Vulnerbilities of Interconnection

Fri Sep 13 20:38:55 UTC 2002

Or you cut the lines coming into the city - i.e Chicago has about 5 
diverse routes for fiber into the city.  No explosives required and you 
get the same effect.

----- Original Message -----
From: Dave Israel <davei at algx.net>
Date: Friday, September 13, 2002 10:52 am
Subject: Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection

> 
> On 9/13/2002 at 10:30:47 -0400, alex at yuriev.com said:
> > 
> > > > 
> > > > Yet, it is reasonable that people expect x % of their 
> traffic to
> > > > use IX's.  If those IX"s are gone then they will need to 
> find another
> > > > path, and may need to upgrade alternate paths.
> > > > 
> > > > I guess the question is.
> > > > 
> > > > At what point does one build redundancy into the network. 
> > > 
> > > No, it doesnt necessarily use IX's, in the event of there 
> being no peered path
> > > across an IX traffic will flow from the originator to their 
> upstream> > "tier1" over a private transit link, then that "tier1" 
> will peer with the
> > > destination's upstream "tier1" over a private fat pipe then 
> that will go to the
> > > destination via their transit private link.
> > > 
> > > I'm only aware of a few providers who transit across IX's and 
> I think the
> > > consensus is that its a bad thing so it tends to be just small 
> people for whom
> > > the cost of the private link is relatively high.
> > 
> > I think you are missing a one critical point - IX in this case 
> is not an
> > exchange. It is a point where lots of providers have lots of 
> gear in a
> > highly congested area. However they connect to each other in 
> that area does
> > not matter. 
> > 
> > Now presume those areas are gone (as in compeletely gone). What 
> is the
> > possible impact? 
> 
> They're all completely gone?  Then we have a bigger issue than the
> Internet not working, because lots of us are dead.  A lot of the
> exchange areas are city-wide, in a literal sense.  Take DC, for
> example.  Lots of folks connect in DC, not just at MAE-East, but also
> via direct cross-connects between providers, following a large variety
> of fiber paths owned by a variety of carriers.  A single event that
> removed all the connectivity from DC would either have to devastate
> the city and surrounding suburbs, or at a minimum, distrupt
> electronics (EMP airburst) or hit every power plant in the area (and
> yeah, that kills folks, too, especially in winter.)
> 
> Now, having destroyed civilization in DC (so to speak), we have
> removed a major exchange point, but also all traffic generated in DC.
> The rest of the Internet is fine.  To break the rest of the exchanges,
> we'd have to do the same to New York, Dallas, Boston, Chicago,
> Atlanta, San Francisco, San Jose...  And that's just in the States.
> 
> If you were to hit a telco hotel (usually a hard target, but we'll
> grant you the necessary firepower), you would inconvenience the
> Internet in that area until another well-connected site could be
> chosen and filled with equipment.  Internet infrastructure is
> logically mapped to telco infrastructure, and telco infrastructure is
> ubiquitous.  You're looking for a weakness where it isn't.  If you
> wanted to hurt the Internet, you wouldn't hit a city.  You'd hit the
> cross country fiber paths, out in the middle of nowhere.
> 
> -Dave
> 
> 
> 