nanog mailing list archives

Re: Vixie warns: DNS Changer ‘blackouts’ inevitable


From: "cncr04s/Randy" <cncr04s () gmail com>
Date: Thu, 31 May 2012 08:14:40 -0500

On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 2:56 PM, Florian Weimer <fw () deneb enyo de> wrote:

[Dnschanger substitute server operations]

One thing is clear, Paul is able to tell a great story.

PR for ISC is somewhat limited, it's often attributed to the FBI:

| The effort, scheduled to begin this afternoon, is designed to let
| those people know that their Internet connections will stop working
| on July 9, when temporary servers set up by the FBI to help
| DNSChanger victims are due to be disconnected.


<http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57439407-83/google-will-alert-users-to-dnschanger-malware-infection/>

| The FBI has now seized control of the malicious DNS servers, but
| countless computers are still infected with the malware.


<http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Google-warns-DNSChanger-victims-1583037.html>

| The malware is so vicious — it can interfere with users' Web
| browsing, steer them to fraudulent websites and make their computers
| vulnerable to other malicious software — that the FBI has put a
| safety net of sorts in place, using government computers to prevent
| any Internet disruptions for users whose computers may be infected.


<http://www.technolog.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/infected-users-get-legit-warning-about-july-9-internet-doomsday-751078>

(I'm justing quoting what I found.  Some of the linked articles
contain bogus information.)

In any case, this isn't what bugs me about the whole process.  I don't
like the way this is implemented—mainly the use of RPZ, but there are
other concerns.  The notification process has some issues as well, but
it's certainly a great learning exercise for all folks involved with
this.  To me, it doesn't really matter that Dnschanger is fairly minor
as far as such things go.  Hopefully, the knowledge and the contacts
established can be applied to other cases as well.


Exactly how much can it cost to serve up those requests... I mean for
9$ a month I have a cpu that handles 2000 *Recursive* Queries a
second. 900 bux could net me *200,000* a second if not more.
The government overspends on a lot of things.. they need some one whos
got the experience to use a bunch of cheap servers for the resolvers
and a box that hosts the IPs used and then distributes the query
packets.


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