VeriSign update -- some numbers

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
> Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 17:29:55 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Karl Auerbach <karl () cavebear com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] VeriSign update
> To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
>
>
> On Wed, 17 Sep 2003, Dave Farber wrote:
>
> > > At the same time, the VeriSign service triggered a huge increase in
> > > the amount of traffic flowing to the Mountain View, Calif., company's
> > > Web site, a portion of which may be the result of a hacker attack
> > > against the company, VeriSign said.
>
> I did a simple evaluation of the packet flow that a mistyped name
> previously engendered and what it does under Verisign's "sitefinder".
>
> I did a simple "GET" command, mimicing what a web browswer would do.
>
> In the old days, there would have been two to four packets to do the DNS
> query - two if the root delegation to .com or .net had already been cached
> in the user's computer, four packets if not.  None of these packets would
> have gone to Verisign's web site.
>
> Now, there are those same two to four packets followed by A TCP connection
> with about 17K of data.  Overall this TCP connection seems to consume on
> the order of 20 to 30 packets.
>
> All of these TCP packets go to Verisign's "sitefinder" web site.  And if
> we use Verisign's estimate that there are 20,000,000 mistyped names a day,
> that means that they are getting on the order of 400,000,000 to
> 600,000,000 packets now per day that they didn't get before - all as a
> direct result of their own actions.
>
> And, of course, this additional packet burden is propogated onto the backs
> of ISPs that built their business models, support staffing, and link
> provisioning on the two-to-four packet model not the 30 packet model.
>
> I have heard estimates floating around on various mailing lists that
> Verisign expects to derive about $100,000,000 yearly revenue from this
> system.  [As I see it, they are deriving this revenue by offloading a
> significant portion of the costs onto innocent third parties, particularly
> small ISPs that have thin profit margins already.
>
>                 --karl--

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