According to Exodus' trouble ticket it is a BGP instability between
several locations in their network and with BGP customers.
Whether it was a security issue, vendor bug or operator error hasn't
been determined yet. Exodus customers should contact Exodus customer
service for more information, reporters should contact Exodus media
relations for more information.
I don't know if Exodus will have any public statement.
Hmmmmm... You somehow found a way to get this information without agreeing
to the NDA? Impressive. (For the people around here who aren't Exodus
customers: subscribing to their network engineering/outage list
theoretically implies agreeing to an NDA, which is presumably why no one
here mentioned this)
That's a minor thing, though. More importantly:
a) Slashdot and co went down way before this Exodus BGP business
b) Slashdot and friends seem very singlehomed to me (and using Exodus IP
space, too), so I don't see why they'd be speaking BGP to Exodus
c) Some very specific areas of Exodus' network are affected, not wlhm01.
d) Slashdot and co's _network_ seemed up fine... at least some of it. Right
now, interestingly enough, that doesn't seem to be the case.
Thus, I don't see the link between the Exodus BGP thing and the
Slashdot/Freshmeat/etc. outage.
Vivien
it is a mailing list. that's it. also, a subscription is a farily
trivial task. hardly impressive.
the following != "implies agreeing to an NDA" ??
The Backbone Engineering Team of Exodus (BENGI) operates a one-way mailing
list which is tied into our ticketing system. This mailing list is used
for intradepartmental communication, as well as communication to our
customers and other ISPs of the following topics:
RESTRICTIONS OF USE
Any individual is allowed to be on the network list, however, certain
restrictions do exist:
1. The list is a one-way forum. Group replies to the list, or
mail sent from people other than Exodus BENGI employees is
strictly prohibited.
2. Exodus makes no guarantee of the accuracy and/or timeliness
of the information posted to the list.
3. The information received via the list is considered
confidential information, not to be reproduced in any form
without prior written approval of Exodus.
4. Questions regarding the information posted on the list
cannot be answered at this time. The information is deemed as
best available, and any further information will be made
available to the list.
I hate to argue on NANOG about this, but #3 seems to me like it's an NDA
(although a rather informal one), for all intents and purposes.
In any case, #3 would be violated by posting NANOG about any information on
that list, IMHO.
Vivien
> 3. The information received via the list is considered
> confidential information, not to be reproduced in any form
> without prior written approval of Exodus.I hate to argue on NANOG about this, but #3 seems to me like it's an NDA
(although a rather informal one), for all intents and purposes.In any case, #3 would be violated by posting NANOG about any information on
that list, IMHO.
Can you really enforce a unilateral NDA assertion?
I donut think so. It'd be an interesting fight.
[ Disclaimer: I am not an attorney, and I'm not about to dispense
potentially bogus legal advice, especially on a technical list like
this. I've you've got problems with the Exodus NDA and the lack of
open communication resulting from it - perceived or otherwise - you
might want to drop <adam.wegner@exodus.net> a line. ]
Hmmmmm... You somehow found a way to get this information without
agreeing to the NDA? Impressive. (For the people around here who
aren't Exodus customers: subscribing to their network
engineering/outage list theoretically implies agreeing to an NDA,
which is presumably why no one here mentioned this)
Is that to insinuate that all Exodus customers have signed the mystical
customer NDA? Or more importantly, that this document will even hold
up in court?
And, how all-encompassing is this document? Passing around
"confidential" notices of facilities issues is likely a bad thing(TM).
But, are customers forbidden from publishing uptime and environmental
statistics they've collected in the course of normal monitoring, if
such statistics could indicate problems with their IDC's power (got
blackouts in Sunnyvale and Jersey City?) and HVAC?
That said, if you want to play by the rules, I've found the following
to be a far more useful resource than NANOG speculation/FUD, for both
customers and non-customers alike:
echo subscribe | mail netinfo-request@bengi.exodus.net
Trying to apply an NDA to outage information has always struck me as
a bit stupid. After all, NDA or not, people know you had an outage,
what they don't know is your explanation why it happened. As we've
seen, when there is a lack of good information, people will make up
stories to fit.
I could not agree more.
From a PR/damage control standpoint, I guess I can understand the
reasoning behind tagging all Exodus outage notifications with the
words "CONFIDENTIAL" and "NDA" in big bold letters. And it's quite
possible that the network operators negatively impacted by this veil
of secrecy are a vocal minority. Still, some non-confidential
communication along the lines "there's a problem, we're working on it,
you might not see it yet, but there's a problem and we're going to get
it fixed for you in a way that's as efficient as possible!*%$!" (see:
GENU NOC tour movie) beats the alternatives. 
I've been told "no" (with respect to Exodus NDA in particular) by
several attorneys. See previous disclaimer.
-adam
> seen, when there is a lack of good information, people will make up
> stories to fit.I could not agree more.
From a PR/damage control standpoint, I guess I can understand the
reasoning behind tagging all Exodus outage notifications with the
words "CONFIDENTIAL" and "NDA" in big bold letters. And it's quite
This attitude hurts us all, spreading FUD all over the place.
Everyone has a bad minute/hour/day/... its what you do
and how you act when it happens that makes a real difference.
Sure, Exodus is worried about their reputation as THE anal
retentive always up over-redundant data center. Feces occurs.
If you tell people "it's broke an the A-Team is working on it"
they say "these guys have their stuff together". If you hide
behind NDA's and fear of letting people know you are having
a catastrophic failure then they decide you are clueless
and wonder how bad it really is.
Oh well.. I hope Freshmeat/Slashdot/Andover have a better day today.
When one of our major customers is having this bad of a day, we
at least try to point to traffic to a junk server with a 'It's broke
and we are working on it' page and we're just a bunch of geek
wannabe's in Chattanooga. --Mike--
it may be wise first to investigate intent, then comment upon reality.
that mailing list simply would not exist if exodus (speficically BENGI)
did not want to disseminate information to it's customers/peers/concerned
parties. please keep in mind that as a publicly traded company (no
flames, please) it is wise to take steps so that things such as simple
engineering tickets do not show up in a news article somewhere; rather,
said news reporter should/would have to wait for the official statement
after the lawyers have chopped it to pieces.
/jer