RIPE NCC Report on last week's Internet events.

["Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC)" <]

(Apologies for duplicate mails)


RIPE NCC Report on last week's Internet events.
===============================================

During last week, two major events occurred that might have affected the
general Internet infrastructure:

* The electricity blackout in the north-eastern part of the US and eastern
  Canada on August 14, 2003.

* The so-called Ms Blaster worm attack on the Microsoft sites on August 16.

The RIPE NCC looked for the effects these events may have had on the
general Internet infrastructure by using data collected by the following
projects:  Test Traffic Measurements (delay and loss measurements),
Routing Information Service (BGP routing) and DNSMON (monitoring of root
and ccTLD servers).  The following observations were made during the
blackout:

* One measurement point, located in the heart of the affected area, went
  down when its UPS system failed.

* One TTM measurement point located close to the area affected by the
  blackout showed an increase in delays from some destinations.  This
  could have been caused by traffic being re-routed around the
  north-eastern US.  Similar delays have been seen in the past, so this
  might have been unrelated to the blackout. At no time was connectivity
  lost.

* BGP activity went up during the blackout. This is consistent with
  routers going down and traffic being re-routed around the troubled area.

* The root and ccTLD servers continued to operate and respond as usual.
  These servers have back-up power systems that took over.

During August 16, no effects were seen from the so-called MS Blaster worm
attack on the Microsoft sites.  This is consistent with Microsoft's own
observations and is probably due to the publicity surrounding the worm and
the availability of patches before the event.

In conclusion, none of our data indicates that the Internet infrastructure
was affected by either of these events.

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Henk Uijterwaal                             Email: henk.uijterwaal@localhost
RIPE Network Coordination Centre            WWW: http://www.ripe.net/home/henk
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That problem that we weren't having yesterday, is it better? (Big ISP NOC)