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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

#91

Post by User23 »

throw0101a wrote: post #78
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.

> Remove a few hubs and you have disabled a large portion of the internet. "A few hubs"? Just Hurricane Electric has presence in many, many IXPs, and they're not even the largest transit provider: * https://bgp.he.net/AS6939#_ix AT&T, the largest transit provider, has a ridiculous number of peers: * https://bgp.he.net/AS7018#_peers And there are several different major global providers: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

You’re wrong. If say One Wilshire[1] or one of the very few other carrier hotels in its class abruptly ceased existing the Internet would be wrecked and rebuilding would be a matter of months at the very best. It doesn’t matter how many peers a big telco has when the supermajority of backbone peerings are in a handful of buildings.

[1] https://one-wilshire.com/

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

#92

Post by avgcorrection »

ip26 wrote: post #32
zwkrt wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They said “If I operate a machine shop”.

So presumably just another programmer making up an analogy with insufficient background knowledge so that we can nitpick the details of it.

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

#93

Post by ratorx »

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…

I’ll reply to this and some of your other comments in this reply.

In a lot of cases, SSL is not expensive or time consuming. It is a single line in cron. I appreciate that this is not the case for your hosting, but economic pressure is one of the main ways SSL can be more utilised. The fact that you’re considering moving away from them, suggests that their business will suffer in the long term, if they don’t make integrating SSL easier/less expensive. This is good economic pressure, and its likely the best pressure that can be applied right now, considering the glacial pace of technology laws in almost all countries. You seem to be generalising your situation and applying the blanket “it’s too expensive” argument to everyone, even though it’s mostly a non-issue for people who have better hosting providers or not as much legacy.

Arguably, building a website with a login is a LOT easier and cheaper now than it was 10 years ago, because Let’s Encrypt is such a well known option. If they wanted to do so 10 years ago, they would have most likely had to pay through the nose for an expensive certificate. You seem to also have forgotten about these people with your blanket statement about hosting websites being more expensive for everyone.

Is the security provided significant in simple sites? Probably not. However, having SSL be a default is good overall. It gives less chances for operators to screw up because non-HTTPS raises very user-visible alarm bells. If your site is small and non-revenue generating, then why does the security alert even matter? It doesn’t prevent anyone from accessing the website.

Your 2FA argument is wrong. Sure, there may be multiple reasons for mandating it, but for regular users, 2FA is good defense in depth, that offers protection against password compromise. Again, the average consumer doesn’t necessarily have strong passwords or unique passwords across services. 2FA is good protection for them.

Also, if mining user data was the main reason for 2FA, big tech wouldn’t support hardware security keys for 2FA. Mobile 2FA is a usability compromise because it targets a lowest common denominator that (almost) everyone has.

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

#94

Post by kingcharles »

toast0 wrote: post #30
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.

Back in the 90s when I got on, so much of traffic was exchanged at MAE-West or MAE-East, and a backhoe in Iowa could make nearly all the cross-US traffic go through Europe and Asia instead. These days, there are lively public internet exchanges up and down both coasts, in texas and chicago and elsewhere. A well placed backhoe can still make a big mess, many 'redundant fibers' are in the same strand, and last mile is…

God, this would happen all the time in the mid-90s. You joke about a backhoe in Iowa, but I'm pretty certain it was a backhoe in Iowa one time. Then the whole of the UK's traffic to the USA West Coast would be routed through an ISDN connection in Korea for three days. Your goat porn downloads from Usenet would drop from their high of 0.5Kb/sec and you'd be left with your dick in your hand. Or something.

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

#95

Post by kingcharles »

User23 wrote: post #91
throw0101a wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remove a few hubs and you have disabled a large portion of the internet. "A few hubs"? Just Hurricane Electric has presence in many, many IXPs, and they're not even the largest transit provider: * https://bgp.he.net/AS6939#_ix AT&T, the largest transit provider, has a ridiculous number of peers: * https://bgp.he.net/AS7018#_peers And there are several different major global providers: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

You’re wrong. If say One Wilshire[1] or one of the very few other carrier hotels in its class abruptly ceased existing the Internet would be wrecked and rebuilding would be a matter of months at the very best. It doesn’t matter how many peers a big telco has when the supermajority of backbone peerings are in a handful of buildings. [1] https://one-wilshire.com/

That building gives me anxiety attacks; just thinking about how vulnerable it is.

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

#97

Post by rvense »

Teever wrote: post #20
paxys wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What original topology are you talking about? There was never a time when your end consumer device could be used as even a semi-reliable web server.

> There was never a time when your end consumer device could be used as even a semi-reliable web server. I dunno man, My used T420 laptop is serving several sites over a residential symmetrical fiber connection just fine.

Built-in UPS and KVM, too. Keep it cool and stock up on PSUs and that'll last you a long time.

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

#98

Post by snoopen »

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…

Sure, certificates can be time consuming at the moment but that will only get easier. Just like hosting the underlying website.

The number of sites that should have had SSL but didn't was laughable and justification enough for browsers to require SSL.

I don't know if you're being deliberately alarmist, but 2FA is a huge peace of mind when done correctly with one time codes. Those don't require phone numbers and is the properly secure method.

Sure the old internet was a bit more fun and carefree, but it became far less fun when you had your online accounts compromises because of weak or non existent security.

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

#99

Post by h2odragon »

kingcharles wrote: post #94
toast0 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the 90s when I got on, so much of traffic was exchanged at MAE-West or MAE-East, and a backhoe in Iowa could make nearly all the cross-US traffic go through Europe and Asia instead. These days, there are lively public internet exchanges up and down both coasts, in texas and chicago and elsewhere. A well placed backhoe can still make a big mess, many 'redundant fibers' are in the same strand, and last mile is…

God, this would happen all the time in the mid-90s. You joke about a backhoe in Iowa, but I'm pretty certain it was a backhoe in Iowa one time. Then the whole of the UK's traffic to the USA West Coast would be routed through an ISDN connection in Korea for three days. Your goat porn downloads from Usenet would drop from their high of 0.5Kb/sec and you'd be left with your dick in your hand. Or something.

Kids today will never know how we suffered in the Before Times

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

#100

Post by zemvpferreira »

avgcorrection wrote: post #92
ip26 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They said “If I operate a machine shop”. So presumably just another programmer making up an analogy with insufficient background knowledge so that we can nitpick the details of it.

Presumably. Those statements would be insulting to most professional machinists, carpenters and others who take good care of the tools/infrastructure that provide their job and keeps their digits in place. To not speak of an actual industrial facility producing high-quality or high-volume items.

In fact, so much care is put into infrastructure that most people/shops have lots of tools they have designed and built themselves at great expense to streamline their operations.

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