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> Take out a few core locations and you'd have a very hard time getting to google, or most other sites for that matter. Definitely untrue. How familiar are yo

> Take out a few core locations and you'd have a very hard time getting to google, or most other sites for that matter. Definitely untrue. How familiar are you with how the Internet works? Google and other major websites are massively multihomed: they peer with tens or hundreds or perhaps thousands of other ISPs and backbones in as many different peering points around the world. > All it takes for the vast majority of the internet to become unusable for the larger fraction of the population is to take the .com, .net and .org TLDs down. 8.8.8.8 is an easy enough number to memorize. So is 8.8.4.4. How long do you think it would DNS admins there or anywhere else to fix their servers not to flush their caches? Certainly less time than it would take the US government to shut down thousands of redundant peering points.

Locke1689 16y ago
How familiar are you with how the Internet works? If you read any recent DS papers you'd notice that Tier-1 ASes follow a power law distribution. You'd only have to shut down a handful of peering ASes to cripple BGP routing in the US.
- jemfinch 16y ago
  The thing that makes those ASes Tier-1 is that they have so many peering points. You seem to be presuming that they're as easy to shut down as cutting the power to a few POPs, but they're not. How many POPs would you have to take out to stop Americans from getting to Google?
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    You don't need to kill PoPs. ASes are run by companies. Force those companies to shut down the PoPs themselves.
jacquesm 16y ago
> How familiar are you with how the Internet works? Familiar enough with it to have written a TCP/IP stack. You? > Google and other major websites are massively multihomed: they peer with tens or hundreds or perhaps thousands of other ISPs and backbones in as many different peering points around the world. Yes, that was the point, the hosts are still up but you can't reach them. Kill port 53 and the net might as well be dead for 99.9% of all hosts. Most links in google point to other websites, not to google. > 8.8.8.8 is an easy enough number to memorize. So is 8.8.4.4. Yep, those would be first to go. Technically those are under the control of the US military anyway, they're on US soil and within 100 miles of an army base. Or did you think there would be a stand-off between a bunch of nerds and a bunch of military long enough to make a difference? Take out a few key peering locations and the net is dark. In North America I would say Mae-East, Mae-West and Front 151 in Toronto and that would be 70% of the work done, you can mop up after that. > How long do you think it would DNS admins there or anywhere else to fix their servers not to flush their caches? Ironically restarting bind with a new config clears the cache. I'm sure you could find a work-around for that but it might actually be an advantage to start thinking about this ahead of time and making sure that you can survive in 'island' mode without access to DNS. Those DHS seizures targeted the domans for a good reason, people do not access the net through IP addresses conceptually, they use the DNS, the rest of the magic gets hidden under the hood. The HN crowd may be at an advantage in such a situation (it's just another challenge) but I think for the majority of the folks out there it would be curtains. > Certainly less time than it would take the US government to shut down thousands of redundant peering points. I think you're vastly underestimating the capabilities of the US army. There are active reserves in/around every major city, it wouldn't take more than a few hours. Extremely well organized guys with guns are a pretty effective means of shutting down technology. How many sys admins do you know that will take a bullet to keep their router up after being commanded to shut it down? That doesn't mean that I didn't wish you were right, but we can safely assume that if a government that (still) had control of its military decided that its citizens should not longer have internet access that they will not within a few hours of that decision being made.
- jemfinch 16y ago
  > Familiar enough with it to have written a TCP/IP stack. You? I work directly with it on one of the world's busiest destination ASes on a daily basis. > Yep, those would be first to go. Technically those are under the control of the US military anyway, they're on US soil and within 100 miles of an army base. I'm not quite sure what to do with such a glaringly incorrect statement. 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 are anycast-routed ips with multiple servers in places across the globe. Here's a list of the servers that host those ips: 64.233.162.0/24 gru 64.233.168.0/24 iad 66.102.12.0/24 grq 72.14.202.0/24 tpe 72.14.212.0/24 dls 74.125.112.0/24 chs 74.125.114.0/24 chs 74.125.126.0/24 dls 74.125.152.0/24 tpe 74.125.154.0/24 dls 74.125.156.0/24 atl 74.125.158.0/24 atl 74.125.38.0/24 fra 74.125.42.0/24 ber 74.125.44.0/24 atl 74.125.46.0/24 atl 74.125.52.0/24 dls 74.125.64.0/24 atl 74.125.66.0/24 atl 74.125.76.0/24 grq 74.125.78.0/24 grq 74.125.86.0/24 bud 74.125.90.0/24 mrn 74.125.92.0/24 mrn 74.125.94.0/24 cbf 208.117.247.0/24 pao 209.85.142.0/24 dub 209.85.174.0/24 kul 209.85.224.0/24 cbf 209.85.226.0/24 bru 209.85.228.0/24 bru How many of those do you think the US government can shutdown? It would have to find some way to blackhole Google's AS entirely to do so. Do you think that's within its capabilities? > I think you're vastly underestimating the capabilities of the US army...How many sys admins do you know that will take a bullet to keep their router up after being commanded to shut it down? I think you're vastly underestimating the autonomy of individual soldiers in the Army. I know a lot of soldiers--my wife's an active duty O-3--and I don't know a single one who would actually shoot a person for refusing to shut down a router, especially in the context of an attempted government shutdown of the Internet.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    The US government would not have to shut down the rest of the world, it would just have to shut down it's portion of it. All the resources that matter for that purpose are directly under it's control. > I don't know a single one who would actually shoot a person for refusing to shut down a router, especially in the context of an attempted government shutdown of the Internet. That's called desertion. Would they also refuse to take foreigners hostage and place them in confinement outside of US soil to stop them from having access to the courts? Typically when people with guns show up the options are 'do this or else', where or else can be anything from we'll take you prisoner to we'll put holes in you where they do not belong. And you will end up doing what you're told. Really this is an insane discussion, no ISP would hold out for more than 15 minutes to the moment of shutdown, you can choose it to be an orderly one with a chance of getting stuff back up once the order is lifted to one where stuff will be shut down by major force. Shutdown the power (and the generators) and it's curtains anyway. I understand that you'd like it to be otherwise. Let's hope we'll never find out who was right ;)

Locke1689 16y ago

How familiar are you with how the Internet works? If you read any recent DS papers you'd notice that Tier-1 ASes follow a power law distribution. You'd only have to shut down a handful of peering ASes to cripple BGP routing in the US.

jemfinch 16y ago
The thing that makes those ASes Tier-1 is that they have so many peering points. You seem to be presuming that they're as easy to shut down as cutting the power to a few POPs, but they're not. How many POPs would you have to take out to stop Americans from getting to Google?
- Locke1689 16y ago
  You don't need to kill PoPs. ASes are run by companies. Force those companies to shut down the PoPs themselves.

jacquesm 16y ago

> How familiar are you with how the Internet works? Familiar enough with it to have written a TCP/IP stack. You? > Google and other major websites are massively multihomed: they peer with tens or hundreds or perhaps thousands of other ISPs and backbones in as many different peering points around the world. Yes, that was the point, the hosts are still up but you can't reach them. Kill port 53 and the net might as well be dead for 99.9% of all hosts. Most links in google point to other websites, not to google. > 8.8.8.8 is an easy enough number to memorize. So is 8.8.4.4. Yep, those would be first to go. Technically those are under the control of the US military anyway, they're on US soil and within 100 miles of an army base. Or did you think there would be a stand-off between a bunch of nerds and a bunch of military long enough to make a difference? Take out a few key peering locations and the net is dark. In North America I would say Mae-East, Mae-West and Front 151 in Toronto and that would be 70% of the work done, you can mop up after that. > How long do you think it would DNS admins there or anywhere else to fix their servers not to flush their caches? Ironically restarting bind with a new config clears the cache. I'm sure you could find a work-around for that but it might actually be an advantage to start thinking about this ahead of time and making sure that you can survive in 'island' mode without access to DNS. Those DHS seizures targeted the domans for a good reason, people do not access the net through IP addresses conceptually, they use the DNS, the rest of the magic gets hidden under the hood. The HN crowd may be at an advantage in such a situation (it's just another challenge) but I think for the majority of the folks out there it would be curtains. > Certainly less time than it would take the US government to shut down thousands of redundant peering points. I think you're vastly underestimating the capabilities of the US army. There are active reserves in/around every major city, it wouldn't take more than a few hours. Extremely well organized guys with guns are a pretty effective means of shutting down technology. How many sys admins do you know that will take a bullet to keep their router up after being commanded to shut it down? That doesn't mean that I didn't wish you were right, but we can safely assume that if a government that (still) had control of its military decided that its citizens should not longer have internet access that they will not within a few hours of that decision being made.

jemfinch 16y ago
> Familiar enough with it to have written a TCP/IP stack. You? I work directly with it on one of the world's busiest destination ASes on a daily basis. > Yep, those would be first to go. Technically those are under the control of the US military anyway, they're on US soil and within 100 miles of an army base. I'm not quite sure what to do with such a glaringly incorrect statement. 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 are anycast-routed ips with multiple servers in places across the globe. Here's a list of the servers that host those ips: 64.233.162.0/24 gru 64.233.168.0/24 iad 66.102.12.0/24 grq 72.14.202.0/24 tpe 72.14.212.0/24 dls 74.125.112.0/24 chs 74.125.114.0/24 chs 74.125.126.0/24 dls 74.125.152.0/24 tpe 74.125.154.0/24 dls 74.125.156.0/24 atl 74.125.158.0/24 atl 74.125.38.0/24 fra 74.125.42.0/24 ber 74.125.44.0/24 atl 74.125.46.0/24 atl 74.125.52.0/24 dls 74.125.64.0/24 atl 74.125.66.0/24 atl 74.125.76.0/24 grq 74.125.78.0/24 grq 74.125.86.0/24 bud 74.125.90.0/24 mrn 74.125.92.0/24 mrn 74.125.94.0/24 cbf 208.117.247.0/24 pao 209.85.142.0/24 dub 209.85.174.0/24 kul 209.85.224.0/24 cbf 209.85.226.0/24 bru 209.85.228.0/24 bru How many of those do you think the US government can shutdown? It would have to find some way to blackhole Google's AS entirely to do so. Do you think that's within its capabilities? > I think you're vastly underestimating the capabilities of the US army...How many sys admins do you know that will take a bullet to keep their router up after being commanded to shut it down? I think you're vastly underestimating the autonomy of individual soldiers in the Army. I know a lot of soldiers--my wife's an active duty O-3--and I don't know a single one who would actually shoot a person for refusing to shut down a router, especially in the context of an attempted government shutdown of the Internet.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  The US government would not have to shut down the rest of the world, it would just have to shut down it's portion of it. All the resources that matter for that purpose are directly under it's control. > I don't know a single one who would actually shoot a person for refusing to shut down a router, especially in the context of an attempted government shutdown of the Internet. That's called desertion. Would they also refuse to take foreigners hostage and place them in confinement outside of US soil to stop them from having access to the courts? Typically when people with guns show up the options are 'do this or else', where or else can be anything from we'll take you prisoner to we'll put holes in you where they do not belong. And you will end up doing what you're told. Really this is an insane discussion, no ISP would hold out for more than 15 minutes to the moment of shutdown, you can choose it to be an orderly one with a chance of getting stuff back up once the order is lifted to one where stuff will be shut down by major force. Shutdown the power (and the generators) and it's curtains anyway. I understand that you'd like it to be otherwise. Let's hope we'll never find out who was right ;)