OSEC

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Subject: Re: article 2
From: Raul Miller (mothmagenta.com)
Date: Sat Jun 03 2000 - 14:58:19 CDT

On Fri, Jun 02, 2000 at 07:41:53PM -0400, Bill Royds wrote:
> ""without Right" is legal jargon to mean without a pre-existing
> arrangement, either ownership, licenses, or invitation (including
> advertising). Now the problem is to decide whether a right had been
> granted. But a denial (standard disclaimer on MOTD or logon) removes
> right.

In what circumstances?

For example, consider a distributed web implementation [where you have
identical web servers in a variety of cities, and dns servers in these
same cities]. Here, you have a variety of possible responses you can
give to any dns query. Ideally, you'd like to respond with the ip
address[es] of the web servers which are closest [in the network sense]
to the client machines.

Of course, the first time you see a query, you're not going to have
much information on where the client is, so you'd basically just come
back with a set of A records in some random order. But, over time
[people usually hit the same web site more than once], you'll have the
opportunity to probe the network between the dns servers and the dns
client, to determine which path seems best [it's usually safe to assume
that the web client is close to the dns client].

So, you wind up with a technology such that asking a DNS server for an
A record results in network probes [traceroutes, etc.] directed back at
the DNS client.

Naturally, the intent in this case isn't to "hack" into the system.
[Unless optimizing performance is considered hacking into the system.]
However, until this technology is well known and accepted, some people
might think that the probes are "without right". 

-- 
Raul

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