Re: YouTube IP Hijacking

["Steven M. Bellovin" <smb () cs columbia edu>]

On Mon, 25 Feb 2008 01:49:51 -0500 (EST)
Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com> wrote:

> On Mon, 25 Feb 2008, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> > How about state-of-the-art routing security?
>
> The problem is what is the actual trust model?
>
> Are you trusting some authority to not be malicious or never make a 
> mistake?
>
> There are several answers to the malicious problem.
>
> There are fewer answers to never making a mistake problem.
>
> The state of the art routing security proposals let the "trusted"
> securely make mistakes.  At one time or another, I think every router
> vendor, every ASN operator, every RIR, and so on has made a mistake
> at some time.
>
> Yeah, I know some of those mistakes may have actually been malicious,
> but so far the mistakes have outnumbered the malicious.
>
> If someone comes up with the anti-mistake routing protocol ...

Right.  Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone is malicious.    And
the RIRs and the big ISPs are *generally* more clueful than the little
guys and the newcomers.  Note also that secured BGP limits the kinds
of mistakes people can make.  If I have a certificate from my RIR for
192.0.2.0/24, I can't neither announce 10.0.0.0/8 nor delegate it to
you, no matter how badly I type.  Secured BGP still strikes me as a net
win.


                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb