Topicality perceptions

One of the biggest issues with the list as I've seen from
time to time from my perspective, is the definition of
"operations". So on a quick breakdown of the
logical definition of NANOG, I derive "Operations of
the North American Network". The problem with this
stems from far too many bastardizing their own definition of
what it should be. If I'm experiencing issues on the
"Network" in North America, where else should I
look for assistance but from a group that manages (or at
least portrays to manage) operations in North America? I've
posted quite a few questions here and there, many have said
they've made no sense. DoS attacks... Mork calling Olson
come in Olson... These do affect networks... Botnets, worms
and viruses... Mork calling... Get the point?

How many posts have we seen on configuring a router that
were multi-threaded into a long post of "my config is
better than yours" or similar. These are off-topic but
I wouldn't trade em for the world. I've learned much from
them, as have I from all sorts of posts on topic or not. I
can see where there would be annoyance from certain threads,
but I see more annoyance from the whiners and complainers
who spew the same message inserting nothing worth reading
and for this I have filters in place.

William Allen Simpson wrote:
>
> Especially as I'm not aware of any Network Operator
worth their salt that
> doesn't have regular contact with their support call
centers.
>

Regular contact? As in finding the name of someone who
actually has a clue? Not the contact information of some
helpdesk goon who doesn't understand the output of a
traceroute? As in some helpdesk goon who understands what an
AS is? 

Getting (semi)back on topic, who decides what's on topic or
not, it seems to be based on one's personal view of what is
and isn't relevant.

<SNIP>
http://www.nanog.
org/endsystem.html

"The charter of the NANOG list was written to avoid
being too specific and to not preclude useful
network-relevent discussion"
</SNIP>

Botnets:		Relevant
Viruses and worms:	Relevant
DoS attacks:		Relevant
Mail/Spam:		Relevant
Router configuration:	Semi-Relevant

If someone's misconfiguration will affect your network,
then router configurations are somewhat relevant.

I recall having a fiber issue a while back (htt
p://www.irbs.net/internet/nanog/0408/0563.html) and
although it was not relevant to NANOG whatsoever, who else
better to ask then the experienced engineers and I was
thankful for the responses I received. I also recall talking
about a possible huge DoS against the BGP protocol (which
COULD affect hundreds) yet the response was...
"You're off-topic, etc." not including the
off-list responses I received.

Looking back at some of the threads I see posted here,
whenever I tend to see something "operational"
that doesn't bode well with someone, I see people quick to
shoot a "you're off-topic" response offering
nothing more than wasted bandwidth. It is those quick to
shoot off those responses who give me the impression that
they're nothing more than lazy whiners incapable of
offering assistance/solutions/tips/etc.

BGP exploitation? (htt
p://www.irbs.net/internet/nanog/0308/1018.html) was shot
down and I quote: "this is almost certainly not a
topic for Nanog". Really? To date I have not released
plenty of stupid programs capable of wrecking havoc because
they serve no purpose. My intentions when I posted this was
to inform others "Hey did you know that X could
possible break your neighboring..." It was sent with
hopes of working with engineers to find a resolution. I'm
sure if I shot off a program to the "black hat"
community, I would have been an ass since I didn't properly
notify the powers that be (whoever these are these days).

Perhaps "Operations" need be dissected,
re-defined and re-posted on NANOG.

Laptop policies? http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/msg01619.html
How is/was this relevant?

So in other news, has anyone in the south experienced issues
with Time Warner (South Carolina, Louisiana, etc.)
experienced issues with filtering? Specifically SIP? I have
tons of people with issues regarding VoIP and (not
suprisingly) they happen to all be related to Time Warner.

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
J. Oquendo
http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&s
earch=0x1383A743

"How a man plays the game shows something of his
character - how he loses shows all" - Mr. Luckey 

> One of the biggest issues with the list as I've seen
from time to 
> time from my perspective, is the definition of
"operations". So on a
> quick breakdown of the logical definition of NANOG, I
derive 
> "Operations of the North American Network".
The problem with this 
> stems from far too many bastardizing their own
definition of what it
> should be.

Please don't contribute to the bastardization. Section 3 of
the NANOG charter states:

   The purpose of NANOG is to provide forums in the North 
   American region for education and the sharing of
knowledge 
   for the Internet operations community. 

You can read the full charter here: http://www.nanog.or
g/charter.html

By your definition, Cat's recent request for outage
information about Telehouse North would be off-topic.
But according to the NANOG FAQ here:
http://www.nanog.or
g/listfaq.html
outages are on topic. Obviously, network infrastructure
tends to span political borders and geographic borders,
therefore it is not unusual that Cat has an infrastructure
issue in Europe to deal with.

On your first point, the fuzziness and lack of clarity
of what network operations issues belong on this list,
I agree. The FAQ is never posted on the list so it has
become an obscure document hidden away on a little-used
website. It needs to be promoted more and I think it 
needs to be updated to communicate more clearly.

> These are off-topic but I wouldn't trade em for the
world. 
> I've learned much from them, as have I from all sorts
of posts on 
> topic or not. 

I agree with you. Unfortunately some old-timers 
would rather see a return to the old days when network
ops and engineering was an obscure passtime only understood
by those who knew the secret handshake and were admitted
to the inner circle. They forget that NANOG's major role
has been in educating the new people who have flooded into
the net ops community as the Internet grew and grew and
grew.

--Michael Dillon

Concur. Nanog has been an on-going education in essentially
all
aspects of internetworking, routing, data centres, security,
spam/malware/abuse. Long may it stay that way. I'd argue
that the
fuzziness is probably a reflection of the ever-broadening
role of
IT/telco/netops people and ideas in current organisations.

Now, someone mentioned issues with SIP. I'd like to flag
that this is
going to become a top line operational issue in the next few
years,
due to the deployment of following technologies:

1) Carrier/Enterprise VoIP
2) Peer-to-Peer VoIP using SIP (see - Gizmo)
3) Concurrent applications using SIP
4) IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) in mobile networks (and
possibly
fixed networks) interworking with each other, PSTN and the
public
Internet
5) ETSI TISPAN activity (probably the least important of the
five)

Note that 1 through 3 use SIP as defined by IETF whereas 4
and 5 use
the 3GPP/3GPP2/ETSI "extensions" to it, which
may mean they cannot
interwork. Further, IMS and various associated technologies
employ DNS
ENUM to map e164 numbers to SIP URIs, not to speak of
ordinary DNS to
map URIs to IP addresses.

Some DNS security measures previously discussed on NANOG
have the
effect of filtering ENUM replies. There is also the problem
that IMS
carriers, as far as anyone knows, are going to operate as
private
internetworks and do some form of NAT at the Session Border
Controller
(ie - gateway to the public Internet). How they will handle
this at
private interconnections with each other is unclear. It is
also
unclear how connections between a "Carrier SIP"
client with a
privately assigned or RFC1918 address and a carrier-land
URI, and an
open-Internet "IETF SIP" client with a globally
routable address and
its own URI, will work.

It also seems clear that IMS-adopting carriers will continue
to
declare themselves as carrier grade, which suggests that the
criticality of their private DNS will be very high.

J. Oquendo rambled incoherently, saying in relevant part:
> William Allen Simpson wrote:
>> Especially as I'm not aware of any Network
Operator worth their salt that
>> doesn't have regular contact with their support
call centers.
>>
> Regular contact? As in finding the name of someone who
actually has a clue? 
 > Not the contact information of some helpdesk goon who
doesn't understand
 > the output of a traceroute? As in some helpdesk goon
who understands what
 > an AS is?
> 
You are a Network Operator, and you hired support personnel
that "doesn't
understand the output of a traceroute" and/or
"what an AS is?"

Perhaps the real problem here is some folks have lost sight
of what it means
to be a Network Operator?