Re: Routing Insecurity (Re: BGP in the Washington Post)

[Sandra Murphy <sandy () tislabs com>]

On Jun 10, 2015, at 7:51 AM, "Russ White" <russw () riw us> wrote:

> I'm not saying BGPSEC a bad solution for the questions asked -- I'm saying it's is too heavyweight given the 
> tradeoffs, and that we probably started with the wrong questions in the first place.
>
> What's needed is to spend some time thinking about what questions really need to be answered, the lowest cost way to 
> answer those questions, and a complete examination of the tradeoffs involved. Is "what path did this update travel," 
> or "are the BGP semantics being properly followed," really questions that want asking? Or are there other, more 
> pertinent questions available? 

Not liking the solution is not a reason to abandon the problem.  This sounds like "I don't like eating right and 
exercising, so keeping my weight under control is the wrong question"

All protocols rely on certain assumptions of what the fields mean - when you send them and when you receive them.  
Analyzing a protocol for vulnerabilities starts with identifying what happens if those assumptions are broken.  (Like 
the assumption in IP that the source address is the node that sent the packet - spoofing breaks that assumption.)  
Breaking the semantics creates attacks.

--Sandy

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