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Put Down the Pitchforks; Amazon Didn't Steal Your Dunning-Krugerrands

60 points by QuinnyPig 9y ago

dontchooseanick 9y ago
Stupidity, not malice ;) https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor
- QuinnyPig 9y ago
  Very fair. I'm not particularly surprised that the general media hasn't grasped the nuances of BGP; I just prefer to reserve jumping on Amazon for those moments where they, y'know... deserve it.
cbsmith 9y ago
Even though I knew the content deserved it, I upvoted just based on the title.
dsl 9y ago
But Amazon really did screw up here. The attackers were able to announce more specific prefixes than Amazon was announcing itself. It was like Amazon said "give me all phone calls for the 415 area code," and the attackers said "give me all calls for 415-555-xxxx." In internet routing, the most specific always wins (down to the minimum prefix size of /24 most networks filter on). A commonly accepted mitigation for BGP hijacking is to announce the /24's of your important assets as well as the covering prefixes. An attackers announcement of the same /24 will at worst capture _some_ of the traffic, rather than being seen as a more specific and capturing _all_ the traffic.
- jbob2000 9y ago
  > In internet routing, the most specific always wins So is this flaw Amazon's fault? I think not. Even your accepted mitigation doesn't fix the hole completely. It's still an internet problem.
thisisit 9y ago
> The internet is fundamentally broken in this way; bad actors can cause disruption and woe for huge numbers of people. It's a giant problem, to be sure So, now I guess we need people to explain how blockchain can solve this problem. /s
- lethargic_meat 9y ago
  What if I told you there is an app on the market that can solve this problem using blockchain.
  - olliej 9y ago
    But is it using smart contracts to innovate and disrupt (I’ve lost track of whether disrupting is still hot)
  - QuinnyPig 9y ago
    I think you could do a lot worse then selling it to people who fail to grasp how money works.
marchenko 9y ago
Did this author "coin" the term Dunning-Krugerrand? Because it's brilliant.
- LyndsySimon 9y ago
  Nope. I remember seeing it on bitcoin-talk.org circa 2010 or 2011. I literally laughed out loud the first time I saw it, too :)
- anubisresources 9y ago
  I saw it on Twitter a month or two ago, but I love it too! Great name
- tCfD 9y ago
  It's been around for several years, probably originating on bitcointalk.org, but it was/is popular on the r/buttcoin subreddit

60 points by QuinnyPig 9y ago

dontchooseanick 9y ago

Stupidity, not malice ;) https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

QuinnyPig 9y ago
Very fair. I'm not particularly surprised that the general media hasn't grasped the nuances of BGP; I just prefer to reserve jumping on Amazon for those moments where they, y'know... deserve it.

cbsmith 9y ago

Even though I knew the content deserved it, I upvoted just based on the title.

dsl 9y ago

But Amazon really did screw up here. The attackers were able to announce more specific prefixes than Amazon was announcing itself. It was like Amazon said "give me all phone calls for the 415 area code," and the attackers said "give me all calls for 415-555-xxxx." In internet routing, the most specific always wins (down to the minimum prefix size of /24 most networks filter on). A commonly accepted mitigation for BGP hijacking is to announce the /24's of your important assets as well as the covering prefixes. An attackers announcement of the same /24 will at worst capture _some_ of the traffic, rather than being seen as a more specific and capturing _all_ the traffic.

jbob2000 9y ago
> In internet routing, the most specific always wins So is this flaw Amazon's fault? I think not. Even your accepted mitigation doesn't fix the hole completely. It's still an internet problem.

thisisit 9y ago

> The internet is fundamentally broken in this way; bad actors can cause disruption and woe for huge numbers of people. It's a giant problem, to be sure So, now I guess we need people to explain how blockchain can solve this problem. /s

lethargic_meat 9y ago
What if I told you there is an app on the market that can solve this problem using blockchain.
- olliej 9y ago
  But is it using smart contracts to innovate and disrupt (I’ve lost track of whether disrupting is still hot)
- QuinnyPig 9y ago
  I think you could do a lot worse then selling it to people who fail to grasp how money works.

marchenko 9y ago

Did this author "coin" the term Dunning-Krugerrand? Because it's brilliant.

LyndsySimon 9y ago
Nope. I remember seeing it on bitcoin-talk.org circa 2010 or 2011. I literally laughed out loud the first time I saw it, too :)
anubisresources 9y ago
I saw it on Twitter a month or two ago, but I love it too! Great name
tCfD 9y ago
It's been around for several years, probably originating on bitcointalk.org, but it was/is popular on the r/buttcoin subreddit