nanog mailing list archives

Re: Blackholes and IXs and Completing the Attack.


From: Paul Vixie <paul () vix com>
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:37:01 +0000


I was not proposing he Null routing of the attack source in the other
ISPs network but the destination in my network being Null routed as a
destination from your network out.

i explained why this is bad -- it lowers the attacker's costs in what
amounts to an economics war.  they can get a web site taken down by its
own provider just by attacking it.  they need fewer resources for their
attack once they know the provider's going to blackhole the victim.

This has no danger to the other network as it is my network that is
going to be my IP space that is blackholed in your network, and the
space blackholed is going to be an address that is being knocked of the
air anyway under DoS and we are trying to minimise collateral damage.

your collateral damage is of precious little interest to someone else's
backbone staff, unless they can route-filter the potential announcements
so that you are unable to also remotely blackhole addresses you don't
advertise.  i explained this as an insurance/ISO9000 problem.

I think you might have thought I was suggesting we blackhole sources in
other peoples networks - this is definatly not what I was saying.

i explained why this would be a more sensible approach, but STILL unworkable.

So, given we all now understand each other - why is no one doing the above?

now that we've rehashed what we both said, i think we're done here.


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