On Feb 24, 2012, at 1:10 PM, Steven Bellovin wrote:
But just because we can't solve the whole problem, does that mean we shouldn't solve any of it?
Nope, we most certainly should decompose the problem into addressable elements, that's core to engineering and operations. However, simply because the currently envisaged solution doesn't solve this problem doesn't mean we shouldn't acknowledge it exists. The IETF's BGP security threats document [1] "describes a threat model for BGP path security", which constrains itself to the carefully worded SIDR WG charter, which addresses route origin authorization and AS_PATH "semantics" -- i.e., this "leak" problem is expressly out of scope of a threats document discussing BGP path security - eh? How the heck we can talk about BGP path security and not consider this incident a threat is beyond me, particularly when it happens by accident all the time. How we can justify putting all that BGPSEC and RPKI machinery in place and not address this "leak" issue somewhere in the mix is, err.., telling. Alas, I suspect we can all agree that experiments are good and the market will ultimately decide. -danny [1] draft-ietf-sidr-bgpsec-threats-02