Re: BGP-4+

["Dorian R. Kim" <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, 19 Dec 1996, Brad Smith wrote:

> A comment and question.  TCP and similar peer-to-peer security does
> not protect against a subverted speaker.  If an intruder is able to
> break into a speaker, where it would get access to all TCP security
> related keys, it would then be able to have it's way with the protocol
> (e.g. fabricate, modify, and replay routing information).

Permit me to observe here that when there is subverted speaker, change to BGP
protocol spec isn't good enough to contain possible damage.

> Is this threat considered unlikely enough that it can be ignored?

While this threat is not that unlikely and should not be ignored, my view on
this is that the prevention should take the form of speaker/host hardening
rather than modification of BGP transport.

I especially wonder about scalability aspect of such modifications, strictly
from an operational perspective.

-dorian