21 Oct
1998
21 Oct
'98
10:48 a.m.
On Wed, 21 Oct 1998, Daniel A. Seagraves wrote:
This is kinda off topic, but we've just had a bomb
threat!
No joke! Someone phoned in, asked for my boss, and said they
put a bomb in the building! Why would someone bomb an ISP?
Other than my boss is an Afican-American... (Native of Nigeria).
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A sad commentary on a form of 'techno-terrorism' that is likely to become
more prevalent as dependency on the 'net' increases.
The commercialization of the Internet has inadvertantly weakened one of
its major design points that was considered to be so critical when the
first ARPA designs were worked out. That being redundancy and lack of
centralization.
Before the major commercial 'backbones' were in place, (set the 'wayback'
machine; Sherman) most systems had multiple shared dial-up connections to
numerous other hosts with which they regularly shared information (email,
news, files, etc.)
If a network connection went down, (if you even had one) or a given host
was offline, traffic was just routed thru another system that indicated
connectivity to the system (or systems) that the traffic was destined for.
(everyone remember the periodic routing 'maps' that went around?)
So... unless you lost ALL of your phone lines for an extended period, you
pretty much always had (some level of) connectivity.
Today, on the other hand (generalization warning!) how many major systems
maintain dial-up inter-system capability even as a backup?
The major infrastructures have tended to centralize around the commercial
'backbones' and carriers which make them succeptable to interruptions of
service when a single connection fails! (Sure... your web servers are fed
by dual 'T3s', but both from a single carrier thru a single POP?!?)
So much in money and resources is often committed to create/maintain a
major (high bandwidth) link onto the net, (useful) redundancy is
frequently sacrificed.
One attack on a major carrier POP (ok, definition time: POP = Point
Of Presence) could easily disrupt Internet traffic for a LOT of people and
corporations.
Take out a couple of the major authoritative DNS servers, and watch the
world (generalization) start crashing down!
Or sadly, target one ISP that is suspected of being a major provider?
It happens... more often than you might ever imagine...
-jim
(I speak for no one but myself... YMMV)
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jimw(a)agora.rdrop.com
The Computer Garage - http://www.rdrop.com/~jimw
Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174