I will explain further: Companies, trying to make some money (I agree), are attempting to reroute traffic using their own techniques w/o consulting the Internet consortium. What are the consequences? I'll list one for you: The techniques used may conflict with other vendors' techniques- Let's say that DI uses pings to a client's DNS server, which in this case happens to be at the same location as the client. It pings the DNS server everytime a user from that site wants to get to Micro$oft.com. In turn M$ has it's own "local server finder" pings running, which really is more up-to-date than the other vendor, and finds and even closer server -or- M$ uses a different formula to determine the nearest server, -or- the pings from M$ arrive faster than the ones from the other vendor...etc. In each case they both have different outcomes as to which is the nearest server. Now where is the client sent? Does this not effect client routing? There is no standard. And rerouting traffic requires, no demands, Standards. If a vendor uses ping times and hops to determine closest servers, where does it ping from? Each M$ server? And then how does it tell the client or server where to redirect the traffic? If I read the original post right, the pings came from DI. How does this determine the location of off-site servers? Is this the best way to do it and what is the total bandwidth impact on the internet? The original poster of this message stated afterwards, offline, he's now up to over 2400 pings in three hours. Add this number of pings to the number of servers and the number of clients being pinged. It grows exponentially. Do you not think that there should be some Official Standards developed to accomodate and support this? Marc -----Original Message----- From: Patrick W. Gilmore [mailto:patrick@ianai.net] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 2:27 PM To: nanog@merit.edu; Quibell, Marc Subject: RE: Fwd: Re: Digital Island sponsors DoS attempt At 12:55 PM 10/26/2001 -0500, Quibell, Marc wrote:

I see that you have no concept of what I just said. Thanks for the clarification.

James is not the only one - I have no clue what you were trying to say either. Let's look at your first statement:

Me thinks that when such technologies be commercialized on the net, there will be problems. Usually, IP and such technologies are the charge of the internet community and we form committees, or use IEEE, IETF, RFCs, ARIN...etc for these and other technologies and come to open internet standards and agreements on how to improve such things. Now we have these people coming in here on their own and attempting to shove their technolgies down our pipes w/o OUR concensus! Anyone now see the problem with this? I believe this to be the key as to why this is wrong and why DI, or Akamai, should not be even allowed to 'help' the internet.

The IETF, RFCs, etc. define protocol formats. While they do define some prohibited behavior, there is a LOT of leeway in use of the packets & protocols defined. To my knowledge (and please feel free to correct me if I am wrong), the probes discussed in this thread are not prohibited in any draft, RFC, standard, etc. Since the only thing "these people" are shoving down your pipes are PROPERLY FORMATTED IP PACKETS, which violate no existing or proposed standard, I am not certain why the IETF, IEEE, etc. would even care. If you mean that they are using properly formatted packets in an incorrect fashion (e.g. spam), please be more clear. But saying that every time someone has a better way of doing something they must go to the IETF first is just plain silly. BTW: I doubt DI is trying to "'help' the internet". (I could be wrong, I do not work for DI.) They are probably trying to make money (just like most of the rest of us here). Not that they need your permission to "help" the Internet anyway, so your statement about "should not be even allowed" is completely irrelevant.

Marc

-- TTFN, patrick P.S. An answer of "you don't understand" will be treated with s/you/I as you would be showing your lack of understanding through your inability to communicate your argument.

-----Original Message----- From: James Thomason [mailto:james@divide.org] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 12:18 PM To: Quibell, Marc Cc: 'Mike Batchelor'; nanog@merit.edu Subject: RE: Fwd: Re: Digital Island sponsors DoS attempt

They are using standard technology, Digital Island and Akamai did not invent ICMP. The methodology is new, and they have the right to use it. If you dislike the methodology, you can block it, or propose to the IETF that we change or remove ICMP.