Packet Juggling - Floating Data Storage

Filthmaster writes "I just saw an interesting paper that has been posted to bugtraq, full-disclosure and vulnwatch. It deals with the principles of stealthily using network infrastructure as either short-term or long-term storage. Not sure if I'm ready to implement it, but it makes interesting food for thought." There's also a mirror up.

Comments

Not quite stealthy

[jubalj]

Why use your own network when you can..

6seryoeyEe O.ot..>u&6eOyeUWrong loader, giving up...f1Afaef1UDf efPAMSfIr f=PAMSu e }eoACfuuEu1E1OeIr*uu uuAUfayyfAafafayyfaI1UIeS1AOA6Ee PAQuo1AOA6YoIrutEe A1AuoEe O1A AuIr!AOEe A

it's alive!

[geoff lane]

First you give it comms, then unlimited CPU and now distributed memory.

Can Skynet be far behind...

Great excuse! :)

[CoolVibe]

Q: Why the hell are you flooding the shit out of my network?
A: Oh, I'm just storing data temporarily.

Seriously, the idea is interesting, but I doubt that many network operators will like the extra network load. It would be interesting to build a SAN in this manner, just for academic's sake ;-)

Oh, and the example with Microsoft's exchange servers made me chuckle. Finally a reliable storage "medium" from Microsoft! Go figure :)

Re:Great excuse! :)

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

When the RIAA page was hacked (I say this as if it only happened once..) the new Linkin Park cd ended up on their webserver publicly. I believe this was a few days before it hit shelfs, to. End result: just pisses people off.

You can pull DeCSS from disneys nameservers if you want, doesn't really mean anything.

Re:Bandwidth?

[Zocalo]

Ah, but in this context that could be a good thing since a slower Internet = more latency = longer TTL on your data. Take the ping for example; if it takes twice as long for your ping to echo back with your data, then you only need to retransmit back to storage at half the rate.

I wasn't trying DoS the Internet your honour... I was trying to improve data retention times! ;)

You don't need the Internet to do this

[melonman]

Just burn a CD a day and post it to a non-existant address on the other side of the world. That way you can probably keep a terabyte of data int he air without taking any space in your office, and, unlike TCP/IP, you may be able to reuse the wrappers.

Dear god

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't this presented in a BOFH story at one time? I believe it was used as a rationale to buy tons and tons of cable (to increase latency and thus the storage capacity), which the BOFH then resold. To think that someone actually wants to DO this...god help us.

aaah... pAcket

[bastardsquadmuzz]

Did anyone else read this as Pocket Juggling?

Re:Of course

[melonman]

You could make a shorter loop by posting the letters to yourself, and increase the packet size (DVD). But these are the kind of trivial implementational issues that are always thrown up by late-adopters in the face of a paradigm shift. If your office gets hit by lightning, chances are that your 40GB HD is a gonner, whereas in my system all your data will still be safe, providing the fire brigade let you put up a provisional post box.

Einstein reference

[|>>?]

Did anyone else get the Einstein reference:

Article: would it work without oranges?

which to my mind refers to:

Einstein: The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat.

It could just be my mind - just fell down in the bath and hit my head falling over the edge...