BGP instability (was Re: Exodus Down)
According to Exodus' trouble ticket it is a BGP instability between several locations in their network and with BGP customers. Whether it was a security issue, vendor bug or operator error hasn't been determined yet. Exodus customers should contact Exodus customer service for more information, reporters should contact Exodus media relations for more information. I don't know if Exodus will have any public statement. On Sat, 23 June 2001, "Richard A. Steenbergen" wrote:
On Sat, Jun 23, 2001 at 06:51:51PM -0400, mike harrison wrote:
Maybe all this DDOS discussion is what killed Exodus?
Websites and services all over the place seem to be down. Including my favorites like freshmeat, slashdot... and one of our e-commerce credit card processors: CyberSource
The common route seems to take them into Exodus.net but not out again.
Any idea whats up?
Maybe they couldn't pay the bills and someone reposessed their routers? :P
-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Sean Donelan Sent: June 23, 2001 10:40 PM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: BGP instability (was Re: Exodus Down)
According to Exodus' trouble ticket it is a BGP instability between several locations in their network and with BGP customers.
Hmmmmm... You somehow found a way to get this information without agreeing to the NDA? Impressive. (For the people around here who aren't Exodus customers: subscribing to their network engineering/outage list theoretically implies agreeing to an NDA, which is presumably why no one here mentioned this) That's a minor thing, though. More importantly: a) Slashdot and co went down way before this Exodus BGP business b) Slashdot and friends seem very singlehomed to me (and using Exodus IP space, too), so I don't see why they'd be speaking BGP to Exodus c) Some very specific areas of Exodus' network are affected, not wlhm01. d) Slashdot and co's _network_ seemed up fine... at least some of it. Right now, interestingly enough, that doesn't seem to be the case. Thus, I don't see the link between the Exodus BGP thing and the Slashdot/Freshmeat/etc. outage. Vivien -- Vivien M. vivienm@dyndns.org Assistant System Administrator Dynamic DNS Network Services http://www.dyndns.org/
On Sat, 23 Jun 2001, Vivien M. wrote:
Hmmmmm... You somehow found a way to get this information without agreeing to the NDA? Impressive. (For the people around here who aren't Exodus customers: subscribing to their network engineering/outage list theoretically implies agreeing to an NDA, which is presumably why no one here mentioned this)
it is a mailing list. that's it. also, a subscription is a farily trivial task. hardly impressive. the following != "implies agreeing to an NDA" ?? The Backbone Engineering Team of Exodus (BENGI) operates a one-way mailing list which is tied into our ticketing system. This mailing list is used for intradepartmental communication, as well as communication to our customers and other ISPs of the following topics: RESTRICTIONS OF USE Any individual is allowed to be on the network list, however, certain restrictions do exist: 1. The list is a one-way forum. Group replies to the list, or mail sent from people other than Exodus BENGI employees is strictly prohibited. 2. Exodus makes no guarantee of the accuracy and/or timeliness of the information posted to the list. 3. The information received via the list is considered confidential information, not to be reproduced in any form without prior written approval of Exodus. 4. Questions regarding the information posted on the list cannot be answered at this time. The information is deemed as best available, and any further information will be made available to the list.
-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Rich Fulton Sent: June 24, 2001 12:01 AM To: Vivien M. Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: RE: BGP instability (was Re: Exodus Down)
to the NDA? Impressive. (For the people around here who aren't Exodus customers: subscribing to their network engineering/outage list theoretically implies agreeing to an NDA, which is presumably why no one here mentioned this)
On Sat, 23 Jun 2001, Vivien M. wrote: the following != "implies agreeing to an NDA" ?? 3. The information received via the list is considered confidential information, not to be reproduced in any form without prior written approval of Exodus.
I hate to argue on NANOG about this, but #3 seems to me like it's an NDA (although a rather informal one), for all intents and purposes. In any case, #3 would be violated by posting NANOG about any information on that list, IMHO. Vivien -- Vivien M. vivienm@dyndns.org Assistant System Administrator Dynamic DNS Network Services http://www.dyndns.org/
3. The information received via the list is considered confidential information, not to be reproduced in any form without prior written approval of Exodus.
I hate to argue on NANOG about this, but #3 seems to me like it's an NDA (although a rather informal one), for all intents and purposes.
In any case, #3 would be violated by posting NANOG about any information on that list, IMHO.
Can you really enforce a unilateral NDA assertion? I donut think so. It'd be an interesting fight.
[ Disclaimer: I am not an attorney, and I'm not about to dispense potentially bogus legal advice, especially on a technical list like this. I've you've got problems with the Exodus NDA and the lack of open communication resulting from it - perceived or otherwise - you might want to drop <adam.wegner@exodus.net> a line. ] On Sat, Jun 23, 2001 at 10:49:21PM -0400, Vivien M. wrote:
Hmmmmm... You somehow found a way to get this information without agreeing to the NDA? Impressive. (For the people around here who aren't Exodus customers: subscribing to their network engineering/outage list theoretically implies agreeing to an NDA, which is presumably why no one here mentioned this)
Is that to insinuate that all Exodus customers have signed the mystical customer NDA? Or more importantly, that this document will even hold up in court? And, how all-encompassing is this document? Passing around "confidential" notices of facilities issues is likely a bad thing(TM). But, are customers forbidden from publishing uptime and environmental statistics they've collected in the course of normal monitoring, if such statistics could indicate problems with their IDC's power (got blackouts in Sunnyvale and Jersey City?) and HVAC? That said, if you want to play by the rules, I've found the following to be a far more useful resource than NANOG speculation/FUD, for both customers and non-customers alike: echo subscribe | mail netinfo-request@bengi.exodus.net On Sat, Jun 23, 2001 at 08:47:08PM -0700, Sean Donelan wrote:
Trying to apply an NDA to outage information has always struck me as a bit stupid. After all, NDA or not, people know you had an outage, what they don't know is your explanation why it happened. As we've seen, when there is a lack of good information, people will make up stories to fit.
From a PR/damage control standpoint, I guess I can understand the reasoning behind tagging all Exodus outage notifications with the words "CONFIDENTIAL" and "NDA" in big bold letters. And it's quite
I could not agree more. possible that the network operators negatively impacted by this veil of secrecy are a vocal minority. Still, some non-confidential communication along the lines "there's a problem, we're working on it, you might not see it yet, but there's a problem and we're going to get it fixed for you in a way that's as efficient as possible!*%$!" (see: GENU NOC tour movie) beats the alternatives. :-) On Sun, Jun 24, 2001 at 12:05:50AM -0400, Vivien M. wrote:
3. The information received via the list is considered
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
confidential information, not to be reproduced in any form without prior written approval of Exodus.
[...] In any case, #3 would be violated by posting NANOG about any information on that list, IMHO.
Not necessarily. -adam
seen, when there is a lack of good information, people will make up stories to fit.
I could not agree more.
From a PR/damage control standpoint, I guess I can understand the reasoning behind tagging all Exodus outage notifications with the words "CONFIDENTIAL" and "NDA" in big bold letters. And it's quite
This attitude hurts us all, spreading FUD all over the place. Everyone has a bad minute/hour/day/... its what you do and how you act when it happens that makes a real difference. Sure, Exodus is worried about their reputation as THE anal retentive always up over-redundant data center. Feces occurs. If you tell people "it's broke an the A-Team is working on it" they say "these guys have their stuff together". If you hide behind NDA's and fear of letting people know you are having a catastrophic failure then they decide you are clueless and wonder how bad it really is. Oh well.. I hope Freshmeat/Slashdot/Andover have a better day today. When one of our major customers is having this bad of a day, we at least try to point to traffic to a junk server with a 'It's broke and we are working on it' page and we're just a bunch of geek wannabe's in Chattanooga. --Mike--
On Sun, 24 Jun 2001, mike harrison wrote: it may be wise first to investigate intent, then comment upon reality. that mailing list simply would not exist if exodus (speficically BENGI) did not want to disseminate information to it's customers/peers/concerned parties. please keep in mind that as a publicly traded company (no flames, please) it is wise to take steps so that things such as simple engineering tickets do not show up in a news article somewhere; rather, said news reporter should/would have to wait for the official statement after the lawyers have chopped it to pieces. /jer
seen, when there is a lack of good information, people will make up stories to fit.
I could not agree more.
From a PR/damage control standpoint, I guess I can understand the reasoning behind tagging all Exodus outage notifications with the words "CONFIDENTIAL" and "NDA" in big bold letters. And it's quite
This attitude hurts us all, spreading FUD all over the place. Everyone has a bad minute/hour/day/... its what you do and how you act when it happens that makes a real difference. Sure, Exodus is worried about their reputation as THE anal retentive always up over-redundant data center. Feces occurs. If you tell people "it's broke an the A-Team is working on it" they say "these guys have their stuff together". If you hide behind NDA's and fear of letting people know you are having a catastrophic failure then they decide you are clueless and wonder how bad it really is.
Oh well.. I hope Freshmeat/Slashdot/Andover have a better day today. When one of our major customers is having this bad of a day, we at least try to point to traffic to a junk server with a 'It's broke and we are working on it' page and we're just a bunch of geek wannabe's in Chattanooga. --Mike--
participants (7)
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Adam Rothschild -
Alex Rubenstein -
Jeremy Hartman -
mike harrison -
Rich Fulton -
Sean Donelan -
Vivien M.