tech support being flooded due to IE 0day
Richard A Steenbergen
ras at e-gerbil.net
Fri Sep 22 05:16:44 UTC 2006
On Fri, Sep 22, 2006 at 12:11:33AM -0400, Jared Mauch wrote:
>
> > Does it impact the network operation?
> >
> > Eg, does it adversely affect the network? (say, like Beagle did.)
>
> I was thinking sql-slammer, massive flood causing signifcant
> amount of network infrastructure to go down. (people on low speed links
> with large blocks of address space were DoS'ed off the network).
>
> I don't think of drive-by browser/desktop infection as a networking
> issue, more of an end-host issue.
Even more to the point, a lot of people with network infrastructure that
couldn't handle random destination traffic were affected. Such impact is
precisely the kind of thing that should be discussed on NANOG, both from
an operational "how do we deal with this" and a design "what you should
know about your gear when it doesn't have a prepopulated table in its fast
path" perspective.
A web browser crapping out has nothing to do with networks, or network
operations. I'm not aware of any network of any consequence where the
people who run, design, or build the infrastructure have any relationship
to end user tech support call centers. I'm sure there are many fines
places where this particular issue is great on-topic discussion, but since
as Gadi said it not only has nothing to do with BGP but nothing to do with
networks at all, this just isn't it.
To the people who say we throw in the towel and just say "Gadi will never
stop posting off-topic crap, so why bother trying to correct him?", I'd
suggest that this is a self-defeating attitude. Not only because Gadi
could actually be posting useful stuff if set on the right path as to what
is appropriate and what is not, but because 10,000 other people are going
to be reading that post and thinking that this is appropriate subject
matter. One off-topic post you can delete, but an entire list which has
been co-opted by off-topic material can not be fixed.
Unless we're ready to admit that NANOG is completely and totally worthless
as a forum for discussing network operations, people NEED to step up and
take responsibility for the "self policing" that we're all supposed to be
doing in srh's absence.
--
Richard A Steenbergen <ras at e-gerbil.net> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)
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