NET99 sabotages IGC's routes
IGC (Internet Gateway Connections, an ISP in Florida that was multihomed between NET99 and MCI) just had an unexpected outage lasting in excess of an hour. This outage was deliberately engineered by AGIS/NET99. First, a little history: IGC's first 'Net T1 was to NET99. Instead of connecting us directly to their backbone (as we had expected) they connected us to Netrunner (one of our competitors). Netrunner/NET99 only has a single T1 out of Miami (to Atlanta) and as a result, our throughput was awful and we obtained an additional T1 to MCI. A few days ago, someone at Netrunner got upset with someone at NET99/AGIS and shut off _our_ service. For some reason (we strongly suspect a configuration error at NET99) our traffic failed to reroute over our MCI T1 for several hours. (They have a habit of broadcasting static routes to route around outages, thus completely screwing their multi-homed customers.) We asked AGIS for a one month refund to compensate us for our losses due to the sabotage. Instead, they issued us a _one_day_ credit. We got upset, both with the ability of our T to pass traffic, with NET99's continual routing problems, with NET99's backbone being disassembled from under us, and with NET99/AGIS's continual delays in migrating us to the AGIS network. We asked them to discontinue our service. They did. They also deliberately and maliciously began broadcasting more specific routes for the individual class C networks in our CIDR block. (We confirmed this with MCI.) When I spoke to AGIS about the outage, they told me I had to speak with Randy Epstein. Randy Epstein is the person at IGC who made the decision to discontinue our AGIS/NET99 service. I contacted MCI again and they contacted AGIS/NET99 with the ultimate threat being for MCI to stop carrying AGIS' traffic if they would not cease broadcasting the bogus routes. Shortly after being contacted by MCI, AGIS/NET99 stopped announcing the bogus routes to MCI, but continued advertising these routes to their other peers at the NAPs. Fortunately, MCI was able to reconfigure our access lists at their router to allow us to broadcast competing more specific routes for each individual class C in the CIDR block. Thus (more or less) restoring IGC's net connectivity. NET99's deliberate, malicious actions are contrary to the very spirit of the Internet. They resulted in DALnet (the third largest IRC network) being split to ribbons, depriving 2,500 people of the ability to converse with each other and cutting off DALnet's security and access control system which is hosted here. Please excuse me if this is not the appropriate forum for discussing this event. David Schwartz Director of Network Services Internet Gateway Connections (954)-430-3030
David Schwartz writes...
This outage was deliberately engineered by AGIS/NET99.
Is there something you expect the nanog list (community) to do? I read this, and I share your concerns at what your allegations show is either restraint of trade or tort interference... but why here? * ...
NET99's deliberate, malicious actions are contrary to the very spirit of the Internet.
So far so good..
They resulted in DALnet (the third largest IRC network) being split ...
Yada yada yada. Look, if you have a serious complaint, stick to it. Complaining about IRC is tantamount to saying "Hi, I'm without a clue as to what is important and what isn't." Nobody is going to go to bat for you because your IRC net was split. Try something more important like "Our customers couldn't reach the net." I know it doesn't sound exciting, but it strikes home for _everyone_ (almost) on this list.
Please excuse me if this is not the appropriate forum for discussing this event.
David Schwartz Director of Network Services Internet Gateway Connections (954)-430-3030
Respectfully, Ehud -- Ehud Gavron (EG76) gavron@Hearts.ACES.COM : Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail will cost $500/message under USC 47 s 5.5.2 : : which can be found online at http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/47/ : * I'm not a lawyer. The Laywers' Clique requires all non-lawyer to tell anyone they're not lawyers anytime they purport to give advice that might be considered legal advice. Of course as a nonmember of The Lawyers Clique, any comments I make are my pure opinion, are not legal advice, and 'should not be construed as any legal advice. If you need help, contact your choice of member of The Lawyers' Clique.
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 21:28:31 -0700 (MST) From: Ehud Gavron <GAVRON@ACES.COM> >They resulted in DALnet (the third largest IRC network) being split ... Yada yada yada. Look, if you have a serious complaint, stick to it. Complaining about IRC is tantamount to saying "Hi, I'm without a clue as to what is important and what isn't." Nobody is going to go to bat for you because your IRC net was split. Try something more important like "Our customers couldn't reach the net." I know it doesn't sound exciting, but it strikes home for _everyone_ (almost) on this list. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but these are semantically equivalent. He was saying, "my customers couldn't reach the net." IRC and other online chat systems may be amusing to you, but AOL makes a substantial fraction of their millions by supporting that "mundane" application on their system. I have no doubt that there are some ISP's who take it equally seriously. It seems that IGC is one such. Put another way, why should you care what the bits are? You're just hired to route packets from A to B with some relatively high probability of success. When you fail to do so, the customer will be upset, regardless of how silly you think his application is. Do you really want upset customers? Belittle their uses of the Internet, and I promise you that they'll abandon your service for a more customer oriented ISP quite rapidly. from the peanut gallery at a $12B "toy" computer company, Erik E. Fair apple!fair fair@apple.com
On Fri, 15 Mar 1996, Ehud Gavron wrote:
David Schwartz writes...
This outage was deliberately engineered by AGIS/NET99.
Is there something you expect the nanog list (community) to do? I read this, and I share your concerns at what your allegations show is either restraint of trade or tort interference... but why here? *
I don't know. We'll likely be pursuing our own legal actions.
NET99's deliberate, malicious actions are contrary to the very spirit of the Internet.
So far so good..
Thanks.
They resulted in DALnet (the third largest IRC network) being split ...
Yada yada yada. Look, if you have a serious complaint, stick to it. Complaining about IRC is tantamount to saying "Hi, I'm without a clue as to what is important and what isn't." Nobody is going to go to bat for you because your IRC net was split. Try something more important like "Our customers couldn't reach the net." I know it doesn't sound exciting, but it strikes home for _everyone_ (almost) on this list.
You are without a clue as to what is important to me and what is important to my customers. Yes, our customers were cut off from their customers. Forgive me for trying to mention something specific.
For some reason (we strongly suspect a configuration error at NET99) our traffic failed to reroute over our MCI T1 for several hours. (They have a habit of broadcasting static routes to route around outages, thus completely screwing their multi-homed customers.)
I can confirm that this isn't the first time that this has happened. Hopefully reports such as this will make ISPs aware that static routes aren't a good solution for dual homed customers. I also recommend bringing as much as possible of your routing announcements in-house (ie, run BGP).
participants (5)
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David ``Joel Katz'' Schwartz
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Ehud Gavron
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Erik E. Fair
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Joel Katz
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jon@branch.com