[routing-wg] [ipv6-wg] MERIT Darknet Experiment, Guidance Sought in Routing WG

On 26-May-2013, Manish Karir writes:
 > 
 > I wanted to follow up on the darknet /12 experiment that was discussed at the routing working group meeting.


Hi,

This comment has more to do with the Darknet experiments in general,
rather than anything specific to RIPE's participation in them.

Briefly:

   Due to the presence of these /12 route announcements, packets with
   source IP addresses spoofed from within these /12's will no longer
   be blocked by any networks implementing loose-mode uRPF.

Yes, strict BCP38 ingress packet filtering should be happening
wherever it's possible to do it, so in an ideal world there would be
no further reason for anyone to perform loose-mode uRPF.  But in
today's Internet, many providers do use loose-mode uRPF to lower the
level of junk packets they have to contend with.

I am not saying that this loose-mode uRPF argument outweighs the value
obtained by having Merit observe the traffic destined into the
otherwise dark portions of the /12s, but I do think this aspect of the
experiments should be recognized and discussed.

Thanks.

						Jay B.