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Re: Smurfing

  • From: Kelly J. Cooper
  • Date: Fri Feb 13 18:50:57 1998

On Feb 13,  2:52pm, Randy Bush wrote:
> Subject: Re: Smurfing
*>  o All router administrators on the immediately reachable
*>    Internet needs to turn off directed broadcasts on their router
*>    interfaces.  It's conceivable that "a significant portion of
*>    all" would do as well, but the magnitude of this problem
*>    boggles the mind.  First of all, we'd need to distribute the
*>    appropriate amount of clue to all the corners of the net where
*>    this needs to happen.  Maybe, just maybe, we'll get there
*>    sometime (I'm an optimist!).
*
*why should this not have become the default mode for all vendor diustributed
*router code?
*
*randy
>-- End of excerpt from Randy Bush

Perhaps because RFC 1812, "Requirements for IP Version 4 Routers" (which
I believe is still current) needs to be updated/made obsolete?  

Excerpted from section 5.3.5:

   A router MAY have an option to disable receiving network-prefix-
   directed broadcasts on an interface and MUST have an option to
   disable forwarding network-prefix-directed broadcasts.  These options
   MUST default to permit receiving and forwarding network-prefix-
   directed broadcasts.

Or perhaps because the folks on this list haven't made it clear enough
to their vendors that the default should be "off" <hint>.

Kelly J.