
Quick fix for an early Internet problem lives on a quarter-century later (2015) - BerislavLopac
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2015/05/31/net-of-insecurity-part-2/
======
pasbesoin
For those wondering "what", it's finally named in paragraphs 8 and 9, or 9 and
10, depending on how you count:

 _Such is the story of the “three-napkins protocol,” more formally known as
Border Gateway Protocol, or BGP.

At its most basic level, BGP helps routers decide how to send giant flows of
data across the vast mesh of connections that make up the Internet. With
infinite numbers of possible paths — some slow and meandering, others quick
and direct — BGP gives routers the information they need to pick one, even
though there is no overall map of the Internet and no authority charged with
directing its traffic._

~~~
mirimir
BGP was on my short list, based on the title.

And I'm puzzled by this:

> There was no concept that people would use this to do malicious things.

Pranking/rfing was _very_ common, in those days. Not exactly malicious, of
course. All in good fun. But still ...

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omeid2
There has been some progress recently on this issue, more specifically BGPsec,
and with the existence of established (quasi?)-authorities that deal with AS
around the world, the RIRs, the prospect of having this deployed on the
majority of internet is very practical.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGPsec](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGPsec)

------
mirimir
So this sounds alarming, right?

> There is another dangerous possibility lurking in BGP, what Madory calls the
> “dystopian possibility” that some network — perhaps in a moment when
> international hostilities are spilling into cyberspace — intentionally
> claims control of sections of the Internet that don’t belong to it.

> Such a move would confuse the world’s routers, which would have to choose
> between rival claims to the same blocks of Internet addresses. The overall
> network, unable to discern truth amid competing claims, could fracture into
> rival fiefdoms.

But hey, the US already does this, for some FBI website seizures. And for
black-holing "bad" sites.

~~~
asaph
> Such a move would confuse the world’s routers, which would have to choose
> between rival claims to the same blocks of Internet addresses.

I know! We can solve this with blockchain technology!

> The overall network, unable to discern truth amid competing claims, could
> fracture into rival fiefdoms.

Oh right. The inevitable forks would ruin everything. Oh well...

------
mirimir
FYI:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20181213102455/https://www.washi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20181213102455/https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2015/05/31/net-
of-insecurity-part-2/)

------
dang
2016:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12892502](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12892502)

2015:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9636141](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9636141)

