Today I’m attending by telephone the first-ever Domain Name System Operations, Analysis, and Research Center (DNS-OARC). The attendees include operators of root DNS servers, top level domain servers, domain registries, and well known Internet researchers. Much interesting research is going on, and perhaps some of it can be more coordinated. The group also has members from major vendors. InternetPerils is a charter member.

One reason for this meeting is that DNS-OARC has received an NSF grant of $2.38M; kc of CAIDA and other participants were most complimentary of NSF. I hope this grant is a sign that NSF is coming to see collective action as at least as important as faster networks.

I can’t say much about what else went on, given that members sign a confidentiality agreement. Suffice it to say that people with related projects that might not have been aware of each other now are.

One attendee has previously publicly remarked that the Internet won’t die, because nobody has more incentive to keep it running than the miscreants that feed off of it.

I have a request from the DNS-OARC administration to mention that everyone should use BCP 38 and not peer with people who don’t do source address verification at the edges. This is a relatively new Best Practice (four years old) that is already widely deployed, although not yet widely enough.

One reason it’s still not widely enough deployed is the same reason nobody wanted to believe a tornado could hit Massachusetts. Many people see it as benefitting other people, but not themselves, because they don’t believe it could happen to them.

One thing I can do is link to my own presentation.

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In his book Linked, Albert-László Barabási (ALB) remarks:

“Real networks are not static, as all graph theoretical models were until recently. Instead growth plays a key role in shaping their topology. They are not as centralized as a start network is. Rather, there is a hierarchy of hubs that keep these networks together, a heavily connected node closely followed by several less connected ones, trailed by dozens of even smaller nodes. No central node sits in the middle of the spider web, controlling and monitoring every link and node. There is no single node whose removal could break the web. A scale-free network is a web without a spider.”

This is not news to those of us who were involved in USENET. For example, I ran ut-sally, which was the second node in traffic behind seismo. And there were many other nodes of varying degrees of connectivity and traffic. The most connected node also channged from time to time; earlier it was decvax, and then ihnp4.

ALB goes on to refer to Valdis Krebs’ topological examination of the 9/11 hijackers’ network, which indicated that even if the most connected person involved had been apprehended, the rest could probably have proceeded. ALB generalizes the point, noting that terrorist networks are themselves organized similarly.

John Robb has taken this idea further in his Global Guerillas blog, in which he examines in depth how such organizations thrive by decentralized funding and communications.

Force alone will not stop such organizations. This is not to say we can eschew force; in the best of all possible worlds that might be possible, but not in this one. Yet something else is also needed.

The solution is not as simple as McNamara thought when he left the U.S. government to join the World Bank; poverty alone is not the cause of terrorism, and wealth alone is not the solution, nor is lack of education the problem. Most of the 9/11 hijackers were not poor, and most suicide bombers are relatively highly educated by local standards. Nor are terrorism or suicide attacks unique to Islam; the only organization in the world to kill two heads of state (Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi) with suicide attacks is the Tamil Tigers, whose members tend to be Hindu.

There is a common cause of suicide attacks, according to a recent article in New Scientist:

“The decision to engage in suicide terrorism is political and strategic, Pape says. What is more, the aim is always the same: to coerce a government, through force of popular opinion (apart from a few isolated cases, modern suicide terrorism has only ever been used against democracies), to withdraw from territory the group considers its homeland.”
—“The making of a suicide bomber,” by Michael Bond
and editorial from New Scientist vol 182 issue 2447.

This might indicate two ways of dealing with that particular problem: withdraw from the territory the terrorists consider occupied, or change ones government to something other than a democracy. Not only do those options not seem terribly atractive, but suicide terrorism is only one form of terrorism, and withdrawal isn’t the only demand of, for example, Al Qaeda.

ALB proposes eliminating the “underlying social, economic, and political roots that fuel the network’s growth.” And to offer “a chance to belong to more constructive and meaningful webs.”

Here’s another view on that:

“In the past few years, something has gone wrong in the broader relationship between the so-called West and the countries of the Arab and Muslim world. Distrust, recriminations and resentment have mounted. Minor misunderstandings or disagreements have taken on highly symbolic importance and fed the cycle of suspicion.”
…
“More dialogue per se may not guarantee better relations, but it can help and would at least reduce the barriers of ignorance. Thus we need a dramatic expansion of scholarship programmes and workplace exchange schemes so that more people know about life on the other side. Europe has been transformed through political and market integration, driven by supranational institutions. But the most successful EU programme has been the Erasmus scheme, which gives tens of thousands of students the chance to do part of their university degree in another EU country. Similar schemes also operate for professors and other categories of workers. Together with low-cost airlines, they have probably done more for European unity than the deadweight of the common agricultural policy. We need a similar scheme to link educational establishments in the West to those of the Arab and Muslim world. And, why not, we must also explore the possibilities of introducing low cost air travel on routes to and from the Middle East. There is no reason, other than politically inspired protectionism, why a ticket from London to Beirut or Jeddah should costs twice as much as one to New York. The overwhelming evidence suggests that if people are exposed to more factual information and different experiences, they moderate their views and factor in greater complexity. We may still differ on many things, but at least we should get the facts straight.”
— “Why We Do not Get On? And What to Do About It?” by Dr. Steven Everts, Al-Hayat 2004/09/25

And of course the Marshall Plan and the Eurail Pass have probably had effect on U.S.-European relations because they involved many Americans and Europeans interacting.

Sometimes you have to fight force with force, but that alone only leads to more fights. The best way to fix a broken world network may not be to break it further. Better may be to make it more connected.

As McNamara said in 1966:

“The decisive factor for a powerful nation already adequately armed is the character of its relationships with the world.”

How do we get more nations to put that into practice?

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According to a recent survey by In-Stat/MDR,

• “Seventy-three percent of respondents said service quality/reliability was the most important criteria in selecting an Internet service provider.
  
• “Sixty-nine percent selected price.
  
• “Twenty-one percent of respondents selected company reputation, knowledgeable customer service staff, and availability at multiple locations/national footprint.”
  

It seems that performance and reliability have moved ahead of price in picking ISPs, and availability, reach, and topology are also significant criteria. Apparently Scott Bradner has been right all these years he’s been saying that ISPs need to have a business model beyond price competition.

Given this situation, it would also seem that an ISP with a risk management plan would have a competitive edge.

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Previously I mentioned that Hurricane Ivan disconnected the Cayman Islands from the Internet.

Here’s an update showing the whole period of disconnect, two days off the net, and reconnect, with details about undersea cables and comparison to Jamaica.

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On Sunday 12 Sept 2004, Hurricane Ivan damaged the undersea cable that connects the Cayman Islands to Florida, disconnecting Cable & Wireless’ Internet connection to the Caymans, as illustrated in the animation.

Despite early news saying that Jamaica was also cut off, the same animation shows Jamaica connected all day. This is because the Jamaican node shown is on a different ISP and apparently a different undersea connection.

Observing the Internet directly can provide more information about some things than asking ISPs one by one.

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Denial can cause damage.

In the summer of 1953 tornados had damaged several states, but everyone knew Massachusetts didn’t have tornados.

“The official forecast for Central Massachusetts called for a continuation of hot, humid weather with the likelihood of afternoon thunderstorms, some possibly severe. US Weather Bureau storm forecasters believed there was the potential for tornadoes in New York and New England that afternoon and evening. The Buffalo, New York office warned western New York residents of the possibility for a tornado, but the official forecast released from the Boston office did not mention the threat, based in part on the rarity of Massachusetts tornadoes, and perhaps partly on the potential psychological impact on those residing in the area.”
“Weather Almanac for June 2003: THE WORCESTER TORNADO OF 1953”
Keith C. Heidorn, PhD, THE WEATHER DOCTOR, June 1, 2003

Even after the funnel touched down in Worcester County on June 9 1953, forecasters at the Boston Weather Bureau office at Logan airport discounted telephone calls from the affected area, dismissing them as crank calls. After all, everyone knew Mass. didn’t have tornados.

Meanwhile, debris started falling 35 miles east of the funnel, some onto Harvard’s Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory. Not just small pieces, either: 6 foot planks and 10 foot square pieces of wall and roof, The Harvard observers managed to convince Logan to put out a new advisory. I don’t know if they waved a plank at the telephone.

But the damage had been done. It was too late to evacuate, tape windows, or take cover. “The damage was estimated at $52 million ($349 million in 2002 dollars) and included 4,000 buildings and hundreds of cars.” The picture on the left from the Worcester Telegram and Gazette is of freshman Senator John F. Kennedy touring the disaster area.

It was an F4 (some say F5) tornado, with winds up to 250 miles per hour. Yet denial was so great that trained meteorologists refused to believe the funnel existed while it was flinging cars into the air, demolishing houses, and throwing debris as far as 50 miles away; a mattress was found in Boston Harbor.

“”When people see damage, is when they start acting.”
–Darin Figurskey, meteorologist
quoted in “The Wrath of God” on The History Channel

Affected parties moved quickly to start a state-wide storm-spotting network to watch for future storms. They even did some historical research. It turns out Mass. actually has about 3 tornados per year, and the earliest one on record was reported in June 1643 by Governor Winthrop. It’s amazing what you can see when you stop denying that you can see it, and even more when you have multiple eyes watching.

Several people affected by the Worcester tornado went on to pioneer tornado chasing, tornado cataloguing, and Doppler radar. The Weather Doctor has more on them and the Worcester tornado.

It seems the best time to make risk management plans is before the disaster happens.

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James Seng points out Bruce Schneier’s essay, “How Long Can the Country Stay Scared?”, in which Bruce remarks,

“There are two basic ways to terrorize people. The first is to do something spectacularly horrible, like flying airplanes into skyscrapers and killing thousands of people. The second is to keep people living in fear.”

In a previous post I noted that the ancient Anasazi tried to deal with a terrible enemy by retreating to fortified residences on increasingly hard to reach cliffs.

Who was this enemy that attacked the Anasazi, killing them and eating them? Apparently there was no large external invading force; it would have left traces
that would have been found by now. The best theory as to who the attackers were appears to be: the Anasazi themselves. The Anasazi society apparently fragmented and warred with itself, producing a state of fear that continued for decades if not centuries.

That society with a chronic state of fear and fortification failed. It eventually abandoned the cliff dwellings.

The survivors mutated into a society of mesa-dwellers who protected themselves via superior observation and cooperation. They apparently kept watchers on the mesa tops who could real perils approaching and alert people on the same and neighboring mesas in time to do something specific, rather than keeping everyone in fear all the time.

Hm, sounds like a holistic and synoptic view of the surrounding territory.

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Smithsonian Magazine published an interesting story (“Riddles of the Anasazi,” by David Roberts) about the ancient Anasazi of the Four Corners region of the U.S. southwest. For centuries they built buildings and roads and practiced agriculture and pottery. Then around the year 1200 they started suffering depradations by parties as yet unidentified who attacked them, killed them, and ate them; the evidence of cannibalism has become hard to refute.

At first the Anasazi reacted by building residences in increasingly hard-to-reach niches in cliffs. The example on the left is one of the last things they built on the cliffs; a wooden platform wedged into a rock face.

Eventually, at the end of the thirteenth century, the Anasazi abandoned their cliiff faces and moved to mesa tops to the southeast. At least three mesas, each of which could see at least one of the others.

“It was not difficulty of access that protected the settlements (none of the scrambles we performed here began to compare with the climbs we made in the Utah canyons), but an alliance based on visibility. If one village was under attack, it could send signals to its allies on the other mesas.”

The mesas did have perimeter defenses: they were 500 to 1000 feet tall, and they each had only one way in. But their individual perimeter defenses were not as extreme as back on the cliffs, and perimeters were only part of the new mesa defense system. Their descendants the Hopis still live on mesa tops.

Related to the question of Forts vs. Spimes, in this case ever more restricted fort perimeters did not work. What apparently did work was coordinated observations and cooperation. The analogy to the Internet probably does not need belaboring.

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Here’s another organization of organizations, the National Cyber Security Partnership.

“The National Cyber Security Partnership (NCSP) is led by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), TechNet and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in voluntary partnership with academicians, CEOs, federal government agencies and industry experts.

“Following the release of the 2003 White House National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace and the National Cyber Security Summit, this public-private partnership was established to develop shared strategies and programs to better secure and enhance America’s critical information infrastructure.”

It has five task forces on various aspects of (mostly traditional) security, from user education to corporate governance to software. These are all things that need to be done.

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Speaking of reputation systems, there’s a new player: Americans for a Secure Internet. It appears to be focused on education.

Members include organizations such as VeriSign, Ebay, ISS, and Technet, and individuals, although none seem to be named.

According to this InfoWorld article, apparently the new group has already had some success in obviating legislation through education.

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