Ethical DDoS drone network

Patrick W. Gilmore patrick at ianai.net
Mon Jan 5 11:55:44 UTC 2009


On Jan 5, 2009, at 2:54 AM, Roland Dobbins wrote:
> On Jan 5, 2009, at 3:04 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
>
>> I can think of several instances where it _must_ be external.  For  
>> instance, as I said before, knowing which intermediate networks are  
>> incapable of handling the additional load is useful information.
>
> AUPs are a big issue, here..

No, they are not.

AUPs do not stop me from sending traffic from my host to my host  
across links I am paying for.


>> Without arguing that point (and there are lots of scenarios where  
>> that is not at all necessary, IMHO), it does not change the fact  
>> that external testing can be extremely useful after "air-gap"  
>> testing.
>
> Agree completely.
>
>> You live in a very structured world.
>
> The idea is to instantiate structure in order to reduce the chaos.
>
> ;>
>
>> Most people live in reality-land where there are too many variables  
>> to control, and not only is it impossible guarantee that everything  
>> involved is strict to BCP, but the opposite is almost certainly true.
>
> Nothing's perfect, but one must do the basics before moving on to  
> more advanced things.  The low-hanging fruit, as it were (and of  
> course, this is where scale becomes a major obstacle, in many cases;  
> the fruit may be hanging low to the ground, but there can be a *lot*  
> of it to pick).

Perhaps we are miscommunicating.

You seem to think I am saying people should test externally before  
they know whether their internal systems work.  Of course that is a  
silly idea.

That does not invalidate the need for external testing.  Nor does it  
guarantee everything will be "BCP compliant", especially since  
"everything" includes things outside your control.

-- 
TTFN,
patrick





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