Digital Island sponsors DoS attempt?

Fri Oct 26 15:58:41 UTC 2001

I certainly wouldn't dispute DI's right to measure performance to
other places on the Internet.  After all, ICMP is an application too,
and as long as it doesn't negatively impact performance, there shouldn't
be anything wrong with it.

However, I would think it common courtesy to contact the network 
administrator of a site you intend to measure, particularly if your 
measurement tools are likely to trip security alarms.

On Thu, Oct 25, 2001 at 10:19:10PM -0500, Alan Hannan reportedly typed:
> 
> 
>   Hi Brian,
> 
>   I know that an ISP can learn infornation about path quality off of
>   its network.  I also know that many ISPs have no interest in
>   learning about quality off of their network.
> 
>   You are right that discretely mapping empirical behaviour to datum
>   such as AS Path, external_peering_link, and other various variables
>   like Time of Day, etc... is difficult.  
> 
>   Some folks have made progress on this, and use it to make things
>   better, some in a manual fashion, some in a more and more automated
>   fashion.
> 
>   Some people would suggest to solve off-net quality problems by a/
>   blaming, or b/ suggesting that the other network increase bandwidth,
>   or c/ rerouting.  In order to do c/ sometimes it is helpful to learn
>   information about different paths, from different vantage points.
> 
>   So, I don't really want to delve too deep into the theory of what
>   exactly DI is doing, I suspect they'll tell us if they are as clever
>   as they seem to be.
> 
>   I do know, however, that the gaining information about external
>   performance can be useful for optimizing egress traffic flows, both
>   on a micro, mid, and macro basis.
> 
>   With regards to your suggestion below about standardization, I think
>   it would be great if stuff like IPPM, IPDR and such were done in the realm
>   of off-net performance.  However, let's not confuse operational
>   implementations (for example, off-net brains thinking about what to
>   do) with standardized protocols required for interacting with
>   others.  Egress flow optimization can be done autonomous of
>   standards, and is, today :-)
> 
>   -alan
> 
> Thus spake Brian Wallingford (brian at meganet.net)
>  on or about Thu, Oct 25, 2001 at 11:41:20PM -0400:
> > On Thu, 25 Oct 2001, Alan Hannan wrote:
> > 
> > :
> > :  I suspect that DI, like many other companies, is actively monitoring
> > :  external sites to track, study, and hopefully improve connectivity
> > :  quality to them.
> > 
> > So, you suspect that Digisle has come up with a scheme for jiving
> > latency/path efficiency with as-paths, and integrating that into their own
> > routing policies?  Noone has done this well yet.  Those who have tried
> > have failed to realize the need for standardization, or have decided to
> > ignore such in the interest of developing a patented, proprietary scheme
> > (which is, based solely on common sense, doomed).
> > 
> > Conclusion: Digisle's probes are not at all justified.  Hopefully, they're
> > listening.
> > 
> > Admittedly, I may be misreading your theory.  If so, please elaborate.
> > 
> > cheers,
> > brian

-- 
Dave Siegel
HOME   520-877-2593   dave at siegelie dot com
WORK   520-877-2628   dsiegel at gblx dot net
                      Director, IP Engineering, Global Crossing