4 ms·

A 250 Gbps attack is bringing an ISP down? How is this possible in the age of 1 Gbps connections in every home?

by vadfa 5y ago

BenjiWiebe 5y ago
50 1Gbps connections usually peak at less than 50Gbps. Depending on your demographic and area, it can be a lot less. 250 Gbps will service much more than 250 1Gbps connections. Also, not nearly every ISP offers 1 Gbps to all their customers. Some ISPs don't offer it at all.
- tyingq 5y ago
  There's also things like local Netflix/Google/etc caching boxes where you can serve downsteam traffic without touching your upstream as much.
KindOne 5y ago
They seem to only offer 20Mbps - 500Mbps. https://www.edpnet.be/nl/thuis/internet.html https://www.edpnet.be/nl/thuis/internet.html https://www.edpnet.be/nl/business/internet.html https://www.edpnet.be/nl/business/internet.html
- laurensr 5y ago
  They are mainly offering VDSL2 connections over phone lines. They also offer Fiber over a monopolist's (called Proximus) GPON infrastructure, but the rollout of that GPON network is still in early stages. However, that monopolist has pledged to accelerate that rollout in light of the increasing work-from-home statistics following the pandemic. https://www.proximus.com/news/2020/20201208-proximus-brings-fiber-network-to-brussels.html https://www.proximus.com/news/2020/20201208-proximus-brings-...
NullPrefix 5y ago
overselling
MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
Just because everyone has 1Gbps doesn't mean if everyone tried downloading something they'd get it. The internet is tunneled through a system where the more people are on it, the more likely that the bandwidth entirely gets used up. It's literally like the phone systems back in the day where if everyone picked up the phone, not everyone would get a dial tone.
storyinmemo 5y ago
It's like a large city in a way. Most of your roads are local, and so is most of your traffic. You try to distribute load and makes trips as short as possible. For a city its grocery stores in neighborhoods. For an ISP, they do this by peering locally with major providers. Google, Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, etc. all have very large networks and will openly connect at Meet Me points in open and private internet exchange sites as will CDN providers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_exchange_point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_exchange_point. Some providers such as Google and Netflix will even install local caching servers that you can reach from your network if you have enough traffic. As a small ISP, you try to take advantage of all of that. Your option of last resort is the Tier 1 upstream provider. That's for anything where you can't get to it via local transit peering. This should be a smaller percentage of your traffic and it costs more than peering arrangements. The nature of a DDOS is going to fill that smallest and most expensive connection that provides the filler access to the majority of the world but doesn't handle the majority of the traffic. Even as a hosting provider, it doesn't have to be overselling. If you have 250 1Gbps customers and 250 Gbps of bandwidth, you'll still be useless in the face of 250 Gbps of junk traffic. Pick a random packet and tell me what should decide if it is dropped is something that has to be determined upstream of the saturated link. EDPnet looks pretty well-connected too: https://bgp.he.net/AS9031#_ix https://bgp.he.net/AS9031#_ix
- xiconfjs 5y ago
  using peeringdb gives most of the time better view into the IX connections and their bandwidth. -> https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/9031 https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/9031
- vadfa 5y ago
  I know how these things work, and I'm sorry, but 250 Gbps in this day and age is just a joke, even when you are talking about bandwidth outside your network. There's more to this story or this ISP is incompetent or severely underfunded.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lkuty 5y ago
I am an edpnet customer in a rural area and my peak DL speed is 18 Mbps (long distance VDSL) in an era of Gbps but as a consolation I do not pay much. I could get 400 Mbps with anoter ISP but the price increase is significant. I enjoy good DL speeds at my work place.

A 250 Gbps attack is bringing an ISP down? How is this possible in the age of 1 Gbps connections in every home?

by vadfa 5y ago

A 250 Gbps attack is bringing an ISP down? How is this possible in the age of 1 Gbps connections in every home?

50 1Gbps connections usually peak at less than 50Gbps. Depending on your demographic and area, it can be a lot less. 250 Gbps will service much more than 250 1Gbps connections. Also, not nearly every ISP offers 1 Gbps to all their customers. Some ISPs don't offer it at all.

tyingq 5y ago
There's also things like local Netflix/Google/etc caching boxes where you can serve downsteam traffic without touching your upstream as much.

KindOne 5y ago

They seem to only offer 20Mbps - 500Mbps. https://www.edpnet.be/nl/thuis/internet.html https://www.edpnet.be/nl/thuis/internet.html https://www.edpnet.be/nl/business/internet.html https://www.edpnet.be/nl/business/internet.html

laurensr 5y ago
They are mainly offering VDSL2 connections over phone lines. They also offer Fiber over a monopolist's (called Proximus) GPON infrastructure, but the rollout of that GPON network is still in early stages. However, that monopolist has pledged to accelerate that rollout in light of the increasing work-from-home statistics following the pandemic. https://www.proximus.com/news/2020/20201208-proximus-brings-fiber-network-to-brussels.html https://www.proximus.com/news/2020/20201208-proximus-brings-...

NullPrefix 5y ago

overselling

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago

Just because everyone has 1Gbps doesn't mean if everyone tried downloading something they'd get it. The internet is tunneled through a system where the more people are on it, the more likely that the bandwidth entirely gets used up. It's literally like the phone systems back in the day where if everyone picked up the phone, not everyone would get a dial tone.

storyinmemo 5y ago

It's like a large city in a way. Most of your roads are local, and so is most of your traffic. You try to distribute load and makes trips as short as possible. For a city its grocery stores in neighborhoods. For an ISP, they do this by peering locally with major providers. Google, Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, etc. all have very large networks and will openly connect at Meet Me points in open and private internet exchange sites as will CDN providers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_exchange_point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_exchange_point. Some providers such as Google and Netflix will even install local caching servers that you can reach from your network if you have enough traffic. As a small ISP, you try to take advantage of all of that. Your option of last resort is the Tier 1 upstream provider. That's for anything where you can't get to it via local transit peering. This should be a smaller percentage of your traffic and it costs more than peering arrangements. The nature of a DDOS is going to fill that smallest and most expensive connection that provides the filler access to the majority of the world but doesn't handle the majority of the traffic. Even as a hosting provider, it doesn't have to be overselling. If you have 250 1Gbps customers and 250 Gbps of bandwidth, you'll still be useless in the face of 250 Gbps of junk traffic. Pick a random packet and tell me what should decide if it is dropped is something that has to be determined upstream of the saturated link. EDPnet looks pretty well-connected too: https://bgp.he.net/AS9031#_ix https://bgp.he.net/AS9031#_ix

xiconfjs 5y ago
using peeringdb gives most of the time better view into the IX connections and their bandwidth. -> https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/9031 https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/9031
vadfa 5y ago
I know how these things work, and I'm sorry, but 250 Gbps in this day and age is just a joke, even when you are talking about bandwidth outside your network. There's more to this story or this ISP is incompetent or severely underfunded.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

lkuty 5y ago

I am an edpnet customer in a rural area and my peak DL speed is 18 Mbps (long distance VDSL) in an era of Gbps but as a consolation I do not pay much. I could get 400 Mbps with anoter ISP but the price increase is significant. I enjoy good DL speeds at my work place.