I think this is old news. There was a cover story back in 1996 time frame on Mae_east. We have to ask how likely is this with many of the top backbones doing private peering over local loops, how much damage would occur if an exchange point where hit? I have 2 different questions. 1) In the current environment, are peering circuits running fuller then in previous years. I ask after there has been questions on UUNET/L3 Capacity in europe etc. If the case is so, then an attack in one peering location/region might cause major problems as other peering sessions become overloaded. 2) Wouldnt an attach on particular servers that are NOT redundant have a more significant affect? Are microsoft's servers mirrored? Just posing a scenario. Thought this might be worth passing on: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2514651.stm>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2514651.stm There is a recent book out called "Linked: The New Science of Networks" which details the potential for causing widespread Internet damage by targeting a few hubs instead of random or widespread attacks against large numbers of hosts. This simulation seems to backup the author's concerns. Irwin -- David Diaz dave@smoton.net [Email] pagedave@smoton.net [Pager] www.smoton.net [Peering Site under development] Smotons (Smart Photons) trump dumb photons
On Wed, 27 Nov 2002, David Diaz wrote:
I think this is old news. There was a cover story back in 1996 time frame on Mae_east. We have to ask how likely is this with many of the top backbones doing private peering over local loops, how much damage would occur if an exchange point where hit?
It depends which exchange point is hit. There are a couple of buildings in London which if hit would have a disasterous affect on UK and European peering. What about fibre landing stations? Are these diverse enough? Again, most of the transatlantic fibre (for the UK) appears to come in near Lands End. Rich
On Wed, 27 Nov 2002 variable@ednet.co.uk wrote:
On Wed, 27 Nov 2002, David Diaz wrote:
I think this is old news. There was a cover story back in 1996 time frame on Mae_east. We have to ask how likely is this with many of the top backbones doing private peering over local loops, how much damage would occur if an exchange point where hit?
well recent issues have suggested an exchange can cause short term issues at least, for a longer outage i dont think we have an example.. in the short term flap dampening causes unreachability and circuits hitting capacity prior to a reroute by the noc are big problems but these may be solvable (or worsened) if an outage were to persist..
It depends which exchange point is hit. There are a couple of buildings in London which if hit would have a disasterous affect on UK and European peering.
Europe would reroute, UK would suffer.. but this comes back to the regional effect
What about fibre landing stations? Are these diverse enough? Again, most of the transatlantic fibre (for the UK) appears to come in near Lands End.
Hmm, I know of multiple landings including lands end... so it is diverse, but the sheer bandwidth down one cable is very large, an outage would be noticable. Steve
Exactly my thought. I didnt mention it for fear of rambling. But there are areas of limited redundancy, and those are larger targets. I used to receive "interesting" messages from rebels in S. America because at the time we were working with some of the larger companies down there by hosting their sites, and running IP connections. An attack at key sites like landing centers etc could cut off a lot of S. America. It was also a selling point pushed by people like PanAmSat that would claim it was hard to knock out a bird, and they were going direct to each customer. It does seem that most hostile groups out there are more interested in something more gory then saying "ha we have denied the infidels their spam this week..." At 13:28 +0000 11/27/02, variable@ednet.co.uk wrote:
On Wed, 27 Nov 2002, David Diaz wrote:
I think this is old news. There was a cover story back in 1996 time frame on Mae_east. We have to ask how likely is this with many of the top backbones doing private peering over local loops, how much damage would occur if an exchange point where hit?
It depends which exchange point is hit. There are a couple of buildings in London which if hit would have a disasterous affect on UK and European peering.
What about fibre landing stations? Are these diverse enough? Again, most of the transatlantic fibre (for the UK) appears to come in near Lands End.
Rich
-- David Diaz dave@smoton.net [Email] pagedave@smoton.net [Pager] www.smoton.net [Peering Site under development] Smotons (Smart Photons) trump dumb photons
On Wed, 27 Nov 2002 variable@ednet.co.uk wrote:
It depends which exchange point is hit. There are a couple of buildings in London which if hit would have a disasterous affect on UK and European peering.
Why hit buildings when removing relatively small number of people will render Internet pretty much defunct. It does not fly itself (courtesy to the acute case of featuritis developed by top vendors). Feeling safer? --vadim
I thought we agreed, no politics.... or, =functional= public disruption strategies! :D .Richard. ============================================================== A historic moment, the very first head of "homeland security", makes a patriotic speech at a GOP convention: http://www.webcorp.com/video/mcarth2a.avi (Click Twice, QID ;) Vadim Antonov wrote:
On Wed, 27 Nov 2002 variable@ednet.co.uk wrote:
It depends which exchange point is hit. There are a couple of buildings in London which if hit would have a disasterous affect on UK and European peering.
Why hit buildings when removing relatively small number of people will render Internet pretty much defunct. It does not fly itself (courtesy to the acute case of featuritis developed by top vendors).
Feeling safer?
--vadim
participants (5)
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David Diaz -
Richard Irving -
Stephen J. Wilcox -
Vadim Antonov -
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