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Re: [Asrg] Too Big to Block?

2009-07-08 17:27:08
Dotzero wrote:
On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 2:25 PM, Chris Lewis<clewis(_at_)nortel(_dot_)com> wrote:

Then we make a big public & private noise.  And sometimes things get better.

Sometimes they do. I believe der mouse commented about the big ISPs
not caring. I think they do but are having to deal with aggressive
attacks abusing their systems. On the other hand, life isn't fair <G>.

From experience, the people working with the technology care, but they sometimes can't get management (especially upper) to take it seriously and invest/authorize effort to deal with it.

This is particularly apparent with some ISPs where there are several "abusable" services under different management/business units. Some doing fine, others (especially "new" ones) being large-scale abused with _no_ effort to deal with any of it.

Nortel's a good size, but yeah, we're still not big enough on our own that "just blocking them" will get noticed [+].

The trick is amplifying your apparent size. PR work. Make public noise where you'll be heard, and getting others (especially moderate voices of infrastructures as large or larger) to at least indicate that they see a significant problem too and/or have implemented/contemplated implementing similar measures. Blog postings. Media reports (got a VP to contact me once). Whatever you can pull off.

I'm not so egotistical to think that it was "just me", nor that I was even the first in the campaigns where I've applied this, but most of the times I've made a serious effort along those lines, the problem _has_ gotten better.

It can be a longish term effort. Sometimes months, not days. Be patient. It does work often enough to be worth persevering at. Without acting like a loon. In which case it's just a waste.

[+] Well, once we were contacted by Yahoo about a /24 blocking - they do listen to their user's complaints. Then I explained why. Got a reluctant/embarrassed "I guess that's best".
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