Good Timing for .COM Problems ?
by Jim Fleming 21 Jul '97

21 Jul '97

People might want to look on the bright side of the recent failure by Network Solutions, Inc. to properly distribute the .COM zone information. This failure will likely make it clear that .COM, .NET and .ORG should be moved to a collection of private, NSI, TLD Name Servers and off of the legacy Root Name Servers operated by the U.S. Government and a few volunteers. The failure comes at a time when the NSF has made it clear that they are slipping out the back door of the "Registry Industry", at a time when Network Solutions, Inc. has recently relocated domain registration personnel to a new building, and at a time when Network Solutions, Inc. is raising more capital via an IPO and making it clear that they intend to continue registering .COM domains. <http://www.netsol.com> The timing could not be better for this "failure". The solution is clearly for NSI to harden the .COM, .NET and .ORG TLD servers with their own infrastructure. The various Root Name Server Confederations around the world have little choice but to point .COM, .NET and .ORG references to the NSI servers (currently the legacy roots). Until other States besides Virginia or other countries set up their own .COM servers, this will be the case and NSI will have what some people view as a "monopoly". -- Jim Fleming Unir Corporation

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RE: Good Timing for .COM Problems ?
by Jim Fleming 21 Jul '97

21 Jul '97

On Monday, July 21, 1997 5:59 AM, Matthew Crosby[SMTP:mcrosby@ms.com] wrote: @ Jim Fleming wrote: @ > @ > People might want to look on the bright side @ > of the recent failure by Network Solutions, Inc. @ > to properly distribute the .COM zone information. @ > <snip> @ @ Let me see if I understand this logic. @ @ _NSI_ screws up. This proves that the volunteer and govt TLD name servers @ can't do their job, and that _NSI_ should do their job. @ @ Hmm. @ You might also want to look at it from a .COM customer point of view.... .COM customers have subscribed with NSI to register their domain names. They might expect that NSI will invest in the infrastructure necessary to provide that service with few if any interruptions. One of the only ways that NSI can totally control the level of customer service they want to deliver is to own or subcontract the operations of their TLD Name Servers. They could do this by setting up a special, secure, high-speed network behind the scenes for zone transfers and high-performance servers to handle the expected demand for .COM names. If they do this, then the legacy Root Name Servers will be free from operating .COM, .NET and .ORG. The legacy Root Name Servers can be migrated to be True RFC 2010 compatible Root Name Servers or the U.S. Government could decide that the best way for it to get completely out of the domain name business is to turn off the legacy Root Name Servers... Would this impact anything...?...of course not, NSI and ISI have already set up new RFC 2010 Root Name Servers that some people have merged into their root.cache file. Those servers do not have .COM, .NET and .ORG on them. They are different from the legacy Root Name Servers, they are not run by the U.S. Government or "volunteers". -- Jim Fleming Unir Corporation

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Re: NSI bulletin 097-004 | Root Server Problems
by woods＠most.weird.com 21 Jul '97

21 Jul '97

> Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 22:52:18 +0500 (GMT) > From: David Holtzman <dholtz(a)internic.net> > To: nanog(a)merit.edu > Subject: NSI bulletin 097-004 | Root Server Problems > Resent-Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:42:42 -0400 (EDT) > > On Wednesday night, July 16, during the computer-generation of the > Internet top-level domain zone files, an Ingres database failure resulted > in corrupt .COM and .NET zone files. Despite alarms raised by Network > Solutions' quality assurance schemes, at approximately 2:30 a.m. (Eastern > Time), a system administrator released the zone file without regenerating the > file and verifying its integrity. Network Solutions corrected the > problem and reissued the zone file by 6:30 a.m. (Eastern Time). > > Thank you. > David H. Holtzman > Sr VP Engineering, Network Solutions > dholtz(a)internic.net So, if the new zone files were re-issued at 06:30 EST, and they take about an hour to download, why was it that some root servers were still handing out bad data many hours later (at least one until about 14:00 EST)? The particular server I'm thinking of, though not residing in the Eastern timezone, does seem to have what I think is a 24x7 NOC nearby, and in theory could have been prepared to reload as quickly as anyone. This may be just a coincidence, but it was about an hour after I e-mailed and telephoned them that they finally had the right data in place. Unfortunately finding the right contact was not entirely trivial because the listed contact person had a full voice-mailbox and his operator had no idea who else I could speak to, and the NOC has only a 1-800 number (and a FAX) listed that doesn't work outside the USA. The NOC person I finally reached on the telephone didn't even seem to be fully aware that they indeed ran a root nameserver for the Internet. He did know that there was e-mail bouncing, and indeed I didn't expect they could answer my e-mail if they were using their own root server.... Worst of all though they left the errant server on-line, handing out NXDOMAIN replies to any and all who asked, while they were downloading the corrected zone files. Hopefully this is not standard operating procedure for a root server, or at least not from now on. What annoys me most is that I didn't receive any notification of any sort of problem from any of the mailing lists out of internic.net. I probably should subscribe to nanog, but I'd have thought namedroppers, or maybe even rs-info, should have had the above announcement posted just as soon as the mailers had enough trustworthy DNS data to deliver it with. There was nothing in http://rs.internic.net/announcements/ either, except for drivel about "maintaining high customer service levels," and there still isn't (though I suppose this event wasn't exactly "good PR"). What are the current procedures for announcing such problems to more than just the root operators themselves? -- Greg A. Woods +1 416 443-1734 VE3TCP <gwoods(a)acm.org> <robohack!woods> Planix, Inc. <woods(a)planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods(a)weird.com>

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GTE Seen As Takeover Target
by Randall S. Benn 21 Jul '97

21 Jul '97

Some interesting speculation about GTE's future. Randy > GTE Seen As Takeover Target - Report [Reuters News Service] > 09:46 a.m. Jul 21, 1997 Eastern > > NEW YORK - GTE is seen as an attractive > takover target as long distance carriers aim > to enter local telecommunications markets and > capitalize on GTE's strength in Internet and > data transmission, Business Week reported in > its July 28 issue. > > GTE's chief executive officer Charles Lee is > not discouraging merger talk, the magazine > said. > > ``I'll continue to explore other business > arrangements to the extent that they make > sense for helping shareholders,'' Lee told > Business Week. > > Since GTE is spread out in 28 states in mostly > rural or suburban regions, the company would > serve as a springboard for a leading carrier > such as AT&T, MCI Communications, or Britain's > Cable & Wireless to enter local businesses, > the magazine reported. > > GTE's proposed acquisition of BBN and its > fiberoptic capacity arrangement with Qwest > Communications gives it a strong position in > data transmission, the magazine said. > > Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited. All rights > reserved. Republication and redistribution of > Reuters content is expressly prohibited > without the prior written consent of Reuters. > Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or > delays in the content, or for any actions > taken in reliance thereon. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Copyright © 1995-97 Infoseek Corporation. All rights reserved. > Disclaimer

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Re: Good Timing for .COM Problems ?
by Dave Crocker 20 Jul '97

20 Jul '97

At 02:16 PM 7/20/97 -0400, David Mercer wrote: >On Sun, 20 Jul 1997, Paul Trotter wrote: >Seems to me that NSI have shown that their training procedures don't work, That's not the problem. The problem is bad procedures, not the failure to follow them correctly. The procedures should have prevented the operator from installing the update, absent serious overrides. Since it is far, far more dangerous to add a bad update than it is to delay the update, the procedures should have prevented the update as soon as the update data failed any of its validity tests. To override preventative mechanisms should require the intervention of senior operations staff. In other words, besides requiring a positive override, it should require additional staff who are not part of the regular, daily activity. Merely issuing passive alarms that can be ignored is representative of basic ignorance about well-understood operator human factors. I said well-understood. That, of course, means that one must use designers knowledgeable in such matters. NSI didn't. That's a management error, not an operator error. >I personally don't find their assurance that such duties will now be Indeed, you shouldn't. It's more important to change the procedures than it is to change the staff. d/ -------------------- Dave Crocker Internet Mail Consortium +1 408 246 8253 675 Spruce Dr. fax: +1 408 249 6205 Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA info(a)imc.org , http://www.imc.org Member, interim Policy Oversight Committee http://www.gtld-mou.org

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RE: Good Timing for .COM Problems ?
by Jim Fleming 20 Jul '97

20 Jul '97

On Sunday, July 20, 1997 12:44 PM, Paul Trotter[SMTP:ptrotter@ny.ubs.com] wrote: @ Then perhaps we should question why the "problems" are occuring at a @ time when it would be to NSI's benefit (e.g. future IPO) to show that @ the traditional volunteer method doesn't work. @ It should not be very difficult for NSI (and SAIC) to deploy the necessary, robust TLD servers to handle just the .COM, .NET and .ORG TLDs. It seems logical that their "public" shareholders would want their name servers to be under their control. If they decide to do that, then it would be good to coordinate the changes so that the various Root Name Server Confederations can make the switch at the same time. Since the "volunteers" do not have the registry infrastructure to handle .COM, it seems likely that .COM will go where NSI moves it, if they do. Also, not many (if any) companies have stepped forward to provide alternative TLD name servers for .COM. I would imagine that NANOG members would be alerted to these changes well in advance....although, if done properly, it should not be noticed. Only the Root Name Servers need to be changed and it seems to follow that such changes would happen before next year. -- Jim Fleming Unir Corporation

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Re: DC fiber cut: field report
by Jay R. Ashworth 20 Jul '97

20 Jul '97

On Fri, Jul 18, 1997 at 06:44:21PM -0400, Robert E. Seastrom wrote: > Am I the only one who's a cables and switches weenie enough to know > that the telco's _already do this_? Large numbers of local multi-pair ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > trunking cables are pressurized with nitrogen, and they put pressure > drop alarms on them, so they know if one takes a hit. > > pressurized nitrogen is usually done to keep moisture out, not so that > they can monitor pressure loss. pressure loss in a fed, very long, > pipe is an extremely local phenomenon anyway. i think there are > spooks at some black agencies that monitor against tapping this way. > but in practice, nitrogen pressurization is only done for copper. Yes. I know. ;-) I'm told they really do pressure loss monitor the local stuff, though, even if more for dryness purposes than cable-break. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth jra(a)baylink.com Member of the Technical Staff Unsolicited Commercial Emailers Sued The Suncoast Freenet "People propose, science studies, technology Tampa Bay, Florida conforms." -- Dr. Don Norman +1 813 790 7592

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