September 2004 - NZNOG - lists.nznog.org

Re: [nznog] so ... what is the real reason there is whois anyway?
by Ewen McNeill 28 Sep '04

28 Sep '04

NOTE: operational content here is marginal; replies in email may be best In message <20040929014242.GD5188(a)stateless>, Nicholas Lee writes: >How about restricting access to whois information via a >registration-required web interface, rate limit access dependant on >GeoIP location, and make it difficult for scripts. The New Zealand whois interface is already rate limited (as David mentioned). Taking away the traditional whois interface again (Domainz didn't provide it for a long time) and replacing it with a web interface will reduce the ability for legitimate users to use the traditional tools to look up information (which may be integrated into their workflow). But it won't make it any more difficult for someone who is determined to extract the information from the whois database; HTTP libraries are just as available as TCP/IP connection libraries these days. If you put in a registration step, then again you make it more difficult for someone who is legitimately trying to look up information without really making it more difficult for a scripted solution. If you add a "type in the text from this distorted image" step (eg, a captcha), then there is a proven workaround for such things -- you offer free pr0n to anyone that decodes one of those images, then feed the result back into the system. It's unlikely there'll ever be a short supply of people wanting free pr0n. If you "randomize" the output of the whois information, then you make the service more difficult for legitmate users to use, but again nothing that's particularly hard for a scraping script to work around (if the output is programatically generated then it's almost always programatically parsable, particularly if you only want a subset of the information and aren't too concerned about false parsing). Besides which only one scammer (or enterprising supplier of scammers) needs to extract this information; it can be sold or reused for quite a while after it's extracted. The "useful lifetime" of the information is probably in the order of 6-12 months, and if you get a few "good" scams through in that time, the effort to extract it easily pays off. Since most of the scams that have been effective have been paper-based, and since the main operational need is for an email contact or a phone number contact, possibly the most productive thing to do is review whether the physical address information is made available (by default). But ultimately I think that so long as there's money to be made (and gullible people available to be scammed), such things will continue to happen almost irrespective of how difficult one tries to make it to obtain the information -- at least up to the point where legitimate users have long since given up trying to use the service. And it's not always a good idea to substantially interfere with legitimate use just because of a small amount of illegitimate use. Ewen

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OT: Laptop repairs.
by barry＠unix.co.nz 27 Sep '04

27 Sep '04

Hey guys, sorry to post off topic, just wanted to get a general idea on whats going on here. I bought a laptop 2months ago from Noel Lemmings, top of the range of the NEC model, shortly after getting it I had issues with software freezing etc and then the sound just stopped functioning. I tried installing other OSs on the laptop thinking it was just windows being its self, however the problem occurred on both FreeBSD and Debian linux. I sent the laptop in for repair (Theyve now had it close on 2 weeks) where they said they couldnt find a fault (typical) so I told them to keep it for a few more days. They then did find a fault and said it looked to be hardware related as per what I told them. They sent it in for repair where some other doofis tried to reinstall windows and then 2 days later said it was hardware related and it would take 5 days for a new MB to be sent from Malaysia. Well this morning I was called and asked if it would be alright if they could reinstall my laptop and did I want anything backed up; obviously no notes have been left with the laptop saying that its been reinstalled 11 times in the last 2 weeks and nothing is on the laptop. I call up this afternoon and ask when I can pickup the machine, they tell me that Malaysia dont have stock of my MB and Ill have to wait another 2 weeks before I might get my laptop back. When I asked if this was normal, they said yes, no laptop vendors keep stock in the country, only for desktops. So my questions are 1./ Should they be replacing the laptop with a new one 2./ Do hardware vendors never keep stock of parts in NZ (specially for a new range of equipment) 3./ How long should a laptop be in for repairs if its a P1 (Priority 1) job? Please reply directly. Thanks Barry ------------------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through UnixCo Webmail: http://www.unix.co.nz/

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OT: A bit of a rash
by David Zanetti 27 Sep '04

27 Sep '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi, I know this is off-topic, so please excuse my stupidity in thinking anyone cares about this anyway. I recently partook of some "services", and now I've developed a bit of a rash. At first, I denied it existed, because that would make me unclean, but now it's ruined my life, and I'm losing my hair, and also my dog has developed a bit of an interest in the neighbours. Anyway, I thought I ask here, of all places, if: 1. How long does it normally take for rashes of a random and unspecified nature to go away? 2. What's the going rate for "services"? 3. Just how many people are going to use this list to air completely irrelevent issues ranging from end users with ADSL problems thru to completely offtopic posts about the service you get from random big name retail chains. [Aside: BTW, in case it's not obvious, I am of course joking about the rash. No really.] - -- David Zanetti | (__) #include <geek/unix.h> | ( oo Mooooooo http://hairy.geek.nz/ | /(_O ./ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFBWNqYT21+qRy4P+QRAveOAKCprXgFaYq2C3ZwAC5eMoPPmCx//gCfQgeE vuelU3xnDdmdscfLTDiFHgk= =r8aX -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RE: [nznog] Acceptable levels of Latency, Jitter and Packet loss on national links
by Craig Humphrey 27 Sep '04

27 Sep '04

That's all well and good, but since it's also the only "performance metrics" given in the contract, it's all I have to go on (hence soliciting references from existing customers). It would be nice to get an indication of what performance we can expect, not just "oh, it'll never get worse than this..." I've got a load of questions for the provider around these (and other) issues, so I'll just have to see what they come up with. Later'ish Craig > -----Original Message----- > From: Joe Abley [mailto:jabley(a)isc.org] > Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 2:54 AM [snip snip] > It may actually be that the performance guarantee is a paper-dwelling > construct, and has little or no form in the actual network. > > I have certainly come across providers in my past for whom > performance > guarantees were necessary in order to be able to bid for > projects, but > the cost of deploying infrastructure to support the > guarantees was much > higher than just giving a few refunds now and then. As such the > guarantees didn't really exist outside the billing department. > > > Joe

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RE: [nznog] Acceptable levels of Latency, Jitter and Packet loss on national links
by Donald Neal 26 Sep '04

26 Sep '04

> -----Original Message----- > From: Joe Abley [mailto:jabley(a)isc.org] > Sent: Monday, 27 September 2004 4:09 p.m. > To: Craig Humphrey > Cc: nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz > Subject: Re: [nznog] Acceptable levels of Latency, Jitter and > Packet loss on national links > > > On 26 Sep 2004, at 22:25, Craig Humphrey wrote: > > > Latency Jitter IP Packet Loss > > "Realtime" <50ms <12.5ms <0.1% > > "Interactive" <75ms <50ms <0.1% > > "Business" <200ms <100ms <1.0% > > > > And yes, we're chasing references who are already using > this service. > > > > The reason for my dissatisfaction... Based on crude testing > with ping, > > we already get an average of 25ms latency over the 2Mbit/s fibre > > (during > > normal background load), and that's a round trip! So I'm > not sure how > > the above is really an improvement... > > What is the actual RTT over the ethernet service? Normal performance > and guaranteed performance seem very unlikely to be similar (or even > comparable within an order of magnitude). Among other reasons this is because normal performance is seen when things are normal. A provider's performance guarantee is presumably going to have a more demanding specification than just "you'll see numbers like this most of the time". - Donald Neal [All opinions mine only.] Donald Neal |World Domination is Technical Specialist |proceeding according to Operations Engineering |plan. - Andrew Tridgell Integration & Services Division +----------------------- Alcatel NZ Ltd - Telecom's network operations manager ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "This communication, including any attachments, is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, you should not read it - please contact me immediately, destroy it, and do not copy or use any part of this communication or disclose anything about it. Thank you. Please note that this communication does not designate an information system for the purposes of the Electronic Transactions Act 2002." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Acceptable levels of Latency, Jitter and Packet loss on national links
by Craig Humphrey 26 Sep '04

26 Sep '04

Hi People, We're about to upgrade our site to site 2Mbit/s frame relay WAN links (Akl, Wgn & Chc) to 10Mbit/s fibre into a central cloud, but I'm not entirely happy with the performance levels our provider is offering us. Below I've listed what's on offer, but I wanted to see what other providers consider to be deliverable levels for National links. All thoughts and comments welcome, probably off-list (to keep the noise down), and I can post a summary if people are interested. Latency Jitter IP Packet Loss "Realtime" <50ms <12.5ms <0.1% "Interactive" <75ms <50ms <0.1% "Business" <200ms <100ms <1.0% And yes, we're chasing references who are already using this service. The reason for my dissatisfaction... Based on crude testing with ping, we already get an average of 25ms latency over the 2Mbit/s fibre (during normal background load), and that's a round trip! So I'm not sure how the above is really an improvement... Soon'ish Craig

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Notification of NZRR Database changes
by NZRR Database Notifications 26 Sep '04

26 Sep '04

Dear Colleague, This is to notify you that some object(s) in NZRR database which you either maintain or are listed as to-be-notified have been added, deleted or changed. These objects are used to configure the APE and/or WIX route servers so you can expect the relevant servers to be reloaded in the near future. The reloading of the servers is staggered over a period of time so that if you are peering with both servers, you will maintain at least one BGP session at all times and consequently a full set of APE and/or WIX routes. --- PREVIOUS OBJECT: aut-num: AS24111 as-name: NZRR-AS24111 descr: NZwireless descr: initially peering at '202.7.1.69' descr: see Citylink RT job #929 admin-c: RPA1-NZRR tech-c: RPA1-NZRR import: from AS9439 accept ANY AND NOT fltr-bogons export: to AS9439 announce AS24111 notify: rpsl-admin(a)wix.net.nz notify: nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz notify: andrew.tipton(a)nzwireless.co.nz mnt-by: MAINT-NZRR-NZ changed: rpsl-admin(a)wix.net.nz 20040810 source: NZRR REPLACED BY: aut-num: AS24111 as-name: NZRR-AS24111 descr: nzWireless descr: initially peering at '192.203.154.14' descr: see Citylink RT job #1236 admin-c: RPA1-NZRR tech-c: RPA1-NZRR import: from AS9560 accept ANY AND NOT fltr-bogons export: to AS9560 announce AS24111 notify: rpsl-admin(a)ape.net.nz notify: nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz notify: andrew.tipton(a)nzwireless.co.nz mnt-by: MAINT-NZRR-NZ changed: rpsl-admin(a)ape.net.nz 20040927 source: NZRR --- PREVIOUS OBJECT: route: 203.110.28.0/23 descr: Route for NZwireless - AS24111 origin: AS24111 notify: rpsl-admin(a)wix.net.nz notify: nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz notify: andrew.tipton(a)nzwireless.co.nz mnt-by: MAINT-NZRR-NZ changed: rpsl-admin(a)wix.net.nz 20040810 source: NZRR REPLACED BY: route: 203.110.28.0/23 descr: Route for nzWireless - AS24111 origin: AS24111 notify: rpsl-admin(a)ape.net.nz notify: nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz notify: andrew.tipton(a)nzwireless.co.nz mnt-by: MAINT-NZRR-NZ changed: rpsl-admin(a)ape.net.nz 20040927 source: NZRR --- OBJECT BELOW CREATED: route-set: AS9560:RS-ROUTES:AS24111 descr: Route set advertised to AS9560 by nzWireless - AS24111 members: 203.110.28.0/23^23-24 admin-c: RPA1-NZRR tech-c: RPA1-NZRR notify: rpsl-admin(a)ape.net.nz notify: nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz notify: andrew.tipton(a)nzwireless.co.nz mnt-by: MAINT-NZRR-NZ changed: rpsl-admin(a)ape.net.nz 20040927 source: NZRR

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RE: [nznog] nznog research group for NGI?
by Donald Neal 26 Sep '04

26 Sep '04

> -----Original Message----- > From: Daniel Lawson [mailto:daniel(a)wand.net.nz] > Sent: Thursday, 23 September 2004 9:41 a.m. > To: jon.brewer(a)worldnet.att.net; nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz > Subject: Re: [nznog] nznog research group for NGI? [...] > The NZ Advanced Network is not about reading webpages. It's not about > downloading mp3s or using Kazaa. It's about shipping multi-gigabyte > volumes of data between research organisations. It's about developing > the next generation of network apps that will rely on this > capacity of > transit. > > As for 15 c/MB charges at Victoria, we face similar charges > at Waikato. > It's one of the reasons we (as a network research group) want this > network - not because we care overly about paying to read > Slashdot every > morning, but because 15 or 10 even 1 c/MB is far too much > when you want > to send 600 GB of network traces to Auckland. And it'll take > too long > across a 10Mbit TC ethernet connection. You know, talking about what specific users plan to do with a research network might actually be operational content, and so on topic for this list. - Donald Neal Donald Neal |World Domination is Technical Specialist |proceeding according to Operations Engineering |plan. - Andrew Tridgell Integration & Services Division +----------------------- Alcatel NZ Ltd - Telecom's network operations manager ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "This communication, including any attachments, is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, you should not read it - please contact me immediately, destroy it, and do not copy or use any part of this communication or disclose anything about it. Thank you. Please note that this communication does not designate an information system for the purposes of the Electronic Transactions Act 2002." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Sprintlink- Planned Outage Notification
by Jonathan Brewer 25 Sep '04

25 Sep '04

Folks, This came from one of our providers, and I hadn't seen mention of it on the list. Not that 5min is any big deal, but it's nice to know why the pager is going off in the middle of the night. Cheers, JB Dear Valued Customer, Sprintlink, our upstream provider has notified us of an upcoming outage caused by Telecom NZ Ltd performing scheduled maintenance work. Details are as follows: Start date: 3 Oct 04, Sunday Time: 00:01 hrs End date:3 Oct 04, Sunday Time: 01:01 hrs Duration: One 5 minute outage during this window. Reason: Maintenance work by TNZ

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APNIC records to be marked as 'private' for end user delegations
by Mark Foster 23 Sep '04

23 Sep '04

http://www.apnic.net/docs/policy/proposals/prop-007-v001.html http://www.apnic.net/info/faq/privacy-faq.htm As at 30 September client-side delegation information will be hidden from whois - the only info provided will be the ISP involved. Suprised there hasnt been any discussion of this on here so thought id pass it through. (original information sourced via NANOG, where theyre now busy 'discussing' the merits of making life easier for spammers, etc.) Cheers Mark. [posts are imho, as usual]

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