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Growing Commercialization Threatens Net Security
dr3vil writes "The BBC is reporting that the concentration of the net's backbone in fewer hands has made it more vulnerable to attack. The report compares an attack to travel problems when traffic is disrupted at O'Hare. Hopefully someone in a position to act will pay attention."
Surely you mean increased centralization, however.
Oh, you were using O'Hare as an example? Nevermind.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Can someone please explain WTF does that have to do with anything? Do they just throw that kind of stuff in as an onbligatery 9/11 reference?
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Why hasn't the US government taken up some of the challenge? Surely they have the ability to set up infrastructure in a decentralized manner?
When replying to this post, keep in mind that I am not addressing this issue from a free speech/privacy of individuals point of view. This is simply a question about why the government isn't interested in taking up this challenge.
Sulli, a seasoned /nerd like you should know that every time a submitted story on a topic like this doesn't trip the "The exact comment has already been posted. Please try to be more original..." error, it's frontpage.
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Finally, someone other than a corporate Paki is commenting on the health of the internet. It is no longer an internet, but rather interconnected proprietary WAN's.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
Internet access and bandwidth are very vulnerable, but remember there are lots of copies of the DNS server records, and the actual content is extremely widespread and can easily be put online again given some time - in a genuine emergency situation internet access would only be a priority to those on the periphery anyway. Fine, we need more hubs and greater decentralisation, but lets not get carried away.
The Internet really isn't alone. Ads have really taken over society. Everywhere you look, from people's clothing to the garbage on the ground, to blatently all over every layer of packaging on the goods you buy at the local Safeway.
I've gotten so sick of it. The reason I switched to Linux (probably the dumbest reason in a lot of people's opinions) was to escape the fact that every program I installed had huge logos and ads plastered all over.
I remember when you were mocked and considered weird if you sold out. Now, if you don't sell out, you're considered stupid for not making money while you can.
I get the feeling this blatent lack of ethics will be part of the downfall of our economy. You can only have so many people leeching at one time before it runs out of blood.
Now, now, give the Editors a break. If that particular filter worked there'd be no need for "-1 Redundant."
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
They do have a point here.
:-)
The fewer centralized points the traffic has to go through the higher the risk of failure. And with failure, the lack of service to millions of people.
I can't validate the correctness of the story, but my impression has always been that the backbones are designed to failover if they hit a problem and that there are several routes between multiple backbones that is serving the same strecth of net. I may be wrong on this, but at least that was the goal back in the 80's when I first started using the net.
The article needs to be taken serious, as more and more business depends on the net. If it fails one one or more backbone stretches, it will have enormous consequences for business, meaning your's and my paycheck may be endangered. Oh, and the answee is not to get rid of Microsoft in this case
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It would have ripple effects throughout the internet..."
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Think for a minute, what country has about the most centralized internet backbone? That would be China, or, The Great Firewall of China. Look at it this way, in order to Do Something Really Bad in China, they have to implement it on one set of backbones with one central authority.
Now that the backbone is mostly owned by big business in the United States, it centralizes control of the Internet toward big businesses. Which yeah, could really pretty much suck.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
In its early days the net was as decentralised, as possible with multiple links between many of the nodes forming it. If one node disappeared, traffic could easily flow to other links and route traffic to all parts.
.edu's, .gov's and .mil's, there was no need for centralization. However, suddenly, one day everyone wanted to be on the net! And out of that chaos, logical central points developed.
I would not give this article a lot of serious thought. It describes how simulated attacks show vulnerable spots in the internet, and seeks to lay blame for it. However, comparing the current state of the Internet to it's own beginnings is obviously going to show differences (DUH!). I mean, back in the pre-web days (you remember those, folks? ah, sweet gopher. R.I.P.), if you didn't know exactly where or what you were looking for... well... none of this fancy googlin' stuff, that's all I gotta say.
If you consider the growth of the internet from that point, which was basically a loose, random interconnection of
I like to explain the internet to non-techie people as something like the Interstate highways in the United States. And using that metpahor... if you take out a central location... well, it'll be a lot slower and harder to get to where you need to go, but it's not like you've isolated an entire region for all eternity.
My point is, there are centralized locations because it was efficient to do so. Eventually, as more and more high speed wire is laid out across the world, these will slowly become less important. It's just that the growth has been too fast for the present time!
I moderate "-1, Fool"
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/tele
You'll see "View their sample issue." Click on that, then click on the link for Volume 20, Issue 1. Go there. Then you'll see "A geographic perspective on commercial Internet survivability", and you can download the PDF there.
Looks like it's meant to give you only one chance at the free issue, so I think giving the direct link would be pretty useless. Whatever; you're only three clicks away from greatness. :-)
Carousel is a lie!
Why would anyone care? Isn't it extremely intentional that the control of the internet is being consolidated into fewer and fewer hands?
Who is it exactly that would object or do something about it? Do you think the few companies who own major backbones are going to decide that it's not in everybody's best interest and sell their portion off to 10 other companies?
Sure, this is a bad thing, but it's done in order to suit the interests of the people who are doing it. The idea that somebody would wake up, decide this is absurd, and correct the error of their ways is absolutely ridiculous.
Of course, we could always hope that MS would realize their software licensing is not in the best interest of the consumer and turn it all around....but it's statistically safer to bet on being struck by lightning 12 times in succession...
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
I know this is off topic, but i'll say it anyhow.
The BBC is a non profit organisation. Funded by the British people to produce unbiased news.
The New York example was probably the best example to date as to how losing several hubs can break lots of network.
I remember a power cut in central Melbourne took out several internet links for me.
There is a lot of research out there being done into this stuff, scale free networks, small world networks etc. Hopefully common sense will prevail - however the whole thing will probably end up being market driven as usual. And, like British Trains (unlike the TV coverage), will be absolutely crap in a few years.
Obviously there were good reasons to introduce CIDR (Classless Inter Domain Routing) and concentrate the ability to route around problems to the 'core' of the internet, but this is the price you pay.
The only way real redundancy and fault-tolerance will be restored is to introduce IPV6 - or some other means to widen the availablity of routable IPV4 space, and remove the barriers currently in place for people to partipate in the 'routable' internet.
Of course with this comes lack of control for MPAA/RIAA/Governments, increased freedom for independent operators, and also increased complexity and route-table storage requirements for all.
However, if the internet is to withstand prolonged and/or distributed attack, then the ability to route effectively will have to be extended further toward the edge of the net than it currently is.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
In other news, Bin Laden has been sighted in Saudi-Arabia with 20 Al-Quada script kiddies. Latest findings of the CIA conclude that Bin Laden is trying to build a biochemical weapon throwing sludges of contaminated biomatter called a "GES BioRifle" and that Australia has mysteriously disappeared of the world map. Weapons experts disagree with these findings, claiming "Redeemeers" are much better, though the news about Australia was ethusiastically welcomed with cheers like "No more Steve Irwin or Kylie Minogue!".
However, a recent investigation in some random MS Monopoly lawsuit indicated that Bill Gates does indeed cheat, playing with several copies of the authentic Broadway and Park Drive cards, as well as a recent donation of 20 Windows XP Pro packages to Palm Tree Nr 137 in Saudi-Arabia with a note reading "BOMB FINLAND" and enough funds to construct a backbone connection to Saudi-Arabia. US officials are skeptic about the current findings, saying "Haven't we blown up Saudi-Arabia yet? Oh, that was Australia?" Several high ranked military officials were unavailable for comment, but disapproved of Bill Gates cheating at Monopoly.
Coalition forces have responded by pre-emptively bombing Iraq like they have done for the last decade. US fighter-bombers scrambled and succesfully bombed 3 hospitals, 2 schools and a Burger King in Washington DC. Brittish commandoes went in and simply cut the backbone connection with Margaret Thatcher's fake teeth. Bin Laden and the 20 script kiddies have escaped, leaving a videotaped message behind, calling for a holy war against the US and against Saudi-Arabia for disconnection power to Palm Tree Nr 137. Bin Laden was last seen hiding on the North Pole in a red suit, a sleigh, a bunch of biochemical reindeer and 20 script kiddie elves. US bombers are underway as this article is written.
Film at 11.
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It would be interesting to see if more people started running alternate routes through friends houses and what not. A guy I work with has a p2p 802.11b link to another guy I work with's cable modem 5 miles away, despite having DSL himself. I know that when I pulled my (late) linksys router out of the box, I was surprised to see that it supported RIP.
The truth is that it is really not that hard to run multiple routes out of your bedroom. If you use *nix for your router (like I do since I burned up my linksys), it's as easy as dropping in another NIC (wireless, or ethernet, or modem, or whatever) and configing the new interface.
There's also the growing trend in community nets (particularly wireless community nets)... these could link themselves together fairly cheaply by setting up additional wireless links with directional antennae pointed at other peer community nets.
Anyway, I'd be curious to see how many new routes start springing up between these 2nd-class (and no-class) networks. The beauty of Internet Protocol is that this really works.
:Wq
Not an editor command: Wq
I think the point is, the number of peering points, hasn't increased porportionately to the number of users. As a result, more people rely on a less resilient architecture. I don't think they are refering to one or two ISP's going out of business as much as they are looking at the major peering points. More users all tie into the same peering points, and if one of those goes down, then a large number of users and sites go down with it. The reason we haven't established more peering points is simply the cost. A NAP (network access point) has millions of dollars in gear, not to mention the costs for line connections. The economies demand cheaper Internet access, while the demand increases costs to build in redundancy. These two points work against each other and result in monumental discoveries about "Risk of internet collapse rising."
Goals are deceptive - the unaimed arrow never misses.
with a 3 14.4 kbps dialup modems (arpanet, i mean?) i have one, i know another guy with one. if the internet was in *real* jeapordy, couldn't the universities, and induviduals just 'start fresh'...i mean the rfcs' appear to give a pretty much bleuprint method of how to move..right? what is really stopping us from building supercomputers...etc...? especially with modern tech, we could just buy a regular computer, get a whole load of modems...and go back to TTY ! why not?
of course, i'm concerned about the internet as anyone, but i'm connecting currently through stolen bandwidth anyways - the 'net is too expensive for most people it seems to me...decentralization could probably help that, though...but keep in mind...no matter how bad it gets, we can always start anew, so long as we have those 3 14.4kbps...
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I don't see why centralization would come up though, regardless of who owns the fiber, it's still in the same place. The routers are also still in the same place most likely, which basically means what's getting centralized are the servers, and we already know that. Imagine how many fewer webservers there would be if San Jose were to lose connectivity, or New York for that matter. It's also possible that with fewer providers we have fewer routers which means there are fewer places BGP is routing with. This decreases fault tolerance, of course, and to some degree performance. It's like how when you're in Iowa you see most of your traffic going through Kansas City, even if it's going to Chicago.
*shrug*
If there is a God, you are an authorized representative. - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
So the internet is more vulnerable now than In The Olden Days, when the backbone was carried entirely by MCI? It must be that new math.
Yes, Virginia, the health of the Internet *does* depend on decentralized technologies such as multiple backbones, gegraphically distributed root name servers, and standards committees not answerable to any single political entity or product vendor.
It's no different from a business monopoly, (or cartel, or oligopoly) which tends to create artificially high prices, poor quality of goods and services, and in the case of computing and networks a fertile breeding ground for viruses, worms and other nasty exploits.
And the analogue these worlds share with real live ecosystems is uncanny: Plant an entire state in one strain of corn for a few seasons in a row and watch the fun.
Didn't we already learn this crap? Why do the FCC, FTC, SEC and other god-forsaken, nutless bend-over wastes of acronyms keep rubber-stamping all the mergers?
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
Before we jump onto some kind of legislative solution, I think all efforts of everyone in a position to make a difference (and that is everyone) should spread the word about meshnetworks.
Assuming we can de-regulate sufficient spectrum, wireless ad-hoc networks will completely solve the problem of network vunerability, centralization and commercialization. Meshnetworks have the potention to dentralize benadwith distribution in the same p2p decentralized content distribution.
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What does commercialization have to do with the Internet backbone being in fewer hands, shouldn't the title be "Growing Backbone Consolidation threatens Net Security. The last thing we need is G.W. thinking that their are comunists on slashdot. We will all be branded as terrorists.
Accidental submit, Why does the submit button need to be next to the preview button? It should be after the drop down list or have forced preview.
Much of global Internet traffic on the intercontinental level is routed through the USA, even though the origin or destination may be totally outside the USA. For instance, traffic between Asia-Europe, or South America-Australia will almost always pass through the US, because most of those "hubs" are, as the article mentions, in the USA.
I believe more work should also be done on interconteninental links that do not go through the USA as well.
I have nothing againt the USA, but the Internet is critical to more than just the USA now, and were the unthinkable to happen again in the USA, there should be redundancy. Also, it would be much more efficent in terms of latency (eg, Europe-Asia instead of Europe-USA-Asia).
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
It seems to me that the commercialization of the
Internet has brought so much new capacity online
that it is more reliable than the old days, due
to the existance of competing long-haul cables
operated by different companies.
For example, back in the early 90's Australia was
served by a single 10mbps trans-pacific Internet
connection. If it went down (as frequently
happened), the whole continent was cut off!
Today there are several links to the rest of the
world, and outages of that kind are unknown.
Guess who paid for those links? That's right,
for-profit commerical corporations.
Notice that the article says "hopefully someone in a position to act will pay attention."
/.
I totally agree that fewer backbone operators == greater "single points of failure".
However, there is no doubt in my mind that the "people in a position to act" are probably not hanging out at
But then again, they would already be aware of this too, if only for business reasons.
Unfortunately *very* few people are influential or wealthy enough to influence backbone operation -- does this make these people another "single point of failure"? (honest question, not flamebait)
C|N>K
Yah but one wonders how many deaf ears in D.C. the results of the study by the professors at OSU fell upon. Funny that it didn't seem to escape the notice of the folks at the BBC. If the feds were even concerned about this problem, they were probably assured by the telecom lobbyists that it was nothing to worry about.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
One of the biggest problems in the backbone is that attempting to support arbitrary routing policies driven by a myriad of different customers overconstrains the problem of global internet routing. This leads to configurations in which either many solutions exist or no solutions exist to the routing problem and causes routing instability. Couple this with the fact that router configuration is a black art that is extremely error-prone and you get WorldCom-like outages. Such problems will actually IMPROVE with more consolidation. If you're interested, check this paper out.
You're talking about application level decentralisation there - which won't mean much if the centralised underlying IP network falls over.
The design of TCP/IP allows for redundancy and survivability, however most if not all of the research backbones that evolved into the commercialized Internet never had a great deal of redundancy. Granted, later incarnations like the NSFNET T3 network were better, but most had single points of failure which could be felt across large parts of the Internet when those points had problems...
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If you look at network diagrams of the Bell System, when AT&T still ran everything, you will see a system that was designed to cope with disasters and excessive loads. It provided a great deal of flexibility in how calls were routed through the network. Each central office had multiple links to peer central offices and parent central offices. A call could be routed in many different ways. If a link to a peer central office was out, the call could be "kicked upstairs" to a parent central office, which would route it over a different link to the destination central office. The only single points of failure were the local central office and the wires in between the local central office and the subscriber.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
This is far better than the pre-1993 days when there was a single backbone, operating on non-redundant private lines.
I guess this guy wanted some publicity. He got it.
I'm amazed to see comments like yours on a tech forum. Civilization has put its eggs in the internet basket. Basically, because it's cheaper.
Most data traffic having to do with operating the supply chain that gets those grapes to your grocery store in terms of wine and that cattle rancher's product to your store in terms of steak goes through the Internet. Even in the cases where this isn't so, you can bet that at least a few critical links in the supply chain are via Internet.
Could workarounds be found? For the short term, maybe. However, perhaps you'd notice if the price of milk in your grocery store went up 50% or average prices at WalMart went up 100%.
The only people who wouldn't notice the effects of a long-term loss of the Net are so remote from civilization that the international market economy doesn't touch them much, and that doesn't even describe most of the Third World. They might not know why they suddenly can't make a living or the price of anything imported doubled or worse, but they would notice.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Thousands of people are MURDERED, and the response is PROFITTERING by the bbc and other companies!
The more accurate statement would be that thousands of people were murdered and our non-elected president used it as an excuse for an insane power grab which completely destroys the constitution upon which our freedoms are based.
This is, of course, after he ordered the FBI to back off of Bin Laden.
The "invisible hand" of market forces does not always outperform a regulated piece of social infrastructure. It's high time we started the dialogue between the lassais faire capitalist/libertarian crowd and the socialists.
You see, a free market cannot exist without the social infrastructure of a legal system and a police state to enforce it, and the critical consensus to support good social infrastructure cannot exist without the freedom to violate the social norms and critically compare actual alternatives. We live in a mixed economy, both social infrastructure and free-market aspects are necessary. Some things should be given: free (peer-to-peer) telecommunications for all! Otherwise you have a "closed" free market with limited internal market forces to regulate it.
We should socialize the Internet as a free (as in beer ALSO as in freedom) resource to STIMULATE the free market part of society by providing more pressures from everyone. You have to look at what is going on and ask yourself: "could it be better? Should it be more cooperative or competitive? Where is the balance? Why?"
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
It's there allready! It's called the Global Technology Policy Institute and is headed by Bruce Perens.
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