IPv6 Flaw Could Greatly Amplify DDoS Attacks

tygerstripes writes "The Register has a story about the discovery of a flaw in part of the IPv6 specification which has experts scrambling to have the feature removed, or at least disabled by default. From the article: 'The specification, known as the Type 0 Routing Header (RH0), allows computers to tell IPv6 routers to send data by a specific route. Originally envisioned as a way to let mobile users to retain a single IP for their devices... RH0 support allows attackers to amplify denial-of-service attacks on IPv6 infrastructure by a factor of at least 80.' Paul Vixie, president of the Internet Systems Consortium, described the fault bluntly. 'It can be exploited by any greedy Estonian teenager with a $300 Linux machine.'"

Greedy Estonian teenage overlords!

[alienmole]

n/t

s anybody surprised that Paul Vixie

[Anonymous Coward]

was involved? If it weren't for those guys at sendmail, he'd be the number one source of Unix(tm) root exploits.

Re:Greedy Estonian teenage overlords!

[HomelessInLaJolla]

I for one welcome our greedy teenage northern European Baltic overlords!

They make awesome glaag.

$300 Linux box... as if

[Ice Wewe]

Please, if he were really that smart, he'd use an OLPC!

Estonia?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly the problem here lies with Estonia, not IPv6.

NOT COOL.

[game kid]

Paul Vixie, president of the Internet Systems Consortium, described the fault bluntly. 'It can be exploited by any greedy Estonian teenager with a $300 Linux machine.'

That roughly translates to "It's so easy, an Estonian can do it".

Someone is gonna be buying them roast duck (with the mango salsa) soon.

A better idea.

[mustafap]

Leave it in, but advise people to disable it for network security.

That already works for other problems, right?

Insensitive Clod

[Anonymous Coward]

Where can I get one of these $300 Estonian Linux machines? To heck with Dellbuntu.

Re:Just what we need!

[McGiraf]

hey! It's not nice to call people nerds.

Re:NOT COOL.

[Professor_UNIX]

Seriously though, estonia? Raise your hand if you know where that is.

Maybe he meant to say Elbonia.

Re:Who gives a $%##?

[McGiraf]

"constantly had to patch my cell phone software because of venerability's."

When a piece of software is old enough to be called venerable, it's surely more than time to patch it!

Re:NOT COOL.

[dch24]

I'm an American.

I know where Estonia is. You insensitive clod.

There. Fixed that for ya.

Re:Greedy Estonian teenage overlords!

[Torvaun]

Or a Bratislavian.

"A nickle! Now I'll start my own hotel chain!"

Re:The IETF screwed the pooch on this one

[Anonymous Coward]

I seriously doubt the IETF will ever be able to exercise these people from it's midst.

Perhaps not, but they might get some good exercise if they start exorcising the PHBs. ;-)

Re:Don't confuse Estonians with Russians

[teh kurisu]

...when Soviet Russia occupied their country (and probably still do, but now via cable legally).

Now that's the way to occupy a country!