nanog mailing list archives

Re: Over a decade of DDOS--any progress yet?


From: "Dobbins, Roland" <rdobbins () arbor net>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 11:13:39 +0000


On Dec 8, 2010, at 5:58 PM, <bmanning () vacation karoshi com> wrote:

actually, botnets are an artifact.  claiming that the tool is the problem might be a bit short sighted.  with the 
evolution of Internet technologies
(IoT) i suspect botnet-like structures to become much more prevelent and useful for things other than coordinated 
attacks.


I'm a big advocate of distributed/agile computing models with swarming/flocking behaviors - see slide 32 of this preso 
for an example:

<https://files.me.com/roland.dobbins/c07vk1>

When these things are harnessed together in order to launch DDoS attacks and steal financial information and 
intellectual property and so forth, we call them 'botnets'.  They're a force-multiplier which allow the attacker to 
avoid the von Clausewitzian friction of conflict, and which give him a comfortable degree of anonymity, not to mention 
highly asymmetrical force projection capabilities and global presence.

'Botnet-like structures' = botnets, for purposes of this discussion.  Semantic hair-splitting.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Roland Dobbins <rdobbins () arbor net> // <http://www.arbornetworks.com>

               Sell your computer and buy a guitar.






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