Refer earlier posts. End points ('drones') would have to be legitimate endpoints, not drones on random boxes. That eliminates legal liability client-side. If the traffic is non abusive then I don't see the risk for the network providers in the middle either. If it's clearly established that the source (drones), destination (target) are all 'opted in' and there's no 'collateral damage' (in bandwidth terms or otherwise, being the ways in which I see other parties potentially being impacted) I don't know that it's anywhere near as risky as you imply. You'd have to be careful not to trip IDS or similar for all the networks you transit, to avoid impacting on others in the event of some mis-fired responses... What would be an example legitimate security purpose, except to perhaps drill responses to illegitimate botnets? Mark. On Mon, 5 Jan 2009, deleskie@gmail.com wrote:
Super risky. This would be a 99% legal worry plus. Unless all the end points and networks they cross sign off on it the risk is beyond huge.
-jim ------Original Message------ From: Jeffrey Lyon Sender: To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Ethical DDoS drone network Sent: Jan 4, 2009 10:06 PM
Say for instance one wanted to create an "ethical botnet," how would this be done in a manner that is legal, non-abusive toward other networks, and unquestionably used for legitimate internal security purposes? How does your company approach this dilemma?
Our company for instance has always relied on outside attacks to spot check our security and i'm beginning to think there may be a more user friendly alternative.
Thoughts?
-- Jeffrey Lyon, Leadership Team jeffrey.lyon@blacklotus.net | http://www.blacklotus.net Black Lotus Communications of The IRC Company, Inc.
Look for us at HostingCon 2009 in Washington, DC on August 10th - 12th at Booth #401.
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network