peering wars revisited? PSI vs Exodus
surprised not to see this mentioned on NANOG
Sent: Friday, March 31, 2000 To: Notify Subject: Exodus Customer Confidential Communication
Exodus Customer Confidential Communication
Dear Exodus Customer,
Exodus has been notified that PSI will be disconnecting the DS3 connections that are in place between our networks at midnight PST Friday 3/31. At the time of the disconnect all connectivity to PSI networks will be lost. This decision and action is being made unilaterally by PSINet and against the request of Exodus. We continue to hope that PSI will work with us. However, we are working on alternate methods of connectivity to PSI at this time and hope to have a solution in place that will minimize the impact to our customers.
As always, should you have any questions please feel free to contact our National Response Center at 1-877-393-7878.
Respectfully, Exodus Communications, Inc. "The Internet Data Center Company" Web: http://www.exodus.net
is this a replay of Exodus vs BBN? suppose you are a big dot com web site in an exodus data center and you are akamaized. are you going to notice a significant slow down in getting to PSI? I wouldn't think much....but if you aren't akamaized what kinds of problems do you have? Is PSI playing hardball with anyone else besides exodus? **************************************************************** The COOK Report on Internet Index to 8 years of the COOK Report 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA http://cookreport.com (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) Battle for Cyberspace: How cook@cookreport.com Crucial Technical . . . - 392 pages just published. See http://cookreport.com/ipbattle.shtml ****************************************************************
Interesting you should bring this up. Because one party -- the originator -- marks an electronic communique as a confidential communication, does that really require the reciever to keep it confidential? Also, it's not hard to see this: route-server.exodus.net>sho ip bgp 38.0.0.0 BGP routing table entry for 38.0.0.0/8, version 7807819 Paths: (8 available, best #6) Not advertised to any peer 1239 174, (aggregated by 174 38.1.3.39) 209.1.220.107 from 209.1.220.107 (209.1.220.107) Origin IGP, localpref 1000, valid, internal, atomic-aggregate Community: 1239:1110 3967:31337 (anyone else notice the comedy of '31337'?) On Mon, 3 Apr 2000, Paul Ferguson wrote:
At 09:27 PM 04/03/2000 -0400, Gordon Cook wrote:
surprised not to see this mentioned on NANOG
Sent: Friday, March 31, 2000 To: Notify Subject: Exodus Customer Confidential Communication
Gordon,
Does the word "confidential" elude you?
- paul
On Mon, 3 Apr 2000, Paul Ferguson wrote:
At 10:06 PM 04/03/2000 -0400, Alex Rubenstein wrote:
Because one party -- the originator -- marks an electronic communique as a confidential communication, does that really require the reciever to keep it confidential?
Professional courtesy.
Hmm, I forgot to put the sentence in about 'how it would be ethical for people to honor it.'...
- paul
At 10:15 PM 04/03/2000 -0400, Alex Rubenstein wrote:
Because one party -- the originator -- marks an electronic communique as a confidential communication, does that really require the reciever to keep it confidential?
Professional courtesy.
Hmm, I forgot to put the sentence in about 'how it would be ethical for people to honor it.'...
Fortunately, there are still quite a few folks who still honor professional & personal ethics. Unfortunately, there are many who do not. - paul
Hi Paul 1. I am doing what press is HERE to do. *INFORM* 2. I am sure you can figure out that this was sent to me by an affected party who wanted it leaked. 3. This concerns the ability of a publicly traded company to give its customers adequate service on the Internet. 4. Exodus certainly had to tell its content providers that they were gong to face problems in getting to somewhere between 5 and 10% of the Internet. 5. But Exodus was also embarrassed by the deterioration in its service that it was allowing to be inflicted on its customers. So Exodus, in an attempt to limit the damage, marked the email "customer confidential communication." 6. I am NOT an Exodus customer! And since I am press I have a personally reasonable obligation, should I choose to exercise it, to inform people that some important peering links have been broken. 7. Exodus has a problem. In marking that customer confidential it appears to me that it was trying to cover up its own problem and I imagine in doing so it was making some already upset customers further upset. 8. The sender of the message quite explicitly said I hope the press covers this. Therefore there was not a shred of doubt as to his intent. In my opinion, if someone chooses to leak it to me, except for my relationship to the leaker, I have no obligation to exodus or anyone else. My default mode of operation has always been to keep the identity of the leaker CONFIDENTIAL. It is a subject of interest to me and I think to list readers. I have been around for a LONG time Paul, and while I must say that I respect you and your contributions to this industry, I also must say that here your accusations miss the mark.
At 10:15 PM 04/03/2000 -0400, Alex Rubenstein wrote:
Because one party -- the originator -- marks an electronic communique as a confidential communication, does that really require the reciever to keep it confidential?
Professional courtesy.
No, I have no obligation of professional courtesy to exodus what so ever
Hmm, I forgot to put the sentence in about 'how it would be ethical for people to honor it.'...
Fortunately, there are still quite a few folks who still honor professional & personal ethics. Unfortunately, there are many who do not.
Paul, sorry, you put this in entirely inappropriate clothing....see my points above.
- paul
A bit later Paul added For the masses, now: It is the forwarding of "private" or "confidential" e-mails that I find offensive, not the information or content. - paul My apologies Paul for perhaps not making the provenance of the message CRYSTAL clear as I have tried to do above. I was NOT a confidential message **TO ME**. **************************************************************** The COOK Report on Internet Index to 8 years of the COOK Report 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA http://cookreport.com (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) Battle for Cyberspace: How cook@cookreport.com Crucial Technical . . . - 392 pages just published. See http://cookreport.com/ipbattle.shtml ****************************************************************
Hi Paul
1. I am doing what press is HERE to do. *INFORM*
So, it's acceptable to publish a leaked circuit design? Software design? Source code? All those things are marked Company Confidental too... Where does it stop...
2. I am sure you can figure out that this was sent to me by an affected party who wanted it leaked.
That's irrelevant.
3. This concerns the ability of a publicly traded company to give its customers adequate service on the Internet.
PSI is not the Internet. PSI is becoming more and more irrelevant as their customers go elsewhere.
4. Exodus certainly had to tell its content providers that they were gong to face problems in getting to somewhere between 5 and 10% of the Internet.
Is reduced capacity a 'problem' per se? Unless you've got their traffic stats, I don't see how you can make this claim.
5. But Exodus was also embarrassed by the deterioration in its service that it was allowing to be inflicted on its customers. So Exodus, in an attempt to limit the damage, marked the email "customer confidential communication."
Maybe they just don't want to make a public announcement every time a peering arrangement changes, and maybe they don't want to deal with people overreacting over such a change.
6. I am NOT an Exodus customer! And since I am press I have a personally reasonable obligation, should I choose to exercise it, to inform people that some important peering links have been broken.
The fact that you're not an Exodus customer means you shouldn't have received that in the first place; regardless of the 'wishes' of the person that leaked it to you, the intended distribution is quite clear on that message.
7. Exodus has a problem. In marking that customer confidential it appears to me that it was trying to cover up its own problem and I imagine in doing so it was making some already upset customers further upset.
I don't see how an Exodus problem or lack thereof justifies poor ethical behaviour.
8. The sender of the message quite explicitly said I hope the press covers this. Therefore there was not a shred of doubt as to his intent.
So?
In my opinion, if someone chooses to leak it to me, except for my relationship to the leaker, I have no obligation to exodus or anyone else. My default mode of operation has always been to keep the identity of the leaker CONFIDENTIAL. It is a subject of interest to me and I think to list readers. -snip-
If you were truly trying to cover this, in a journalistic sense, why not talk to PSI, and ask them about it? Of late, they've been promoting a supposedly open peering policy...what would make a company that claims to peer with anyone that will drag a line to them sever that connection, or did they? I can think of all sorts of obvious questions to be asking people in both places, and you don't appear to have asked any of them. I think that many of us would have no problem with you reporting the information, had you done so without leaking that notice. Reporting consists of a lot more than leaking confidential information. --msa
Majdi, please lets get something straight. I am a one person organization. I officially publish a 25 to 30 thousand word newsletter every month. I have done so since april 1992. I am my own boss and never denied that I am a bit of a curmudgeon who is not overly respectful of the powers that be. so complaining won't change a thing
If you were truly trying to cover this, in a journalistic sense, why not talk to PSI, and ask them about it?
because I don't have the time to do so.... I have already enough interview material for my next two issues in various states of editing..... I covered the BBN exodus spat of august sept 98 extensively, believe me I am not much interested in covering this one
Of late, they've been promoting a supposedly open peering policy...what would make a company that claims to peer with anyone that will drag a line to them sever that connection, or did they? I can think of all sorts of obvious questions to be asking people in both places, and you don't appear to have asked any of them.
Hey majdi, now that you know there is a problem .....*YOU* can ask them or so can members of the trade press who now at least KNOW about them because i made the information available here
I think that many of us would have no problem with you reporting the information, had you done so without leaking that notice. Reporting consists of a lot more than leaking confidential information.
no kidding majdi, let's drop the ad hominum's ok and return the discussion to the operational status of the net?
--msa
**************************************************************** The COOK Report on Internet Index to 8 years of the COOK Report 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA http://cookreport.com (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) Battle for Cyberspace: How cook@cookreport.com Crucial Technical . . . - 392 pages just published. See http://cookreport.com/ipbattle.shtml ****************************************************************
On Tue, 4 Apr 2000, Gordon Cook wrote:
Majdi, please lets get something straight. I am a one person organization. I officially publish a 25 to 30 thousand word newsletter every month. I have done so since april 1992. I am my own boss and never denied that I am a bit of a curmudgeon who is not overly respectful of the powers that be.
so complaining won't change a thing
Wow. Yaknow, if we treated people who legitimately complain like that, we'd be looking at the world through 6 feet of dirt in short order. I commend your ability to completely defy the laws of customer service. -rt -- Ryan Tucker <rtucker@netacc.net> Network/Systems Administrator NetAccess, Inc. Phone: +1 716 756-5596 3495 Winton Place, Building E, Suite 265, Rochester NY 14623 www.netacc.net
On Tue, 4 Apr 2000, Ryan Tucker wrote: > I commend > your ability to completely defy the laws of customer service. Why, are you one of Gordon's customers? I am, and I don't feel ill-served. I mean, I'm certainly not paying him for his sense of discretion, now am I? -Bill
"Majdi S. Abbas" wrote:
So, it's acceptable to publish a leaked circuit design? Software design? Source code? All those things are marked Company Confidental too... Where does it stop...
In a word, yes! Perhaps you are too young to remember the "Pentagon Papers", car companies suing car magazines, and other examples. Well established case law here. Admittedly, this is the "North American" NOG, and case law elsewhere (China as a recent example) differs considerably, where such a notice might be considered a state secret.
7. Exodus has a problem. In marking that customer confidential it appears to me that it was trying to cover up its own problem and I imagine in doing so it was making some already upset customers further upset.
I don't see how an Exodus problem or lack thereof justifies poor ethical behaviour.
Actually, as a matter of ethics, revealing the circumstances behind a network degradation is considered a "public service", and highly ethical. Cover-ups are unethical. I've just heard that a bill will be introduced in Congress that would exempt outage and security incident reports to government from FOIA. This would be a disaster! Full disclosure is very important.
If you were truly trying to cover this, in a journalistic sense, why not talk to PSI, and ask them about it?
Here, I agree. Good reporting requires thorough investigation.
I think that many of us would have no problem with you reporting the information, had you done so without leaking that notice.
And you would be wrong. The notice is a "primary" source. Weren't you taught in 7th grade to examine primary sources, rather than relying on secondary information? I am glad to have the actual document, rather than a synopsis.
Reporting consists of a lot more than leaking confidential information.
Agreed. Cook is lazy. But not unethical in the case at hand. WSimpson@UMich.edu Key fingerprint = 17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26 DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32
On Tue, 4 Apr 2000, William Allen Simpson wrote:
Actually, as a matter of ethics, revealing the circumstances behind a network degradation is considered a "public service", and highly ethical.
maybe the reason noone posted to nanog or any other list is that there was no network degradation.
Cover-ups are unethical.
did you see a coverup?
If you were truly trying to cover this, in a journalistic sense, why not talk to PSI, and ask them about it?
Here, I agree. Good reporting requires thorough investigation.
correct. you can either leak or you can report. if you are a leaker, be it. if you report, get both sides, take good notes and publish your claims. Christian
I would consider this an outage of sorts, setting the political rhetoric aside, it served everyone well to be informed so they can reroute and adjust their networks with exodus now so that there will be minimal disruption of traffic. William Allen Simpson wrote:
"Majdi S. Abbas" wrote:
So, it's acceptable to publish a leaked circuit design? Software design? Source code? All those things are marked Company Confidental too... Where does it stop...
In a word, yes! Perhaps you are too young to remember the "Pentagon Papers", car companies suing car magazines, and other examples. Well established case law here.
Admittedly, this is the "North American" NOG, and case law elsewhere (China as a recent example) differs considerably, where such a notice might be considered a state secret.
7. Exodus has a problem. In marking that customer confidential it appears to me that it was trying to cover up its own problem and I imagine in doing so it was making some already upset customers further upset.
I don't see how an Exodus problem or lack thereof justifies poor ethical behaviour.
Actually, as a matter of ethics, revealing the circumstances behind a network degradation is considered a "public service", and highly ethical.
Cover-ups are unethical.
I've just heard that a bill will be introduced in Congress that would exempt outage and security incident reports to government from FOIA. This would be a disaster! Full disclosure is very important.
If you were truly trying to cover this, in a journalistic sense, why not talk to PSI, and ask them about it?
Here, I agree. Good reporting requires thorough investigation.
I think that many of us would have no problem with you reporting the information, had you done so without leaking that notice.
And you would be wrong. The notice is a "primary" source. Weren't you taught in 7th grade to examine primary sources, rather than relying on secondary information?
I am glad to have the actual document, rather than a synopsis.
Reporting consists of a lot more than leaking confidential information.
Agreed. Cook is lazy. But not unethical in the case at hand.
WSimpson@UMich.edu Key fingerprint = 17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26 DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32
-- Thank you; |--------------------------------------------| | Thinking is a learned process so is UNIX | |--------------------------------------------| Henry R. Linneweh
On Tue, 4 Apr 2000, Henry R. Linneweh wrote:
I would consider this an outage of sorts, setting the political rhetoric aside, it served everyone well to be informed so they can reroute and adjust their networks with exodus now so that there will be minimal disruption of traffic.
um, i dont understand what you are saying here? Exodus can still route to PSI. Do you just post to be posting? There is no outage. Christian
On Tue, 4 Apr 2000, Henry R. Linneweh wrote:
I would consider this an outage of sorts, setting the political rhetoric aside, it served everyone well to be informed so they can reroute and adjust their networks with exodus now so that there will be minimal disruption of traffic.
hmm, lets try this route-server.exodus.net>show ip route 38.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 Routing entry for 38.0.0.0/8 Known via "bgp 3967", distance 200, metric 0 Tag 1239, type internal Last update from 209.1.220.41 15:48:45 ago Routing Descriptor Blocks: * 209.1.220.41, from 209.1.220.41, 15:48:45 ago Route metric is 0, traffic share count is 1 AS Hops 2, BGP network version 8111131 route-server.exodus.net> exodus still appears to be seeing psinet blocks. /vijay
On Tue, 4 Apr 2000, Vijay Gill wrote:
exodus still appears to be seeing psinet blocks.
Yes, but a more appropriate look would be: route-server.exodus.net>sh ip bgp 38.0.0.0 BGP routing table entry for 38.0.0.0/8, version 8111131 Paths: (8 available, best #1) Not advertised to any peer 1239 174, (aggregated by 174 38.1.3.41) 209.1.220.41 from 209.1.220.41 (209.1.220.41) Origin IGP, localpref 1000, valid, internal, atomic-aggregate, best (All the rest have identical paths) AS 1239 is sprint. HOWEVER, something is fishy here. I remember from the last exodus go around that exodus at that point was paying (I believe) the circuit costs and (definately) NOT doing outbound hot-potato routing (I.E. they were carrying the traffic cross-country both ways). If this is still their standard policy, then I'm not sure why psi would pull the plug. Now, if PSI was paying for the DS3's.... That's a different story. - Forrest W. Christian (forrestc@imach.com) KD7EHZ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iMach, Ltd., P.O. Box 5749, Helena, MT 59604 http://www.imach.com Solutions for your high-tech problems. (406)-442-6648 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill, You raise some good points, and I'm the first to admit I don't have all the answers. That disclaimer made, let me confuse the discussion some more. My concerns relate to the issue of full disclosure versus process improvement. [snip comments about confidentiality case law.]
7. Exodus has a problem. In marking that customer confidential it appears to me that it was trying to cover up its own problem and I imagine in doing so it was making some already upset customers further upset.
I don't see how an Exodus problem or lack thereof justifies poor ethical behaviour.
Actually, as a matter of ethics, revealing the circumstances behind a network degradation is considered a "public service", and highly ethical.
Cover-ups are unethical.
I've done a lot of medical work, and seen both coverups and serious attempts at internal self-policing. There's a current debate about opening the National Practitioner Data Base to the public. The problem is that legal and market models don't necessarily improve the process. There is an incredible amount of defensive medicine that guards against non-issues that still don't sound good in court. Case in point: a malpractice attorney can make a physician look like a total idiot by thundering "you didn't take an X-ray of my client's skull after his car accident?" This patient was showing no symptoms. Several large studies have demonstrated that in the absence of actual symptoms of neurologic impairment, plain skull films have probably never picked up anything that the examination missed. CT scanning does have more sensitivity for things missed in exams, but you are talking about a procedure costing $400-800 as opposed to $75 for plain films. Analogies are always suspect, but it worries me that some lawyer could thunder, in court, that a provider was negligent because they didn't log every packet.
I've just heard that a bill will be introduced in Congress that would exempt outage and security incident reports to government from FOIA. This would be a disaster! Full disclosure is very important.
Look at the FAA system where there is immunity for reporting near-misses. The intention is to fix the problem rather than assign guilt. What is the right balance between operational realities and the danger of malpractice actions, or of sales using incident data out of context to prove "my ISP is better?" No simple answers, I'm afraid. I shudder to remember the Large Mercenary Bank that, when told that BGP would not give them load sharing at the granularity of single servers, responded "Clearly you aren't worth what we pay you. Please give us the phone number of the person in charge of the Internet." That's not an un-representative customer.
4. Exodus certainly had to tell its content providers that they were gong to face problems in getting to somewhere between 5 and 10% of the Internet.
I guess this just depends on whether Exodus has any transit or not, and whether it's already congested. Given that the new BGP path from Exodus to PSI (as posted earlier) is only one hop longer, is it really going to cause *that* many problems to Exodus' customers? Simon -- Simon Lockhart | Tel: +44 (0)1737 839676 Internet Engineering Manager | Fax: +44 (0)1737 839516 BBC Internet Services | Email: Simon.Lockhart@bbc.co.uk Kingswood Warren,Tadworth,Surrey,UK | URL: http://support.bbc.co.uk/
On Tue, Apr 04, 2000 at 08:10:39AM +0100, Simon Lockhart wrote:
4. Exodus certainly had to tell its content providers that they were gong to face problems in getting to somewhere between 5 and 10% of the Internet.
I guess this just depends on whether Exodus has any transit or not, and whether it's already congested.
Given that the new BGP path from Exodus to PSI (as posted earlier) is only one hop longer, is it really going to cause *that* many problems to Exodus' customers?
When I checked going to www.psi.net, I had several hops inside of Sprintlink with 10-30% packet loss. So, yes, I would say it causes problems.
Simon -- Simon Lockhart | Tel: +44 (0)1737 839676 Internet Engineering Manager | Fax: +44 (0)1737 839516 BBC Internet Services | Email: Simon.Lockhart@bbc.co.uk Kingswood Warren,Tadworth,Surrey,UK | URL: http://support.bbc.co.uk/
-- Regards, Ulf. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ulf Zimmermann, 1525 Pacific Ave., Alameda, CA-94501, #: 510-769-2936 Alameda Networks, Inc. | http://www.Alameda.net | Fax#: 510-521-5073
When I checked going to www.psi.net, I had several hops inside of Sprintlink with 10-30% packet loss. So, yes, I would say it causes problems.
$ date Tue Apr 4 14:34:42 PDT 2000 $ traceroute nisc.psi.net traceroute to nisc.psi.net (38.8.136.2), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 216.32.113.130 (216.32.113.130) 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 2 scca-21-f2-1-0.core.exodus.net (209.185.84.81) 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 3 bbr01-g3-0.sntc03.exodus.net (216.33.153.65) 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 4 bbr01-p6-0.sntc02.exodus.net (216.32.132.42) 1 ms 1 ms * 5 bbr02-p3-0.elsg01.exodus.net (209.185.249.218) 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 6 ibr01-g5-0.elsg01.exodus.net (216.34.192.37) 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 7 sl-gw15-ana-7-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.192.37) 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms 8 sl-bb12-ana-4-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.1.161) 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms 9 sl-bb10-ana-10-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.1.129) 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms 10 sl-bb12-fw-7-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.9.250) 36 ms 36 ms 36 ms 11 sl-bb11-pen-7-2.sprintlink.net (144.232.9.237) 78 ms 78 ms 78 ms 12 sl-bb13-pen-9-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.5.234) 78 ms 78 ms 78 ms 13 204.6.140.182 (204.6.140.182) 82 ms 83 ms 93 ms 14 38.1.10.23 (38.1.10.23) 92 ms 93 ms 97 ms 15 ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2) 99 ms * 100 ms $ /usr/sbin/ping -s 38.8.136.2 PING 38.8.136.2: 56 data bytes 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=0. time=102. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=1. time=105. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=2. time=103. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=3. time=96. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=4. time=101. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=5. time=105. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=6. time=102. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=7. time=106. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=8. time=96. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=9. time=106. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=10. time=101. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=11. time=108. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=12. time=95. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=13. time=100. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=14. time=106. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=15. time=99. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=16. time=97. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=17. time=103. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=18. time=106. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=19. time=101. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=20. time=104. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=21. time=107. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=22. time=103. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=23. time=96. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=24. time=103. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=25. time=95. ms ^C ----38.8.136.2 PING Statistics---- 26 packets transmitted, 26 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 95/101/108
Speaking of leaks... drip drip drip: -c-u-t- Subject: [Ticket Modified: # xxxx] High latency to/from PSI Detailed Information: -------------------- Date: Tue Apr 4 13:39:43 PDT 2000 Sprint continues to investigate PSI's capacity issues. Date: Sat Apr 1 14:24:01 PST 2000 Customers see high latency trying to reach sites on PSI thru Sprint. We are contacting Sprint -c-u-t- At least engineering and marketing both see this as PSI's problem... Charles | Charles Sprickman | Internet Channel | INCH System Administration Team | (212)243-5200 | spork@inch.com | access@inch.com On Tue, 4 Apr 2000, Mark Kent wrote:
When I checked going to www.psi.net, I had several hops inside of Sprintlink with 10-30% packet loss. So, yes, I would say it causes problems.
$ date Tue Apr 4 14:34:42 PDT 2000 $ traceroute nisc.psi.net traceroute to nisc.psi.net (38.8.136.2), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 216.32.113.130 (216.32.113.130) 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 2 scca-21-f2-1-0.core.exodus.net (209.185.84.81) 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 3 bbr01-g3-0.sntc03.exodus.net (216.33.153.65) 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 4 bbr01-p6-0.sntc02.exodus.net (216.32.132.42) 1 ms 1 ms * 5 bbr02-p3-0.elsg01.exodus.net (209.185.249.218) 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 6 ibr01-g5-0.elsg01.exodus.net (216.34.192.37) 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 7 sl-gw15-ana-7-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.192.37) 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms 8 sl-bb12-ana-4-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.1.161) 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms 9 sl-bb10-ana-10-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.1.129) 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms 10 sl-bb12-fw-7-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.9.250) 36 ms 36 ms 36 ms 11 sl-bb11-pen-7-2.sprintlink.net (144.232.9.237) 78 ms 78 ms 78 ms 12 sl-bb13-pen-9-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.5.234) 78 ms 78 ms 78 ms 13 204.6.140.182 (204.6.140.182) 82 ms 83 ms 93 ms 14 38.1.10.23 (38.1.10.23) 92 ms 93 ms 97 ms 15 ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2) 99 ms * 100 ms $ /usr/sbin/ping -s 38.8.136.2 PING 38.8.136.2: 56 data bytes 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=0. time=102. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=1. time=105. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=2. time=103. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=3. time=96. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=4. time=101. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=5. time=105. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=6. time=102. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=7. time=106. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=8. time=96. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=9. time=106. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=10. time=101. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=11. time=108. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=12. time=95. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=13. time=100. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=14. time=106. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=15. time=99. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=16. time=97. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=17. time=103. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=18. time=106. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=19. time=101. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=20. time=104. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=21. time=107. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=22. time=103. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=23. time=96. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=24. time=103. ms 64 bytes from ftp.psi.net (38.8.136.2): icmp_seq=25. time=95. ms ^C ----38.8.136.2 PING Statistics---- 26 packets transmitted, 26 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 95/101/108
From the consumer perspective.
Of course the one piece of information (peering status and utilization) that would be good indicator of capacity of a ISP is always held as confidential. Thank god people work around the rules to let customers and perspective customers know the truth about peering status. Personally I am ready for government to step in and force public reporting of peering capacity and utilization. Gordon keep doing what you do. There is large group nanog and Cook report readers that depend on you for to get facts as opposed to the glossy marketing version of facts. - Dustin - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gordon Cook" <cook@cookreport.com> To: "Paul Ferguson" <ferguson@cisco.com> Cc: <nanog@merit.edu> Sent: Tuesday, April 04, 2000 12:15 AM Subject: Re: peering wars revisited? PSI vs Exodus
Hi Paul
1. I am doing what press is HERE to do. *INFORM*
2. I am sure you can figure out that this was sent to me by an affected party who wanted it leaked.
3. This concerns the ability of a publicly traded company to give its customers adequate service on the Internet.
4. Exodus certainly had to tell its content providers that they were gong to face problems in getting to somewhere between 5 and 10% of the Internet.
5. But Exodus was also embarrassed by the deterioration in its service that it was allowing to be inflicted on its customers. So Exodus, in an attempt to limit the damage, marked the email "customer confidential communication."
6. I am NOT an Exodus customer! And since I am press I have a personally reasonable obligation, should I choose to exercise it, to inform people that some important peering links have been broken.
7. Exodus has a problem. In marking that customer confidential it appears to me that it was trying to cover up its own problem and I imagine in doing so it was making some already upset customers further upset.
8. The sender of the message quite explicitly said I hope the press covers this. Therefore there was not a shred of doubt as to his intent.
In my opinion, if someone chooses to leak it to me, except for my relationship to the leaker, I have no obligation to exodus or anyone else. My default mode of operation has always been to keep the identity of the leaker CONFIDENTIAL. It is a subject of interest to me and I think to list readers. I have been around for a LONG time Paul, and while I must say that I respect you and your contributions to this industry, I also must say that here your accusations miss the mark.
At 10:15 PM 04/03/2000 -0400, Alex Rubenstein wrote:
Because one party -- the originator -- marks an electronic communique as a confidential communication, does that really require the reciever to keep it confidential?
Professional courtesy.
No, I have no obligation of professional courtesy to exodus what so ever
Hmm, I forgot to put the sentence in about 'how it would be ethical for people to honor it.'...
Fortunately, there are still quite a few folks who still honor professional & personal ethics. Unfortunately, there are many who do not.
Paul, sorry, you put this in entirely inappropriate clothing....see my points above.
- paul
A bit later Paul added
For the masses, now:
It is the forwarding of "private" or "confidential" e-mails that I find offensive, not the information or content.
- paul
My apologies Paul for perhaps not making the provenance of the message CRYSTAL clear as I have tried to do above.
I was NOT a confidential message **TO ME**.
**************************************************************** The COOK Report on Internet Index to 8 years of the COOK Report 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA http://cookreport.com (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) Battle for Cyberspace: How cook@cookreport.com Crucial Technical . . . - 392
pages
just published. See http://cookreport.com/ipbattle.shtml ****************************************************************
On Tue, Apr 04, 2000 at 12:15:24AM -0400, Gordon Cook wrote:
else. My default mode of operation has always been to keep the identity of the leaker CONFIDENTIAL. It is a subject of interest to
So publishing the leaked note verbatim doesn't strike you as possibly disclosing the identity of the leaker to the company that had it leaked? It seems to me that it would be trivia for exodus or any other company to insert uniquely identifying phrases or misspellings, or whatever... -- John Payne jcapayne@att.com OpenNet Infrastructure Team, AT&T Global Network Services Mailpt C2E, c/o IBM North Harbour, PO Box 41 Portsmouth, PO6 3AU Tel - +44 (0)23 9256 1977, Fax - 23 9221 0543
On Tue, Apr 04, 2000, John Payne wrote:
On Tue, Apr 04, 2000 at 12:15:24AM -0400, Gordon Cook wrote:
else. My default mode of operation has always been to keep the identity of the leaker CONFIDENTIAL. It is a subject of interest to
So publishing the leaked note verbatim doesn't strike you as possibly disclosing the identity of the leaker to the company that had it leaked?
It seems to me that it would be trivia for exodus or any other company to insert uniquely identifying phrases or misspellings, or whatever...
Its the leaker's risk. Adrian
On Mon, Apr 03, 2000 at 10:06:54PM -0400, Alex Rubenstein wrote:
Interesting you should bring this up.
Because one party -- the originator -- marks an electronic communique as a confidential communication, does that really require the reciever to keep it confidential?
And I found that forward very interesting, as we did not get that info and its very valuable for us to know.
Also, it's not hard to see this:
route-server.exodus.net>sho ip bgp 38.0.0.0 BGP routing table entry for 38.0.0.0/8, version 7807819 Paths: (8 available, best #6) Not advertised to any peer 1239 174, (aggregated by 174 38.1.3.39) 209.1.220.107 from 209.1.220.107 (209.1.220.107) Origin IGP, localpref 1000, valid, internal, atomic-aggregate Community: 1239:1110 3967:31337
(anyone else notice the comedy of '31337'?)
On Mon, 3 Apr 2000, Paul Ferguson wrote:
At 09:27 PM 04/03/2000 -0400, Gordon Cook wrote:
surprised not to see this mentioned on NANOG
Sent: Friday, March 31, 2000 To: Notify Subject: Exodus Customer Confidential Communication
Gordon,
Does the word "confidential" elude you?
- paul
-- Regards, Ulf. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ulf Zimmermann, 1525 Pacific Ave., Alameda, CA-94501, #: 510-769-2936 Alameda Networks, Inc. | http://www.Alameda.net | Fax#: 510-521-5073
At 08:31 PM 04/03/2000 -0700, Ulf Zimmermann wrote:
And I found that forward very interesting, as we did not get that info and its very valuable for us to know.
For the masses, now: It is the forwarding of "private" or "confidential" e-mails that I find offensive, not the information or content. - paul
On Mon, 3 Apr 2000, Paul Ferguson wrote:
At 08:31 PM 04/03/2000 -0700, Ulf Zimmermann wrote:
And I found that forward very interesting, as we did not get that info and its very valuable for us to know.
For the masses, now:
It is the forwarding of "private" or "confidential" e-mails that I find offensive, not the information or content.
I find it equally offensive that the information itself was label private. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Patrick Greenwell Earth is a single point of failure. \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Unless Gordon is an Exodus customer I'll assume he was sent the communique' by an Exodus customer. There's probably some truck with that customer, but if Gordon is only acting in his role as a reporter then, well, short of creating an imminent threat to someone's life (like revealing the whereabouts of someone in a witness protection program) or libel or a few other similar kinds of problems generally reporters report if they think something is newsworthy. Put another way, just about half of everything one generally finds interesting, from the white house's handling of certain emails to what the tobacco companies tried to do to thwart suits against them was once marked confidential. Almost everything interesting gets marked confidential. Put yet another way; If one's only plan is to mark a letter sent out to every customer (what? hundreds?) as marked "customer confidential" and hope that oughta stop it from getting out and that everyone who receives it agrees that it's in their best interest, or ethics, to go along with that confidentiality, then I think they need another plan. Sure, some things, like being let in on some cool products coming down the pike (or 128) and then running to the press would be pretty unsavory. But finding out that there some kind of internecine warfare going on between the vendor you're probably married to (technically, contractually) and some other vendor which is going to change the quality of your service and deciding that if this was brought out into the open, quickly, is a better thing to do with this memo doesn't shock me. Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe someone else is, but if something "company confidential" falls into the hands of a reporter it's generally not confidential for long if it's interesting. And that's not usually considered unethical on the part of the reporter unless as I said someone's life is in danger in some real and immediate way (and not metaphorically.) [spare me the wild analogies like violating a govt secrets act, we're talking about a lousy company confidential memo to customers not atom bomb secrets] On April 3, 2000 at 23:41 ferguson@cisco.com (Paul Ferguson) wrote:
At 08:31 PM 04/03/2000 -0700, Ulf Zimmermann wrote:
And I found that forward very interesting, as we did not get that info and its very valuable for us to know.
For the masses, now:
It is the forwarding of "private" or "confidential" e-mails that I find offensive, not the information or content.
- paul
-- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | bzs@world.std.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD The World | Public Access Internet | Since 1989 *oo*
On Tue, Apr 04, 2000 at 05:45:46PM -0400, Barry Shein wrote:
Unless Gordon is an Exodus customer I'll assume he was sent the communique' by an Exodus customer. There's probably some truck with that customer, but if Gordon is only acting in his role as a reporter then, well, short of creating an imminent threat to someone's life (like revealing the whereabouts of someone in a witness protection program) or libel or a few other similar kinds of problems generally reporters report if they think something is newsworthy.
Put another way, just about half of everything one generally finds interesting, from the white house's handling of certain emails to what the tobacco companies tried to do to thwart suits against them was once marked confidential. Almost everything interesting gets marked confidential.
Put yet another way; If one's only plan is to mark a letter sent out to every customer (what? hundreds?) as marked "customer confidential" and hope that oughta stop it from getting out and that everyone who receives it agrees that it's in their best interest, or ethics, to go along with that confidentiality, then I think they need another plan.
And I can only repeat, I found it very interesting to see, because I did not receive that letter. But I am the one who gets asked if our customers have problems reaching us.
Sure, some things, like being let in on some cool products coming down the pike (or 128) and then running to the press would be pretty unsavory.
But finding out that there some kind of internecine warfare going on between the vendor you're probably married to (technically, contractually) and some other vendor which is going to change the quality of your service and deciding that if this was brought out into the open, quickly, is a better thing to do with this memo doesn't shock me.
Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe someone else is, but if something "company confidential" falls into the hands of a reporter it's generally not confidential for long if it's interesting. And that's not usually considered unethical on the part of the reporter unless as I said someone's life is in danger in some real and immediate way (and not metaphorically.)
[spare me the wild analogies like violating a govt secrets act, we're talking about a lousy company confidential memo to customers not atom bomb secrets]
On April 3, 2000 at 23:41 ferguson@cisco.com (Paul Ferguson) wrote:
At 08:31 PM 04/03/2000 -0700, Ulf Zimmermann wrote:
And I found that forward very interesting, as we did not get that info and its very valuable for us to know.
For the masses, now:
It is the forwarding of "private" or "confidential" e-mails that I find offensive, not the information or content.
- paul
-- -Barry Shein
Software Tool & Die | bzs@world.std.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD The World | Public Access Internet | Since 1989 *oo*
-- Regards, Ulf. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ulf Zimmermann, 1525 Pacific Ave., Alameda, CA-94501, #: 510-769-2936 Alameda Networks, Inc. | http://www.Alameda.net | Fax#: 510-521-5073
At 10:06 PM 4/3/2000 -0400, you wrote:
Interesting you should bring this up.
Because one party -- the originator -- marks an electronic communique as a confidential communication, does that really require the reciever to keep it confidential?
Not in the United States. But, of course, IANAL.
On Mon, 03 Apr 2000 21:47:50 EDT, Paul Ferguson said:
At 09:27 PM 04/03/2000 -0400, Gordon Cook wrote:
surprised not to see this mentioned on NANOG
Sent: Friday, March 31, 2000 To: Notify Subject: Exodus Customer Confidential Communication Gordon,
Does the word "confidential" elude you?
- paul
In Gordon's defense (I feel like the ACLU here ;), (a) Yes, professional courtesy does usually respect a "confidential" label. However, you have to remember that Gordon has been acting as a whistleblower for quite some time, and if Gordon hadn't posted it, there'd be a lot of people pondering the lack of BGP announcements and labelling it "just another screw-up" rather than a actual deliberate action. (b) By the time Gordon posted it, the announced disconnect time had already passed by several days. (c) I am *hoping* that the Exodus message was mistaken when it said that "*all* connectivity" would be lost - PSI isn't *really* dropping all packets on the floor if they happen to have come from an Exodus-connected network, even if they are arriving via a PSI-Sprint or whatever peering? If it's merely "PSI refuses to peer directly with Exodus", that's one thing. If PSI is also refusing packets carried by some other 3rd party that PSI and Exodus both peer with, or alternate routing is failing for some other reason, that's a lot worse. Does anybody know definitively what the REAL story is? Valdis Kletnieks Operating Systems Analyst Virginia Tech
On 4 Apr 00, at 0:34, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
If it's merely "PSI refuses to peer directly with Exodus", that's one thing. If PSI is also refusing packets carried by some other 3rd party that PSI and Exodus both peer with, or alternate routing is failing for some other reason, that's a lot worse.
Does anybody know definitively what the REAL story is?
Valdis Kletnieks Operating Systems Analyst Virginia Tech
Here's a non-confidential document which may be relevant: http://www.psinet.com/carrier-isp/transitandpeering.html Note the cost-sharing arrangement built into this peering policy. Maybe this is somehow related to the parting of ways between PSI and Exodus.
On Mon, 03 Apr 2000 21:47:50 -0400 Paul Ferguson wrote:
surprised not to see this mentioned on NANOG
Sent: Friday, March 31, 2000 To: Notify Subject: Exodus Customer Confidential Communication
Gordon,
Does the word "confidential" elude you?
- paul
Golly Paul, I would not have guessed you would have taken this position. If a tobacco company marks a collusion document "CONFIDENTIAL", should the press not report it? If a Waco report is market "Top Secret", should the press not report it? If Boeing has a flawed design, should the press not report it? There is a fair amount of evidence that an unruly and discourteous press is a profound good for society.... regards, fletcher P.S. "Scandal-Monger", Safire, William, 2000
On Tue, 4 Apr 2000, Fletcher E Kittredge wrote:
Golly Paul, I would not have guessed you would have taken this position.
If a tobacco company marks a collusion document "CONFIDENTIAL", should the press not report it?
If a Waco report is market "Top Secret", should the press not report it?
If Boeing has a flawed design, should the press not report it?
There is a fair amount of evidence that an unruly and discourteous press is a profound good for society....
I am sorry gordon, i have a hard time seeing how something killing people is the same as peering. Christian
I am sorry Christian but if you cared enough to read the message to which you are posting you would see that I am not taking part in this conversation
On Tue, 4 Apr 2000, Fletcher E Kittredge wrote:
Golly Paul, I would not have guessed you would have taken this position.
If a tobacco company marks a collusion document "CONFIDENTIAL", should the press not report it?
If a Waco report is market "Top Secret", should the press not report it?
If Boeing has a flawed design, should the press not report it?
There is a fair amount of evidence that an unruly and discourteous press is a profound good for society....
I am sorry gordon, i have a hard time seeing how something killing people is the same as peering.
Christian
**************************************************************** The COOK Report on Internet Index to 8 years of the COOK Report 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA http://cookreport.com (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) Battle for Cyberspace: How cook@cookreport.com Crucial Technical . . . - 392 pages just published. See http://cookreport.com/ipbattle.shtml ****************************************************************
On Tue, 4 Apr 2000, Gordon Cook wrote:
I am sorry Christian but if you cared enough to read the message to which you are posting you would see that I am not taking part in this conversation
My mistake... Gordon did not write the statement below. I apologize to Gordon for making the statement. but in any case, this is peering issues... not a death issue
On Tue, 4 Apr 2000, Fletcher E Kittredge wrote:
Golly Paul, I would not have guessed you would have taken this position.
If a tobacco company marks a collusion document "CONFIDENTIAL", should the press not report it?
If a Waco report is market "Top Secret", should the press not report it?
If Boeing has a flawed design, should the press not report it?
There is a fair amount of evidence that an unruly and discourteous press is a profound good for society....
I am sorry gordon, i have a hard time seeing how something killing people is the same as peering.
Christian
**************************************************************** The COOK Report on Internet Index to 8 years of the COOK Report 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA http://cookreport.com (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) Battle for Cyberspace: How cook@cookreport.com Crucial Technical . . . - 392 pages just published. See http://cookreport.com/ipbattle.shtml ****************************************************************
On Tue, 4 Apr 2000, Christian Nielsen wrote: > but in any case, this is peering issues... not a death issue Life is cheap; peering is precious. :-) -Bill
This argument is specious. Gordon isn't press. Well, garlic press maybe. Ehud p.s. "press credentials" are not hard to fake, but ask Gordon for his
On Mon, 03 Apr 2000 21:47:50 -0400 Paul Ferguson wrote:
surprised not to see this mentioned on NANOG
Sent: Friday, March 31, 2000 To: Notify Subject: Exodus Customer Confidential Communication
Gordon,
Does the word "confidential" elude you?
- paul
Golly Paul, I would not have guessed you would have taken this position.
If a tobacco company marks a collusion document "CONFIDENTIAL", should the press not report it?
If a Waco report is market "Top Secret", should the press not report it?
If Boeing has a flawed design, should the press not report it?
There is a fair amount of evidence that an unruly and discourteous press is a profound good for society....
regards, fletcher P.S. "Scandal-Monger", Safire, William, 2000
My Credentials are right there on my web site Ehud. Since March of 1992 I have reported in far more depth than any one else on the key developments that have shaped the growth of internet infrastructure. Except for some consulting it is my sole source of income and has been for more than 8 years. Let me name a partial list to be found at http://cookreport.com/past_issues.shtml. 2000 - so far Stan Hanks ( Enron - Commodity Bandwidth Trading), Kathy Nichols (Cisco), Ira Brodsky ( Datacom Research), Sean Doran & Frode Greisen (Global Telesystems), Francois Menard, Jjohnathan Rosenburg (Dynamic Soft) 1999 Jay Adelson (Equinix), Joe Berthold (Cienna), Rob Bednareck (PanAm sat), Jack Terry (Etherloop), Wayne Price (Williams Communications), Jim Southworth (Concentric), Bob Collet (TeleGlobe), John Curran (NextLink), Ross Callon (Ironbridge), Farooq Hussain, Dave Farber, Tony Li (juniper), Rick Wilder, MCI, Chris locke (Cluetrain), Derrek Oppen and Ken Smith (Nortel) Desh Despande (Sycamore Networks), Francois Menard (Mediatrix), David Oran (Cisco) 1998 VJ Kumar ( Lucent), Henry Sinnreich (MCI), Tom Evslin (ITXC), Steve Bellovin (ATT) , John Plonka (Frontier Gobal Center), Ira Magaziner, john Curran (BBN), Jim Bound (DEV IPv6) Christian Huitema, John Quarterman, Richard shockey, Bill St Arnaud, Nayel Shaffei, Vint Cerf, Iakov Rekhter, Tony Rutkowski, PaulFerguson, Dave Hughes, Jerry Scharf (ISC) 1997, Randy Bush (Verio), Bob Moskowitz, john Curran, jeff Sedayao (intel), KC Claffy and Tracie Monk, David Holub, Barbara Dooley (Cix) Hank Kilmer (sprint), Tony Bates, Noel Chiappa, Scot Bradner, Paul Mockepetris, Craig Labovitz (merit), Fred Baker, Vint Cerf, Bob Moskowitz april 92 -1996 at http://cookreport.com/past_issuesold.shtml I'll stand on those credentials Ehud. i don't do sound bytes. These are in depth explorations on the average length of 10,000 words and interview You might want to read the entire thread before you sound off again.
This argument is specious. Gordon isn't press. Well, garlic press maybe.
Ehud p.s. "press credentials" are not hard to fake, but ask Gordon for his
**************************************************************** The COOK Report on Internet Index to 8 years of the COOK Report 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA http://cookreport.com (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) Battle for Cyberspace: How cook@cookreport.com Crucial Technical . . . - 392 pages just published. See http://cookreport.com/ipbattle.shtml ****************************************************************
So like I said. You're not press. You're a leech. Gordon, I've been around before your swill, and I'll be around after you're done in your leeching ground. Your list of people below are already emailing me to say "no no, we just gave him info" You're not journalist. E
My Credentials are right there on my web site Ehud. Since March of 1992 I have reported in far more depth than any one else on the key developments that have shaped the growth of internet infrastructure. Except for some consulting it is my sole source of income and has been for more than 8 years.
Let me name a partial list to be found at http://cookreport.com/past_issues.shtml.
2000 - so far Stan Hanks ( Enron - Commodity Bandwidth Trading), Kathy Nichols (Cisco), Ira Brodsky ( Datacom Research), Sean Doran & Frode Greisen (Global Telesystems), Francois Menard, Jjohnathan Rosenburg (Dynamic Soft)
1999 Jay Adelson (Equinix), Joe Berthold (Cienna), Rob Bednareck (PanAm sat), Jack Terry (Etherloop), Wayne Price (Williams Communications), Jim Southworth (Concentric), Bob Collet (TeleGlobe), John Curran (NextLink), Ross Callon (Ironbridge), Farooq Hussain, Dave Farber, Tony Li (juniper), Rick Wilder, MCI, Chris locke (Cluetrain), Derrek Oppen and Ken Smith (Nortel) Desh Despande (Sycamore Networks), Francois Menard (Mediatrix), David Oran (Cisco)
1998 VJ Kumar ( Lucent), Henry Sinnreich (MCI), Tom Evslin (ITXC), Steve Bellovin (ATT) , John Plonka (Frontier Gobal Center), Ira Magaziner, john Curran (BBN), Jim Bound (DEV IPv6) Christian Huitema, John Quarterman, Richard shockey, Bill St Arnaud, Nayel Shaffei, Vint Cerf, Iakov Rekhter, Tony Rutkowski, PaulFerguson, Dave Hughes, Jerry Scharf (ISC)
1997, Randy Bush (Verio), Bob Moskowitz, john Curran, jeff Sedayao (intel), KC Claffy and Tracie Monk, David Holub, Barbara Dooley (Cix) Hank Kilmer (sprint), Tony Bates, Noel Chiappa, Scot Bradner, Paul Mockepetris, Craig Labovitz (merit), Fred Baker, Vint Cerf, Bob Moskowitz
april 92 -1996 at http://cookreport.com/past_issuesold.shtml
I'll stand on those credentials Ehud. i don't do sound bytes. These are in depth explorations on the average length of 10,000 words and interview You might want to read the entire thread before you sound off again.
This argument is specious. Gordon isn't press. Well, garlic press maybe.
Ehud p.s. "press credentials" are not hard to fake, but ask Gordon for his
**************************************************************** The COOK Report on Internet Index to 8 years of the COOK Report 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA http://cookreport.com (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) Battle for Cyberspace: How cook@cookreport.com Crucial Technical . . . - 392 pages just published. See http://cookreport.com/ipbattle.shtml ****************************************************************
On Tue, 04 Apr 2000 21:16:55 PDT, Ehud Gavron said:
Your list of people below are already emailing me to say "no no, we just gave him info"
You're not journalist.
(I'm assuming here that Gordon starts off with "Hi, I'm Gordon Cook, with the Cook Report", and not social-engineering with false names etc ;) Umm.. given the list of names for 1998 through 2000, and the fact that I *know* that at least some of them were aware of what Gordon writes when they gave him info, I think it's safe to conclude that at least a good fraction of Gordon's listed sources were giving him information fully aware of where it was going to end up. If you tell somebody info knowing it's going into a well-publicized newsletter, you're talking to a journalist. It may not be Tom Brokaw, but it's a journalist. ;) I have to admit, the last time I dealt with a news agency, nobody bothered asking for credentials. Had something to do with the fact that they pulled up in a van that had 'News 7' on the side, started off with "Hi, I'm from News 7, here to talk to the director about the recent FCC bandwidth auction", and they had video cameras and employee badges and everything to match. So.. *should* I have asked for more ID before I pointed them at the right office? And more importantly, how is said ID implemented on the Internet? I don't think they tattoo 'Journalist' on your head when you get licenced, and I'd not trust a JPEG of a picture - it's too easy to fake with Photoshop. ;) Now let's face it guys: 1) Gordon's a journalist, or what passes for one 2) We're stuck with him Valdis Kletnieks Operating Systems Analyst Virginia Tech
On Tue, 04 Apr 2000 21:16:55 PDT, Ehud Gavron said:
Your list of people below are already emailing me to say "no no, we just gave him info"
You're not journalist.
(I'm assuming here that Gordon starts off with "Hi, I'm Gordon Cook, with the Cook Report", and not social-engineering with false names etc ;)
Umm.. given the list of names for 1998 through 2000, and the fact that I *know* that at least some of them were aware of what Gordon writes when they gave him info,
my web pages have been there since early 95....and any one is free to read executive summaries of interviews that often are as long as complete trade press interviews. Further more I have always had a rule that a formal interviewee will have no surprises. I tape the interview and assure the person interviewed that he or she will get a draft asciii copy of what i propose to publish and have seven days to read that copy an return it to me with any mistakes or technical errors corrected and within reason things rephrased if the interviewee feels that he or she can say them better. The interviews are 95% with technical folk on technical subjects. They get assurance that if they wind up saying something inaccurate, they have only themselves to blame. but all my interviewees know exactly what they are getting into and their comfort level seems quite high. I know full well that the trade press and commercial news press would never let a subject of an article see what is going to be published ahead of time.... they are welcome to do it their way.... I do it mine and will continue to.... the market seems to like it fine and in getting people to discuss complex topics in great detail, the comfort level I give seems to be a win win factor for both sides. I exert ultimate editorial control... If someone ignores the seven day deadline I publish without feedback....if marketing gets a hold of the technical interview and paints it full of marketing hyperbole, I will spend hours if need be striping the marketing accretion off the technical text. About 97% of the interviews go quite smoothly and the market seems to find it appropriate because I am still in business. As one person complained to a colleague that my stuff was long and took a while to read the colleague said look..... you simply aren't going to get key things he covers at that level of detail anywhere else....depth and detail is my niche. But also this discussion IS WAY OFF THE NANOG TOPIC OF THE OPERATIONAL STATE OF THE INTERNET AND I SUSPECT A LOT OF FOLKS WOULD LIKE IT TO END. night all
I think it's safe to conclude that at least a good fraction of Gordon's listed sources were giving him information fully aware of where it was going to end up. If you tell somebody info knowing it's going into a well-publicized newsletter, you're talking to a journalist. It may not be Tom Brokaw, but it's a journalist. ;)
I have to admit, the last time I dealt with a news agency, nobody bothered asking for credentials. Had something to do with the fact that they pulled up in a van that had 'News 7' on the side, started off with "Hi, I'm from News 7, here to talk to the director about the recent FCC bandwidth auction", and they had video cameras and employee badges and everything to match.
So.. *should* I have asked for more ID before I pointed them at the right office? And more importantly, how is said ID implemented on the Internet? I don't think they tattoo 'Journalist' on your head when you get licenced, and I'd not trust a JPEG of a picture - it's too easy to fake with Photoshop. ;)
Now let's face it guys:
1) Gordon's a journalist, or what passes for one 2) We're stuck with him
Valdis Kletnieks Operating Systems Analyst Virginia Tech
**************************************************************** The COOK Report on Internet Index to 8 years of the COOK Report 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA http://cookreport.com (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) Battle for Cyberspace: How cook@cookreport.com Crucial Technical . . . - 392 pages just published. See http://cookreport.com/ipbattle.shtml ****************************************************************
Gordon; /*---------------------snip--------------------*/ Didn't you start the cook report originally in high school, and now continue to provide it? Do you get paid money for your free lance journalism? -- Thank you; |--------------------------------------------| | Thinking is a learned process so is UNIX | |--------------------------------------------| Henry R. Linneweh
On Wed, 05 Apr 2000 00:45:46 PDT, "Henry R. Linneweh" said:
Do you get paid money for your free lance journalism?
Actually, by definition, free lance stringers only get paid if/when they manage to sell something. If they're paid even when not producing, they're employees, not free lance. ;) You might want to ask your local paper what percent of their content comes from free lancers. It may be surprisingly high, especially for smaller newspapers. You don't want to go there, or I'll be forced to ask what percent of the IETF gets paid specifically for doing it (as opposed to doing it on a volunteer basis, or managing to do it on company time only because you're both writing the RFC and developing the product at the same time). Does the lack of pay there mean the RFC is worthless? "Paid money" is a very skewed metric of actual value in today's society, as anybody who's looked at sports star salaries can tell you.
Are these cheap shots? I mean, while Gorodn may be annoying at times, his ignorance of confidentiality clauses makes me happy, in some ways. To me, confidentialty and 'The internet' are mutually exclusive. But, anyway, petty insults are really stupid, and get nothing done; keep it private if you must resort to being a 4 year old. On Wed, 5 Apr 2000, Henry R. Linneweh wrote:
Gordon; /*---------------------snip--------------------*/
Didn't you start the cook report originally in high school, and now continue to provide it?
Do you get paid money for your free lance journalism?
-- Thank you; |--------------------------------------------| | Thinking is a learned process so is UNIX | |--------------------------------------------| Henry R. Linneweh
At 05:58 PM 04/05/2000 -0400, Alex Rubenstein wrote:
To me, confidentialty and 'The internet' are mutually exclusive.
Sure -- "confidentiality" and "traffic-in-the-clear-in-the-Internet" are indeed mutually exclusive. Business practices, on the other hand (which is what people are building around the Internet these days), and confidentiality, are not. Let's be celar about what we are talking about here. - paul (who promised himself he wouldn't add to this discussion, but lied)
Actually not, I do some journalism and reporting was interested, how he migrated to this, is all. It is kind of neat actually that someone actually cares enough to let the content provider edit their article so that real news content is provided. That to me is a public service and how real media should behave. I have seen many complaints here over various media misrepresenting the actual facts of an issue. Gorden is only as good as the content providers, provision of fact. Alex Rubenstein wrote:
Are these cheap shots?
I mean, while Gorodn may be annoying at times, his ignorance of confidentiality clauses makes me happy, in some ways.
To me, confidentialty and 'The internet' are mutually exclusive.
But, anyway, petty insults are really stupid, and get nothing done; keep it private if you must resort to being a 4 year old.
On Wed, 5 Apr 2000, Henry R. Linneweh wrote:
Gordon; /*---------------------snip--------------------*/
Didn't you start the cook report originally in high school, and now continue to provide it?
Do you get paid money for your free lance journalism?
-- Thank you; |--------------------------------------------| | Thinking is a learned process so is UNIX | |--------------------------------------------| Henry R. Linneweh
-- Thank you; |--------------------------------------------| | Thinking is a learned process so is UNIX | |--------------------------------------------| Henry R. Linneweh
Gordon Cook wrote:
Further more I have always had a rule that a formal interviewee will have no surprises. I tape the interview and assure the person interviewed that he or she will get a draft asciii copy of what i propose to publish and have seven days to read that copy an return it to me with any mistakes or technical errors corrected and within reason things rephrased if the interviewee feels that he or she can say them better. The interviews are 95% with technical folk on technical subjects. They get assurance that if they wind up saying something inaccurate, they have only themselves to blame. but all my interviewees know exactly what they are getting into and their comfort level seems quite high.
If Gordon always does this, then I take back my comment about laziness in this instance. There's no way that he could have done the reviews in the time for bringing this to our attention. Mea Culpa. WSimpson@UMich.edu Key fingerprint = 17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26 DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32
Due to the recent coversation about the removal of a peer between PSI and Exodus, I am requiring a little help in tackling a new problem. Awhile ago I purchased a map, the "Whole Internet Map" to be exact, from thinkgeek.com, this map displays the connections of the net in a lil impossible to label design. With the Disconnection of PSI to Exodus, these maps will no longer be up to date, Therefore, I require someone to help me find the peer between PSI and Exodus on this map so we can use whiteout on a area about the size of pinhead. Rodney Caston Tools Engineer SBC Internet Services
At 01:11 AM 4/5/2000 -0400, you wrote:
the Internet? I don't think they tattoo 'Journalist' on your head when you get licenced, and I'd not trust a JPEG of a picture - it's too easy to fake with Photoshop. ;)
You don't get licensed. Some folks mistake a "Press Pass" for a license, but here's how you get a press pass: Somebody prints it and puts your name and, possibly, picture on it. Sometimes; when I was in radio, our press passes didn't even have names. We just gave 'em to any of our journalists who needed them for a specific event. Carried one a few times myself. They were professionally printed with our logo, via a commercial printer who wasn't producing anything that couldn't be done just as well on an HP Color Laserjet. Some places printed theirs on cheap inkjets. A journalist is anybody who writes news stories. All of the above applies to the USA only. I can't speak for other countries that may have funky methods of generating extra tax income by requiring some kind of bizarre license to practice what is, in the US, guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. One judges a journalist by his writings. All the pass does for you is show you that somebody else has judged him by his writings. Hell, Universal Life Church will sell you a press pass for $5. It's not a magic ticket or anything; a press pass gets you into events because the sponsoring organization of the event recognizes the credentials of the organization that issued the pass. Nothing more. Often, the press pass gets you into events because the guy at the door doesn't know any better than to accept it.
At 01:11 AM 4/5/00 -0400, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
Now let's face it guys:
1) Gordon's a journalist, or what passes for one 2) We're stuck with him
Some points to consider: Good journalism is a real profession, guided by some significant and well-established principles of practise, such as confirming information through independent means, and seeking both sides of a story. Gordon does neither of these. He frequently passes out unconfirmed rumors without naming their source. And as noted in this thread, we only got a 'publicity release' from Exodus, with no information from PSI. Peering arrangements change frequently, so we have no information about the REAL news, namely the "why" of this change. At base, this thread pertains to a manipulation of Gordon, effectively to Exodus' benefit, since it paints PSI in a bad light. Comparing the publication of the letter to the Pentagon Papers misses the fundamental point that the Papers were extensive source material, not a second-hand publicity-release. (Don't be misled by the fact that the publicity release was labeled confidential and sent only to Exodus customers. It was a document engineered by Exodus for circulation.) Gordon does the community an excellent service by publishing summaries of technical issues, as told to him by experts in the field. (As I recall, his extensive listing of names managed to miss my own... Gordon can be a bit selective, sometimes.) However Gordon's own analysis of things, especially concerning motivations, is pure and unsubstantiated conspiracy theory. Self-exposition can be helpful: At 09:15 AM 4/3/00 -0400, Gordon Cook wrote:
4. Exodus certainly had to tell its content providers that they were gong to face problems in getting to somewhere between 5 and 10% of the Internet.
Do ISPs regularly inform their customers of peering changes? Are we given any reasons for the change? Do the reasons constitute biased or unfair practise? These are questions that serious reporting is obligated to pursue.
5. But Exodus was also embarrassed by the deterioration in its service that it was allowing to be inflicted on its customers. So Exodus, in an attempt to limit the damage, marked the email "customer confidential communication."
Pure speculation, absent our being provided a basis for the assessment. Hence this is not reporting but analysis. Analysis without any apparent foundation.
7. Exodus has a problem. In marking that customer confidential it appears to me that it was trying to cover up its own problem and I imagine in doing so it was making some already upset customers further upset.
"It appears to me" is the kind of careful distinction usually lacking from Gordon's move from reporting to analysis. He should consider using it more often.
In my opinion, if someone chooses to leak it to me, except for my relationship to the leaker, I have no obligation to exodus or anyone else.
'or anyone else'. In previous challenges to Gordon's claim to be a reporter, he has scoffed at the well-established practises of professional reporting. Those practises result from an obligation to the readers, to gets things correct. d/ =-=-=-=-= Dave Crocker <dcrocker@brandenburg.com> Brandenburg Consulting <www.brandenburg.com> Tel: +1.408.246.8253, Fax: +1.408.273.6464 675 Spruce Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA
Why you dragging me into this :-) We have no business relationship with Mr. Cook! Ehud Gavron wrote:
This argument is specious. Gordon isn't press. Well, garlic press maybe.
Ehud p.s. "press credentials" are not hard to fake, but ask Gordon for his
On Mon, 03 Apr 2000 21:47:50 -0400 Paul Ferguson wrote:
surprised not to see this mentioned on NANOG
Sent: Friday, March 31, 2000 To: Notify Subject: Exodus Customer Confidential Communication
Gordon,
Does the word "confidential" elude you?
- paul
Golly Paul, I would not have guessed you would have taken this position.
If a tobacco company marks a collusion document "CONFIDENTIAL", should the press not report it?
If a Waco report is market "Top Secret", should the press not report it?
If Boeing has a flawed design, should the press not report it?
There is a fair amount of evidence that an unruly and discourteous press is a profound good for society....
regards, fletcher P.S. "Scandal-Monger", Safire, William, 2000
On Mon, Apr 03, 2000 at 09:27:11PM -0400, Gordon Cook wrote:
surprised not to see this mentioned on NANOG [...]
Subject: Exodus Customer Confidential Communication
As am I. Maybe because it's marked as confidential. While I'm told the confidentially of such communications may not be legally enforceable (then again, IANAL!), what you did was discourteous. I won't say unprofessional, because today's professional waters are shark-infested; but I do look to a higher standard with my friends in the industry.
Exodus has been notified that PSI will be disconnecting the DS3 connections that are in place between our networks at midnight PST Friday 3/31. At the time of the disconnect all connectivity to PSI networks will be lost. This decision and action is being made unilaterally by PSINet and against the request of Exodus. We continue to hope that PSI will work with us. However, we are working on alternate methods of connectivity to PSI at this time and hope to have a solution in place that will minimize the impact to our customers.
is this a replay of Exodus vs BBN?
Maybe, maybe not. I don't know where the facts lie, but it does seem as though Exodus is providing its customers with a one-sided account of what's going on, in which PSI is portrayed as the bad guy. This message is completely void of any useful technical information (prolly due to NDA), and instead reads like something carefully crafted by PR folks. If PSI were to issue an official statement on this topic, I have a feeling what they'd say would be vastly different. Then again, I could be mistaken. Just my $0.02... -adam
participants (32)
-
Adam Rothschild -
Adrian Chadd -
Alex Rubenstein -
Barry Shein -
Bill Woodcock -
Charles Sprickman -
Christian Nielsen -
Dave Crocker -
Dustin Goodwin -
Ehud Gavron -
Fletcher E Kittredge -
Forrest W. Christian -
Garlic -
Gordon Cook -
Henry R. Linneweh -
Howard C. Berkowitz -
John Payne -
Majdi S. Abbas -
Mark Borchers -
Mark Kent -
Patrick Greenwell -
Paul Ferguson -
Randy Bush -
Rodney L Caston -
Ryan Tucker -
Shawn McMahon -
Simon Lockhart -
Travis Pugh -
Ulf Zimmermann -
Valdis.Kletnieks＠vt.edu -
Vijay Gill -
William Allen Simpson