nanog mailing list archives
Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection
From: <sgorman1 () gmu edu>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 16:38:55 -0400
Or you cut the lines coming into the city - i.e Chicago has about 5 diverse routes for fiber into the city. No explosives required and you get the same effect. ----- Original Message ----- From: Dave Israel <davei () algx net> Date: Friday, September 13, 2002 10:52 am Subject: Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection
On 9/13/2002 at 10:30:47 -0400, alex () yuriev com said:Yet, it is reasonable that people expect x % of theirtraffic touse IX's. If those IX"s are gone then they will need tofind anotherpath, and may need to upgrade alternate paths. I guess the question is. At what point does one build redundancy into the network.No, it doesnt necessarily use IX's, in the event of therebeing no peered pathacross an IX traffic will flow from the originator to theirupstream> > "tier1" over a private transit link, then that "tier1" will peer with thedestination's upstream "tier1" over a private fat pipe thenthat will go to thedestination via their transit private link. I'm only aware of a few providers who transit across IX's andI think theconsensus is that its a bad thing so it tends to be just smallpeople for whomthe cost of the private link is relatively high.I think you are missing a one critical point - IX in this caseis not anexchange. It is a point where lots of providers have lots ofgear in ahighly congested area. However they connect to each other inthat area doesnot matter. Now presume those areas are gone (as in compeletely gone). Whatis thepossible impact?They're all completely gone? Then we have a bigger issue than the Internet not working, because lots of us are dead. A lot of the exchange areas are city-wide, in a literal sense. Take DC, for example. Lots of folks connect in DC, not just at MAE-East, but also via direct cross-connects between providers, following a large variety of fiber paths owned by a variety of carriers. A single event that removed all the connectivity from DC would either have to devastate the city and surrounding suburbs, or at a minimum, distrupt electronics (EMP airburst) or hit every power plant in the area (and yeah, that kills folks, too, especially in winter.) Now, having destroyed civilization in DC (so to speak), we have removed a major exchange point, but also all traffic generated in DC. The rest of the Internet is fine. To break the rest of the exchanges, we'd have to do the same to New York, Dallas, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, San Jose... And that's just in the States. If you were to hit a telco hotel (usually a hard target, but we'll grant you the necessary firepower), you would inconvenience the Internet in that area until another well-connected site could be chosen and filled with equipment. Internet infrastructure is logically mapped to telco infrastructure, and telco infrastructure is ubiquitous. You're looking for a weakness where it isn't. If you wanted to hurt the Internet, you wouldn't hit a city. You'd hit the cross country fiber paths, out in the middle of nowhere. -Dave
Current thread:
- Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection, (continued)
- Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection batz (Sep 06)
- Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection Valdis . Kletnieks (Sep 06)
- Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection Greg Maxwell (Sep 06)
- Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection Iljitsch van Beijnum (Sep 05)
- Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection sgorman1 (Sep 05)
- RE: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection Crist J. Clark (Sep 05)
- RE: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection Kris Foster (Sep 06)
- Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection sgorman1 (Sep 06)
- Baltimore train tunnels (was Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection) Sean Donelan (Sep 07)
- Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection sgorman1 (Sep 06)
- Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection sgorman1 (Sep 13)
- Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection Sean Donelan (Sep 13)
- Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection sgorman1 (Sep 14)
- Calling all researchers (was Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection) Sean Donelan (Sep 14)
- RE: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection Kurtis Lindqvist (Sep 18)