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The internet is held together with spit and baling wire

krebsonsecurity.com

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Re: The internet is held together with spit and baling wire

#31

Post by switch007 »

fulafel wrote: post #26
winternett wrote: post #23

And Google requiring (costly and/or time consuming) SSL certs to be applied on all sites to "ensure security" was also a big industry money making nightmare for many independent (non-income-driven) sites that is still playing out badly, and not providing much more security. Two factor authentication and account verification is really an elaborate corporate sham to get people's phone numbers and PII for free. It doesn…

Deprecating unencrypted HTTP is a big systemic improvement even though some individual sites may not benefit much. It's a network effect. (What's the money grab given free let's encrypt certs?)

Setting up, monitoring and maintaining LE isn't free

Re: The internet is held together with spit and baling wire

#32

Post by ip26 »

zwkrt wrote: post #8
ragingrobot wrote: post #2

O'Brien: I'm afraid to touch anything. It's all cross-circuited and patched together - I can't make head nor tails of it. Bashir: Sounds like one of your repair jobs. Seriously though, it seems like every form of infrastructure we rely on is held together in such a fragile manner. I hate hate to think of the chaos should there be a major Internet and physical infra failure in close proximity, time-wise.

Unless you exist in a state of wild over abundance and are very conscientious, most working infrastructure is always at a state of almost-disrepair. If I operate a machine shop and I have 4 partially-stripped screwdrivers, I might get a new one, but inevitably I will use it until it is as stripped as all the rest, and I don’t dare throw away a tool that is currently even in partially working condition since I might n…

Are your mills in a similar state? I’m no machinist, but I would think it hard to stay in business when the means of production are constantly down for unplanned service.

Screwdrivers are more of a consumable than a capital good.

Re: The internet is held together with spit and baling wire

#33

Post by toast0 »

ip26 wrote: post #29
fredophile wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The internet routes around failure" hasn't been true for a long time. It refers to the original topography which has been replaced with a hub and spoke model. Remove a few hubs and you have disabled a large portion of the internet.

If by “remove a few hubs” you mean level a few major colo’s then ok, but as far as I can tell there is not any single strand of glass or single switch or single server that can take everything down with it.

The DNS root is pretty well distributed. There's 13 different IPs run by several different organizations, and AFAIK they're all running anycast these days. And anyway, the root zone is tiny, changes infrequently and could really be AXFRed a couple times a month and you wouldn't miss much.

The larger tlds aren't quite as diversely hosted and certainly aren't amenable to long term caching, but it should take a major f up to break those too.

Some of the minor tlds, even the more popular ones do screw up from time to time though.

Re: The internet is held together with spit and baling wire

#34

Post by joconde »

zwkrt wrote: post #8
ragingrobot wrote: post #2

O'Brien: I'm afraid to touch anything. It's all cross-circuited and patched together - I can't make head nor tails of it. Bashir: Sounds like one of your repair jobs. Seriously though, it seems like every form of infrastructure we rely on is held together in such a fragile manner. I hate hate to think of the chaos should there be a major Internet and physical infra failure in close proximity, time-wise.

Unless you exist in a state of wild over abundance and are very conscientious, most working infrastructure is always at a state of almost-disrepair. If I operate a machine shop and I have 4 partially-stripped screwdrivers, I might get a new one, but inevitably I will use it until it is as stripped as all the rest, and I don’t dare throw away a tool that is currently even in partially working condition since I might n…

Software too, unless every small piece of it has a dedicated full-time maintainer. If there's an infinite stream of tasks incoming, why go improve something that fits the current use well?

Re: The internet is held together with spit and baling wire

#36

Post by shadowgovt »

switch007 wrote: post #31
fulafel wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deprecating unencrypted HTTP is a big systemic improvement even though some individual sites may not benefit much. It's a network effect. (What's the money grab given free let's encrypt certs?)

Setting up, monitoring and maintaining LE isn't free

But monitoring and maintenance are things someone needs to do if they operate a site, period.

Re: The internet is held together with spit and baling wire

#37

Post by 999900000999 »

zwkrt wrote: post #8
ragingrobot wrote: post #2

O'Brien: I'm afraid to touch anything. It's all cross-circuited and patched together - I can't make head nor tails of it. Bashir: Sounds like one of your repair jobs. Seriously though, it seems like every form of infrastructure we rely on is held together in such a fragile manner. I hate hate to think of the chaos should there be a major Internet and physical infra failure in close proximity, time-wise.

Unless you exist in a state of wild over abundance and are very conscientious, most working infrastructure is always at a state of almost-disrepair. If I operate a machine shop and I have 4 partially-stripped screwdrivers, I might get a new one, but inevitably I will use it until it is as stripped as all the rest, and I don’t dare throw away a tool that is currently even in partially working condition since I might n…

You could also break something with your dull tools.

This is why you can't just drive a car until it breaks, you get it checked out.

Then again, cars are a private good. When it's your property vs our property you have more of an incentive to take care of it.

Re: The internet is held together with spit and baling wire

#39

Post by charcircuit »

switch007 wrote: post #31
fulafel wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deprecating unencrypted HTTP is a big systemic improvement even though some individual sites may not benefit much. It's a network effect. (What's the money grab given free let's encrypt certs?)

Setting up, monitoring and maintaining LE isn't free

It all happens automatically after a setup process that takes less than a minute.

Re: The internet is held together with spit and baling wire

#40

Post by bobthebuilders »

throwawayboise wrote: post #17
setpatchaddress wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We absolutely can. Imagine a US president outwardly Trump-like but who was also a True Believer instead of a cynical, mentally-ill real estate huckster. They would have the unilateral capability to start a global nuclear war. And they might actively desire to do this, on the basis of religious delusion (“it’s time for armageddon!”). We are frighteningly close to this scenario in 2025. It’s a bad idea to assume that t…

Since we're imagining things, imagine a befuddled geriatric sock puppet president installed via fraud and controlled by a globalist cabal with a stated desire to depopulate the planet. See how crazy that sounds?

Not really. You'd be surprised with what 3 letter agencies do.
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