Securing BGP: A Case Study (1)

What would it take to secure BGP? Let’s begin where any engineering problem should begin: what problem are we trying to solve?

In this network—in any collection of BGP autonomous systems—there are three sorts of problems that can occur at the AS level. For the purposes of this explanation, assume AS65000 is advertising 2001:db8:0:1::/64. While I’ve covered this ground before, it’s still useful to outline them:

1. AS65001 could advertise 2001:db8:0:1::/64 as if it is locally attached. This is considered a false origination, or a hijacked route.
2. AS65001 could advertise a route to 2001:db8:0:1::/64 with the AS path [65000,65001] to AS65003. This is another form of route hijacking, but instead of a direct hijack it’s a “one behind” attack. AS65001 doesn’t pretend to own the route in question, but rather to be connected to the AS that is originating the route.
3. AS65000 could consider AS65003 a customer, or rather AS65003 might be purchasing Internet connectivity from AS65000. This would mean that any routes AS65000 advertises to AS65003 are not intended to be retransmitted back to AS65004. If, for instance, 2001:db8:0:1::/64, is advertised by AS65000 to AS65003, and AS65003 readvertises it to AS65004, AS65003 would be an unintentional transit AS in the Continue reading

Worth Reading: Net Neutrality

The world is watching and taking note of the FCC’s blatant competition double standard that totally favors America’s dominant edge platforms above most everyone and everything else. Consider an apt and illuminating comparison between the competition U.S. wireless broadband providers face versus the competition Silicon Valley’s edge platforms face. -via somewhat reasonable

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Oak Island Shell

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Worth Reading: ARM

ARM announced the Cortex-A72, the high-end successor to the Cortex-A57, near the beginning of 2015. For more than a year now, SoC vendors have been working on integrating the new CPU core into their products. Now that mobile devices using the A72 are imminent, it’s a good time to discuss what makes ARM’s flagship CPU tick. -via tom’s hardware

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QOTW: Don’t keep your eye on the clock

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Worth Reading: The IETF turns 30

30 years ago, on the 16th and the 17th of January 1986, a meeting of the so-called DoD Gateway Algorithms Task Force took place in San Diego, California. During that meeting a charter for an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) was proposed. via the isoc

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Honest WiFi

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Security ‘net: A few keystrokes down the slippery slope

A situation you could really face:

Suppose a laptop were found at the apartment of one of the perpetrators of last year’s Paris attacks. It’s searched by the authorities pursuant to a warrant, and they find a file on the laptop that’s a set of instructions for carrying out the attacks. The discovery would surely help in the prosecution of the laptop’s owner, tying him to the crime. But a junior prosecutor has a further idea. The private document was likely shared among other conspirators, some of whom are still on the run or unknown entirely. Surely Google has the ability to run a search of all Gmail inboxes, outboxes, and message drafts folders, plus Google Drive cloud storage, to see if any of its 900 million users are currently in possession of that exact document. If Google could be persuaded or ordered to run the search, it could generate a list of only those Google accounts possessing the precise file — and all other Google users would remain undisturbed, except for the briefest of computerized “touches” on their accounts to see if the file reposed there. -just security

Would you run this search? It’s a difficult question, but ultimately Continue reading

Worth Reading: Learning QoS from RFCs

This is one of the neat things about IETF documents: while many of them are, in fact, bare descriptions of a packet format, a processing mechanism, or something similar, you can often find sets of RFCs and drafts that not only provide a solid overview of an entire area, but even give you a good set of reading material to dig deeper into the topic. -via packet pushers

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Highlight: ArtArch

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Worth Reading: Internet Governance 2015

In 2015 we saw many agreements on Internet Governance. 193 Governments agreed in the UN General Assembly on the WSIS 10+ Outcome Document. They agreed to extend the mandate of the IGF for ten years. They agreed to strengthen the multistakeholder approach. And they agreed to make more efforts to bring the next billion users online until 2020. -via circle id

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Worth Reading: The selfish act of eating

While there’s a lot more at play than just Yelp reviews, it’s interesting how much we have all come to expect from wait staff nowadays. We rely on them to participate in our selfie game. We blame them when our food is cold because we spent so much time taking photos of it to enhance our Yelp reviews. “South Park” is right. We’ve become intolerable jerks when we go out to eat. -via the federalist

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Percentage Driven: Should IP Telephony Die?

Is IP Telephony dead? “When a technology market stops growing, it’s dead” — this is the call and mantra of the technology world. Since we live in a percentage driven world, the first question we seem to ask is, “what story do the percentages tell?” Tom raises the counterpoint — it doesn’t matter if the market is growing or not, there’s still a huge need for phones on desks. Who is right?

But I think this entire percentage driven thing points to a problem in our technology culture. Let me tell you a story…

We have a dog. A black and white (black with white spots as my daughter tells me, because his nose is black) English Cocker Spaniel. With black spots in his white spots. Spaniels, if you’re not familiar with them, are balls of energy. They never really “grow up” — not really, anyway. The most sedate Spaniel breed in the world is a Clumber, and they’re not what you’d call “down” personalities. Now, when we first brought this little bundle of energy home, we weighed him on a regular basis. At some point, he slowed down in gaining weight, and eventually he stopped gaining weight altogether. Continue reading

Worth Reading: Impossible ‘Net Neutrality

In “Net Neutrality: Discrimination, Competition, and Innovation in the UK and US”, Alissa Cooper and Ian Brown explore the relationship between two broadband regulatory regimes and their practical outcomes. The paper is of (paradoxical) interest as it (unintentionally) demonstrates how policy is being made without sufficient understanding of packet network performance.

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Yokohama

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Worth Reading: Optical Processing

A new type of computer chip developed by researchers at MIT, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Colorado, Boulder, could lead to faster data transmissions and potentially more energy efficient data centers. The technology is based on using light rather than streams of electrons to transmit data.

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Worth Reading: Is Software Really Eating Everything?

The networking world is ablaze with software-defined everything. The mantra of the New Year is “software eats hardware.” But before the network engineering world follows the marketing hype into the nearest blind alley, it might be useful to inject a little reality into the discussion.

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Worth Reading: Intel & the Data Collector of Things

A decade ago, Intel’s primary data source for its PC and server microprocessors were the people who used Intel’s products. Today, those data sources are sensors connecting the Internet of Things, and Intel wants them everywhere.

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Security ‘net: Social Media & Narratives

I have a rather motley collection of links this week roaming over security, social media, and algorithms. First up is three interesting reads on social media, some of which isn’t very technical, but it’s tangential to technology, so I still get to post them here. Since beginning work in earnest on a PhD in philosophy, I’ve been paying a lot more attention to stories in this realm, and thinking about how these things impact us as people and our culture at large.

First up, a prediction that Facebook is going to die because it’s a “garbage dump.” I’m not a huge user of Facebook, so I really don’t pay attention to what goes on there (which is probably why if you’ve tried to friend me there, I’ve not answered — I rarely look at requests, and almost never approve them).

It’s sort of like going to your junk drawer to find the nail clippers, and rifling through old receipts, coupons, paper clips. Instead of fetching your clippers, which you know are in the back, you occupy yourself momentarily with what’s in your drawer and why it’s there.

It’s important for communication channels to keep their signal to noise ratio Continue reading

Worth Reading: Replacing Judgment with Algorithms

Human judgment is being replaced by automatic algorithms, and that brings with it both enormous benefits and risks. The technology is enabling a new form of social control, sometimes deliberately and sometimes as a side effect. And as the Internet of Things ushers in an era of more sensors and more data — and more algorithms — we need to ensure that we reap the benefits while avoiding the harms.

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