[4517] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: A modest proposal
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert E. Seastrom)
Tue Sep 17 20:10:58 1996
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 20:04:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Robert E. Seastrom" <rs@bifrost.seastrom.com>
To: dalvenjah@dal.net
CC: allan@bellsouth.net, nanog@merit.edu
In-reply-to: <199609172341.QAA24347@delphis.ict.org> (message from Dalvenjah
FoxFire on Tue, 17 Sep 1996 16:41:05 -0700 (PDT))
From: Dalvenjah FoxFire <dalvenjah@dal.net>
I'd just like to offer some perspective here. The majority of these types
are complete idiots - and this is speaking from experience. For some reason
or other a lot of these get their start on IRC, and then go from there, and
I get to see them in the 'formative stages', as it were.
<ahem> Some of them even put their IRC names in their .signatures
(present company excluded of course) :)
I haven't used any myself, but apparently there are several software
packages out there with a pretty graphical front end, complete with
Hollywood-style "Click to destroy machine" buttons and menus.
Uh huh, right. If you ever actually see anything like this, lemme know.
I have indeed seen that the majority of these types believe that it's
perfectly possible to ping -f or nuke/SYNflood/whatever a machine from a
14.4k or 28.8k dialup. Granted it may not be as bad as the Panix case, but
it's still an incredible nuisance.
The only "nuisance" will be if you notice it; that is actually not
very likely. The causal "victim" will be happily oblivious to a
pingflood coming from a 14.4k dialup unless he too happens to be on a
14.4k dialup.
What I'm trying to say is don't dismiss this as not possible. With the
current level of public education about the Internet - "How do I get to that
superhighway information thing? I'm interested in Route 25.." - it can and
is very possible that people will do things like this from a
28.8k. I've seen it happen.
Oh, sure, they'll *try* it, but the results will be boring. they
don't get the machine to go "boom", and after a suitable period of
trying, they go back to IRC.
(I'm not trying to say there isn't a range, though - I've gotten several
"I'll destroy your machine with my tee3 account!" threats as well.)
You've got a whole lot more to worry about from him -- at least he has
the bandwidth to make good on a threat to make your life difficult via
brute force.
---Rob
