"Defensive" BGP hijacking?

Mon Sep 12 15:47:16 UTC 2016

I'm in the "never acceptable" camp. Filtering routes/peers? Sure. Disconnecting one of your own customers to stop an attack originating from them? Sure. Hijacking an AS you have no permission to control? No.

Obviously my views and not of my employer.

Spencer Ryan | Senior Systems Administrator | sryan at arbor.net<mailto:sryan at arbor.net>
Arbor Networks
+1.734.794.5033 (d) | +1.734.846.2053 (m)
www.arbornetworks.com<http://www.arbornetworks.com/>

________________________________
From: NANOG <nanog-bounces at nanog.org> on behalf of Blake Hudson <blake at ispn.net>
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2016 11:24:03 AM
To: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: "Defensive" BGP hijacking?

Hugo Slabbert wrote on 9/11/2016 3:54 PM:
> Hopefully this is operational enough, though obviously leaning more towards the policy side of things:
>
> What does nanog think about a DDoS scrubber hijacking a network "for defensive purposes"?
>
> http://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/09/alleged-vdos-proprietors-arrested-in-israel/
>
> "For about six hours, we were seeing attacks of more than 200 Gbps hitting us,” Townsend explained. “What we were doing was for defensive purposes. We were simply trying to get them to stop and to gather as much information as possible about the botnet they were using and report that to the proper authorities.”
>

https://bgpstream.com/event/54711

My suggestion is that BackConnect/Bryant Townsend should have their ASN
revoked for fraudulently announcing another organization's address
space. They are not law enforcement, they did not have a warrant or
judicial oversight, they were not in immediate mortal peril, etc, etc.