Anyone notice strange announcements for 174.128.31.0/24
David Barak
thegameiam at yahoo.com
Tue Jan 13 18:11:54 UTC 2009
--- On Tue, 1/13/09, Patrick W. Gilmore <patrick at ianai.net> wrote:
> > AS_PATH != identity, and I would not recommend loading
> the latter onto the former.
>
> We disagree. When I am researching something, I frequently
> look at ASNs in the path to figure out not just where but
> who controls the path.
Oh, I certainly think that there is a loose coupling there, and the relationship is highly valuable from a troubleshooting point of view. However, I would counsel anyone investigating AS_Path relationships to remember that do not completely characterize the relationship between any two organizations, let alone the multipolar relationships between all organizations.
It's a good first-cut, but it doesn't have the level of authority that you're implying. I'm not aware of any ASNs being trademarked...
> >> Personally, I would be upset if someone injected
> a route
> >> with my ASN in the AS_PATH without my permission.
> >
> > Why? Is this a theoretical "because it's
> ugly" complaint, or is there a reason why manipulating
> this particular BGP attribute in this particular way is so
> bad? Organizations do filtering and routing manipulation
> all over the place. Is there something worse about doing it
> this way than others?
>
> Filtering and other manipulation happened on your router,
> prepending my ASN is putting that information into every
> router. That seems to be a serious qualitative difference
> to me. Do you disagree?
This is qualitatively similar to an ASN announcing de-aggregated routes - it may be nice if they don't, and you don't have to accept them, but are they permitted?
>
>
> This thread has been interesting & educational. So
> many people seem to be happy to explain why they should be
> allowed to use globally unique identifiers they do not own
> in ways which were not intended, then explain to the people
> who do own those identifiers how they should react, which
> alarms should go off, and even which priority the alarms
> should have.
>
> As I have repeated probably hundreds of times: Your
> network, your decision. I have yet to hear a credible
> argument against that stance. What you do _inside_ your
> network is _your_ decision. When it leaves your network,
> however, things change.
Exactly! Provider RB announces $WEIRD. A bunch of providers receive alarms about the existence of $WEIRD, and they treated this as $IMPORTANT. The bunch of providers who treated this as $IMPORTANT are informing all of us about their monitoring thresholds and their responses to this threshold being met. Their networks, their decisions.
It should be pointed out that pre-provisioned AS_Path filters and prefix-lists would actually be effective at defeating this and preventing someone who is actually malicious from using this technique. This is an excellent argument for implementing SIDR...
>
> Announcing an ASN which is not yours to eBGP peers means it
> is leaving your network, which means it is not just your
> business. Doing so and then telling the ASN owner that they
> should not worry about it afterwards - and in fact arguing
> when the owner repeatedly tells you this caused them
> problems - does not seem to be the proper course of action.
Understood, but if this is viewed as problematic, there is a very simple solution: don't allow a BGP customer (or peer!) to prepend someone else's ASN.
>
>
> I mentioned earlier in the thread if Cogent prepending
> Sprint's ASN to Verio, people would react differently.
> Randy said tools can be used for good or bad, obviously
> implying he's the good guy. He is not the good guy. He
> used someone else's resources without their permission
> and without even notifying them, costing them time &
> effort. Randy doesn't get to decide if the ASN owner
> should have alerted or investigated or whatever, and
> neither do any of you unless it is your ASN.
>
> How can anyone seriously argue the ASN owner is somehow
> wrong and keep a straight face? How can anyone else who
> actually runs a network not see that as ridiculous?
Are any providers going to implement ^ASN filtering as a result of this experiment? This could turn out to be a very inexpensive lesson, which is far preferable to more expensive lessons...
David Barak
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