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To be fair to Akamai, they were providing their services to Krebs free of charge.

by bragr 2y ago

bostik 2y ago
Sure, as a business decision it must have made perfect sense at the time - Akamai had bigger (paying) customers to protect. But that doesn't make the optics around it any less terrible. The message they were telegraphing with their combined actions was effectively: "We protect some of the largest corporations on the planet... but do not have the resources to keep an individual journalist and blogger online. Your business could be next." Whoever made the decision to pull service to Krebs should have also thrown their weight around to get those ads off of Krebs's website, because the compound outlook must have been hideous. (How do you get your ads off of a website without causing any more animosity? You quickly renegotiate an exclusivity deal and then choose not to run any ads at all on it.)
bravetraveler 2y ago
Heavy is the head that wears the crown (or offers mitigation services advertised on a cybersecurity website) If Akamai can't (or won't) serve Krebs, I'm not sure I would want my business to pay them.
- bravetraveler 2y ago
  Can't edit now, but a point to this I'd like to add: 'serve' could absolutely mean best-effort (ie: filtered, moved, null routed, whatever). I don't intend for compulsory weathering-of-the-storm (for the sake of PR), but rather... recognition that this is part and parcel with The Business. Maybe they/partners couldn't weather the storm. Report on it; Engineering blogs are all the rage. Being a CDN involves more than serving well-traveled bytes, getting paid, or touting how big of a reseller you are. Cat must chase mouse! Krebs is arguably the best customer for this; not e-commerce (can endure the worst outcome - no service) and has domain expertise. If I enter a protection scheme with someone who - after all - isn't all that tough... why would I/anyone continue? The internet is a big place.

To be fair to Akamai, they were providing their services to Krebs free of charge.

by bragr 2y ago

To be fair to Akamai, they were providing their services to Krebs free of charge.

Sure, as a business decision it must have made perfect sense at the time - Akamai had bigger (paying) customers to protect. But that doesn't make the optics around it any less terrible. The message they were telegraphing with their combined actions was effectively: "We protect some of the largest corporations on the planet... but do not have the resources to keep an individual journalist and blogger online. Your business could be next." Whoever made the decision to pull service to Krebs should have also thrown their weight around to get those ads off of Krebs's website, because the compound outlook must have been hideous. (How do you get your ads off of a website without causing any more animosity? You quickly renegotiate an exclusivity deal and then choose not to run any ads at all on it.)

bravetraveler 2y ago

Heavy is the head that wears the crown (or offers mitigation services advertised on a cybersecurity website) If Akamai can't (or won't) serve Krebs, I'm not sure I would want my business to pay them.

bravetraveler 2y ago
Can't edit now, but a point to this I'd like to add: 'serve' could absolutely mean best-effort (ie: filtered, moved, null routed, whatever). I don't intend for compulsory weathering-of-the-storm (for the sake of PR), but rather... recognition that this is part and parcel with The Business. Maybe they/partners couldn't weather the storm. Report on it; Engineering blogs are all the rage. Being a CDN involves more than serving well-traveled bytes, getting paid, or touting how big of a reseller you are. Cat must chase mouse! Krebs is arguably the best customer for this; not e-commerce (can endure the worst outcome - no service) and has domain expertise. If I enter a protection scheme with someone who - after all - isn't all that tough... why would I/anyone continue? The internet is a big place.