2006.06.07 NANOG-NOTES Smart Network Data Services

(I'm starting to guess I'd finish sending these out faster if
I stopped falling asleep on my keyboard so often... --Matt)

2006.06.07 Welcome to Wednesday morning

http://www.nanog.org/
click on Evaluation Form
Let us know how the M-W vs S-Tu
format; next time will be S-Tu due to ARIN
joint meeting, but need more feedback!

Bill Woodcock, been on program committee

And lightning talk people need to send their
slides to Steve Feldman!!

Elliot Gilliam,
ISP community, notifications to
Smart Network Data Services
[slides are at
http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0606/pdf/eliot-gillum.pdf

AGENDA
postmaster services
SNDS
problem
goal
today
tomorrow
motivation
feedback/dialog
questions/discussion

Postmaster--starting point for any issues you have
sending mail into Hotmail/MSN Live.
It's like AOL skunkfeed, you can do junk mail
  reporting.
Lets you see what bad stuff is coming from your
  domain.
SenderID

Site is at:
http://postmaster.msn.com/snds/

Problem:
bad stuff on the internet (spam, phishing, zombies,
ID theft, DDoS)
makes customers unhappy.
Solution #1 -- try to stop it before it hits customers
doesn't really *solve* the problem
Solution #2 -- take what we learn, apply it upstream,
get more bang for buck
#2: #1 is too low

ISP-centric efficiency
solution #1, n ISPs have n-1 problems, total is O(n^2)
n ISPs have 1 problem (themselves), total is O(n)

reduces work of the overall system.

Crux
today people and ISPs are measured by how much BAD stuff
  they *receive*
Not judged by what they send out.
similar to healthcare industry
  no tight feedback loop to ISP behaviour
nice quotes on slides
http://www.circleid.com/posts/how_to_stop_spam

7 step program (like 12 step, but shorter)
1: recognize the problem: SNDS
2: believe that someone can help you : Me
3: Decide to do something : You
8: Make an inventory of those harmed : SNDS
9: Make amends to them : Tools
10: Continue to inventory : SNDS
12: Tell others about the program : You

What is SNDS
Website that offers free, instant access to MSN
data on activity coming from your IP space
  data that correlates with "internet evils"
  informs ISP to enable local policy decisions
Automated authorization mechanism
uses WHOIS and rDNS
users are people not companies
A force multiplier attempt.

You can do it on your own, no need to sign up
your company officially as long as you're an
rWHOIS/WHOIS contact.

SNDS goal:
provide info which allows ISPs to detect and fix any
undesired activity.
qualitative and quantitative data
"No ISP left behind"
stop problems upstream of the destination
Bring total cost of remediation to absolute minimum
keep service free
Make internet a better place.

We have data!
Windows Live Mail/MSN Hotmail is a spam and spoofing
target.
4 billion inbound mails/day
  90/10 spam/ham by filtering technologies
User reports on spam, fraud, etc.

Inbound mail system slide--ugly to read, too dark.

SNDS website slide shown.
You can see daily aggregated traffic from your network;
activity periods, IPs, commands and messages seen on
port 25, samples of exchanges.
Filter results on your mail
rate at which users press "this is junk" on your mail.
Trap counts for when IPs hit their junk filters.
comments column is catch-all for anything else they
might put in; like open proxies, when tested positive.
"export to CSV" button, so you can feed the data in
to your own systems if you want.

Today's Scenario
Illustrate magnitude and evidence of a problem.
additional resources
monitoring infrastructure

SNDS Stats
2500 users
mostly senders
67 million IPs
10-20% of inbound mail and complaints

Output drops by 57% on /24+ when monitored by SNDS

SNDS tomorrow
Usability
signup by ASN
better support for upstream providers
access transfer
Utility
programmatic access
Data
virus-infected emails
phishing
honeymonkey
sample messages
Expand the the coverage, try to hit more of the problems
on the net.
Provide sample messages, compelling evidence when facing
customers
This hasn't shipped yet, it's what he's hoping to
have in a month or two.

Tomorrow's Scenarios
Lowered
barrier to entry
recurring "cost"
ISP types
end-user
tier 1/2 monitoring, tier 2/3
directly attack more than just spam
virus emails -> infected PCs, outbound virus filters
phishing/malware hosting -> takedowns.

Is asymmetric routing a sign of people trying to
launch hidden abuses of the net?
Looking to hit more issues, like spotting virus-laden
messages; either infected, or an open relay.
Hoping that automation speeds response.

Safety Tools
Stinger: http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger
Nessus: http://www.nessus.org/
[oy, read the list from his slide, it's long.]
green items on the list are free, others are pay-for
products.
Pay-for isn't necessarily a bad thing if you get
benefit!

Safety tool breakdown from MSN on next slide.

Motivation:
Hypothesis: everyone benefits
Customers:
infected uses get fixed
safer, cheaper, better internet experience
ISPs
solution #1 isn't solving the problem
altruistic is the "new" selfish
Microsoft
only benefits if everyone else does

make business case why they're doing this.
They need to stop paying costs of trying to
deal with spam.
Wants to get benefit of being one of the people
seeing a cleaner internet

ISP Motivation
Customers
they're unhappy, unsafe
they like people who fix that
   be the hero
   retain customers
   win new ones
fixing has more benefits than bandaging
  [bandaging is just sticking fingers in the dike, it
  doesn't scale, eventually we run out of fingers to
  stick in the holes]
cost reductions
bandwidth--slow growth demands
support--fewer complaints to your help desk.
Community
NANOG

Motivation alternatives
Industry scorecard
public recognition
public shame
Logo ISP program--how clean are you?

Business case
Some nice quotes from different people around the
business case needed here.
appeal to cost reduction and revenue generation
this is starting to happen.

let your sales and marketing people know about
this.
Boston university business case, students arriving
with computers presented danger/load to their
help desk.
Qwest provides windows/one software to their
users.

Feedback:
usability--how easily can you work with it?
utility--what can you do?
what's missing
tools to aid customer remediation
need IPv6 support at some point
how do ISPs see cost vs benfits
costs, benefits, NANOG aggregation
how do we get critical mass?
msn-snds@microsoft.com

Discussion:
How does SNDS fit into the larger ecosystem
relationship to
  senderBase.org
  SCOMP/JMRP
  REACT
  adam, rick at support intelligence
  Yahoo is working on a system like this, Irene Lai is
   here to work on that, email her if you're interested.
Should/how do other ISPs provide this?
  common schema, authorization, authentication
  federation, delegation, aggregation

Forum
bof/track?
NANOG/MAAWG?
Mailing list: upstream@mipassoc.org

Conclusion:
http://postmaster.msn.com/
http://postmaster.msn.com/snds/
Try it!
tell people about it!

Q: Matt asks whether Microsoft will point their
own systems at it, since Nick Feamster's presentation
showed on slide 12 that Microsoft was #10 on the
list of spam *sources* that his honeypots saw?
mail sending from Hotmail to this as well, so that
they can start making sure they're cleaning their
own house as well.

on to next talk.

(I'm starting to guess I'd finish sending these out faster if
I stopped falling asleep on my keyboard so often... --Matt)

Get more sleep -- Nanog isn't worth losing sleep over.

nice quotes on slides
http://www.circleid.com/posts/how_to_stop_spam

http://www.circleid.com/posts/there_is_no_spam_problem/

Hehe of course when Carl at AOL claimed that, AOL based bots were still the
single largest source of spam received here. Eternal vigilance......

SNDS tomorrow
Usability

The sign-up process is very painful.

Microsoft Passports really aren't appropriate for business accounts, my
employer don't have a mothers maiden name, or a first pet. At one point it
claimed the name of my first pet must have more than 5 characters in it ?
(Perhaps they should aim for things likely to have more information in them,
besides my mothers maiden name has been published in the newspapers).

I sent a request for help, as the process fell over at the stage of
authorising the first address range I requested. With a failure to handle the
URL sent for me to click.

Q: Matt asks whether Microsoft will point their
own systems at it

Let's hope they do an AOL, as after emailing Carl the problem was fixed
pronto.

Interesting--it's good for me to hear what people are saying about it,
as I can't access it myself--my MSN accounts were all locked, and
part of the termination agreement stipulated that I'm forbidden from
accessing their services. It does mean the service is limiting
its own scope by requiring Passport-based logins like that, as
I'll never be able to use it to see if any of the domains/netblocks
I'm responsible for might be originating spam.

Perhaps if Microsoft is truly interested in helping clean up the
Internet, they might lift the Passport login requirement?

Matt
[tempted to set Reply-To: to msn-snds@microsoft.com, but that
might be considered antisocial. :slight_smile: ]