[AusNOG] Confirmation of govt blackholing. Was: Re: Understanding lack of Aus connectivity to melbournefreeuniversity.org.

[Tim March]

MFU have moved their hosting provider following the incident.

The previous host was quite obviously a shared web server running a 
truckload of sites. A cursory check by the network operators would have 
picked that up and they should have known that they were actually 
blocking 1200+ sites.

You raise an interesting point, what happens when some flunky at ASIC 
mistakenly sends the IP address of a core internet router to a bunch of 
providers, who lemming it in and break significant chunks of internet.

Obviously the system is broken on a whole range of levels. The operators 
need to show some leadership and push back. As partners and consumers we 
need to show some balls and boycott those operators who don't.



T.

On 16/05/13 6:00 PM, PRK wrote:
> Out of curiosity, when the request to block an IP address comes through,
> how should the ISP determine whether it contains thousand of law abiding
> websites, child abuse material, or whatever?
>
> If all you have to start with is an IP Address, you're a little limited
> in what non intrusive checking you can do - whois database and PTR
> lookup are the only obvious ones which spring to mind, although you
> could probably get away with a traceroute, but not an nmap or similar scan.
>
> In the case of 103.15.178.29 (the A record for
> melbournefreeuniversity.org), there is no PTR entry, a traceroute goes
> to mel.racknet.net.au then stops, and the whois is for Echoman Pty Ltd,
> which I must admit I haven't heard of.
>
> I can quite easily see how an ISP could block that IP on request,
> without any easy ability to determine the collateral damage in order to
> know whether it was a reasonable request or not.
>
> Being able to determine "reasonable" would also depend if the notice
> gave the reason for blocking the website - ie scam, or whether it's just
> an s313 notice with no reason given.
>
> prk.
>
> On 2013-05-16 08:41, Mark Newton wrote:
>
>> A section 313 notice isn't an order, it's a request for reasonable
>> assistance which can be denied. If the requester doesn't like the
>> denial, they get to ask the Federal Court for an order to compel. In
>> the absence of such an order, a recipient of a notice who says "No, it
>> is not reasonable to block thousands of law abiding websites just
>> because you have an unproven allegation that someone on the internet
>> is running a scam," is on stable ground.
>
>
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