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18,000 requests per second from iPhones
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theDreamer
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Gaiden133
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lol good stuff
good stuff
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That is hilarious.
I go to a clients house later this week to hook up office 2007 to his iphone. I have never seen one before, just internet articles so I will finally have hands on experience with one.
I go to a clients house later this week to hook up office 2007 to his iphone. I have never seen one before, just internet articles so I will finally have hands on experience with one.
Next year's Duke Student Handbook:
When Apple threatens legal action, it'll be amended to include all Apple products.
What about none students, kick em off the grounds?
Why would Apple threaten legal action? They'll fix it, push out an update, and Duke will lift the ban. End of story.Next year's Duke Student Handbook:
When Apple threatens legal action, it'll be amended to include all Apple products.
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Limp Gawd
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Next year's Duke Student Handbook:
When Apple threatens legal action, it'll be amended to include all Apple products.
Kool Aid alert!
Mistrblank
Limp Gawd
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Aaaah... yet again another "policy fix" to compensate for the fact that their campus IT department is inadequate at handling real world network problems. I understand the iPhone issue is a bug (that I believe Apple has not responded to yet) but it's not like it's something that couldn't come up with other network hardware.
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Limp Gawd
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That's very blind reasoning. Why do you think their IT Department should bend over backward for a bug in a product? If you have 300 WAP's deployed, why would you want to move to a different hardware solution just to accomodate "a few people".
Not to be rude, but I don't think you have any conception of how networking runs in big organizations. If you were sending 18,000 requests a minute on a corporate network. You can bet that you'd be getting a call from IT for flooding the network.
You can't just restructure how network clients authenticate overnight in such a wide organization. Changes like that are drastic and affect stability. Ever had to deal with people who complain that certain things have changed and explain to them why? Yeah, lets multiply that factor by 1,000 when you deal with support. Again, it's not like your public router where you can choose WPA, WEP and be done with it like it's not big deal.
There are consequences for each action. As far as I'm concerned, the University made the right choice. It's easier to deal with a few iphone users than it is to deal with the entire campus on why a change is being made. Cost Benefit Analysis.
Mistrblank
Limp Gawd
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Respectfully, do not put words in my mouth.
This "policy" does NOTHING to fix the core of the problem, devices sending out thousands of requests, flooding access points and subsequently crashing them. It's a denial of service attack and they are not prepared for it. That's poor planning. You are spot on your assessment about my WAN department disconnecting my offending device from the network, except we don't give a phone call. We shut off and quarantine the port or disconnect the laptop from the Access Point. I never said they need to upgrade their 300 access points, where I am right now it always seems we're about 2 to 4 years behind the curve on everything and we have no problem doing these things. I've been on campuses smaller than Duke that do similar things and they have no problem managing these problems. And if their hardware is that far behind, perhaps they do need to upgrade.
Whether it's coming from an iPhone or someone that really wants to vandalize the network running linux on their laptop with a spoofed MAC, slamming access points with this activity, it shouldn't be dealt with in policy to take away the offending devices, threaten your students and treating them as vandals.
This "policy" does NOTHING to fix the core of the problem, devices sending out thousands of requests, flooding access points and subsequently crashing them. It's a denial of service attack and they are not prepared for it. That's poor planning. You are spot on your assessment about my WAN department disconnecting my offending device from the network, except we don't give a phone call. We shut off and quarantine the port or disconnect the laptop from the Access Point. I never said they need to upgrade their 300 access points, where I am right now it always seems we're about 2 to 4 years behind the curve on everything and we have no problem doing these things. I've been on campuses smaller than Duke that do similar things and they have no problem managing these problems. And if their hardware is that far behind, perhaps they do need to upgrade.
Whether it's coming from an iPhone or someone that really wants to vandalize the network running linux on their laptop with a spoofed MAC, slamming access points with this activity, it shouldn't be dealt with in policy to take away the offending devices, threaten your students and treating them as vandals.
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Limp Gawd
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The flaw in assuming there would be a lot of linux nerds on campus trying to randomly flood wireless access points. Maybe 1 or 2 computers at most would contribute to waste time. It doesn't happen because its a waste of time. However, I agree with you they need a temporary fix, but Apple is at fault here for the bugs which they should fix. I think it would be in Apple's best interest to fly a few people over to the Duke Campus to try to quickly resolve this problem ASAP. Duke, like most Universities, has a set budget for everything, and probably doesn't want to exahust their funds for something Apple should fix anyway, but as for their policies, if you're on their property, you abide by their rules. If you think what Duke doing is bad, you should work in a corporate environment, hooking an unauthorized laptop to some corporate networks can get you terminated for violating security policies or they can "say" you were violating your NDA.
It's also one of the reasons students should move off campus. No University Overlords! No bandwidth limits!
Mistrblank
Limp Gawd
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You contradict yourself, you call a linux user a minority the same way you consider an iPhone user a minority, and following that logic with Duke's they are no different, and just because you think it's too obscure to happen doesn't mean it won't. Fact of the matter is you can drop a web server onto the internet with a simple site/service that maybe 12 people will know about and state up and down that no one will want to bother with you. Leave it there long enough someone with sinister intentions will attack you, it's the same situation here (and I suspect will happen with the publicity this story has gotten). And it only takes one time for someone to maliciously assault their wireless network. If the safeguards are not in place to restrict a single wireless card from accessing the network it is only a matter of time before that will happen.
I really just have 2 problems with this whole story/event:
1. It seems like the blame is being pushed off on Apple when I feel that maybe Duke's network isn't being examined enough to see what they could do to fix the obvious stability/security hole in their network.
2. Duke's Administration is overreacting and unjustly treating their students like criminals just for owning a device and trying to use it to do what they paid for it to do.
I do agree that perhaps if Apple wants to come up the winner from this, they need to drop off some engineers like you proposed. I am also curious if the wireless network is affected by users that don't have proper authorization to use the network.
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Ummm, don't they have an fcc(Or one of those big guys') rule that prohibits devices from interfering with other devices?
Edit: I see, it's a bit more complicated when it's supposed to be communicating with the device that it interferes. x.x
theDreamer
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That post was just a joke, since so many students bought the phone & it seems to have flooded the network and caused some problems.
to be honest, did Duke's network work just fine before the iphone? yes. Is the iphone a student requirement? no. then it's apple's problem, not duke's.
theDreamer
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Does the iPhone access wifi in the same way? Yes, so it is not Apple (or the iPhone) doing something different than any other wifi device on campus.
0ptional
Don't Trust Your Friends with Your Decanter
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Well... why is Duke the only university or large organization chiming in about this issue? Nowhere else is it supported; as far as I can see it's a problem with their network.
My iphone hasn't affected my wireless router at all.
Everything works just as smoothly after its introduction into my network as it did before
If anything campus networks are more uniquely configured than most other kinds of networks.
it doesn't seem to cause problems with public wifi access points (at least in my area), it hasn't impacted my network. It seems more likely to me that the iPhone just doesn't handle something about Duke's network the way that a PC would. It doesn't mean that the iPhone is doing something that would bring other wifi networks to their knees (as there would likely be more widespread reports of it), but rather something about Duke's network that makes it freak out and bombard the access points with requests.
Everything works just as smoothly after its introduction into my network as it did before
If anything campus networks are more uniquely configured than most other kinds of networks.
it doesn't seem to cause problems with public wifi access points (at least in my area), it hasn't impacted my network. It seems more likely to me that the iPhone just doesn't handle something about Duke's network the way that a PC would. It doesn't mean that the iPhone is doing something that would bring other wifi networks to their knees (as there would likely be more widespread reports of it), but rather something about Duke's network that makes it freak out and bombard the access points with requests.
0ptional
Don't Trust Your Friends with Your Decanter
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yeah.. only Duke has complained of this so far... no where else has this been heard of. It has to be some weird configuration of their wi-fi...
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This is pretty amazing.
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Limp Gawd
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The problem with your statement is that people running linux would be flooding the access points voluntarily and those with iphones would be flooding the access points involuntarily. Both are a minority. In either case, the university has jurisdiction on what they want on their network because it's their property. If the University doesn't want to cater to iphones they don't have to. Last I checked, could you give me any good justification on why a college student needs a touch-screen phone? Whether you disagree or not, if the University doesn't want iphones connected to their network on campus, they can enforce whatever rules they deem fit. If you don't want to support their decisions, take your tuition money somewhere else. That is the only way any University listens. Protests don't amount to anything.
I'm sure Duke can block their MAC address of each and every iphone that comes on their network, but that would be a huge PITA. Say the average user base of the iphone is 2-5% and my I guess Duke enrollment is around 20,000 (just guessing). Banning 400 - 1,000 MAC Addresses and even more when they come up sounds like a huge waste of time to me. Again, it's easier just to restrict use of such devices rather then go through the lists everyday and look for new devices causing problems on the network. If the iphones are causing the majority of access points to crash, wouldn't it make sense to restrict the use of them?
I don't go on an airplane and complain that I can't use my cell phone and talk to my friend back home because it might screw up navigation. It's no different here.
My simple point is this. Duke probably has the ability to restrict access to the wireless network, but since anyone can buy an iphone at any point in time, this makes this an ongoing problem which apple should solve. Again, If you've ever worked in IT, you KNOW that resources are limited. I'm sure that the university is working with the WAP manufacturer as well (probably CISCO) and they are working toward a solution, but ultimately, this is Apple's problem, because no other device sold on the open market has this problem unless it was defunct to begin with.
Again, can you tell me why that people with iphones are more entitled to use wifi than the rest of the people who go to the University? Christ, if a device running Windows Mobile 5 was doing this, everyone would be screaming bloody murder, but Apple gets a pass because we can blame Duke's network?
Same problems, different hypocrisy
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Limp Gawd
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Or the fact that most colleges are out of session till fall..
Time will tell whether this becomes a bigger problem once more students start coming back.
0ptional
Don't Trust Your Friends with Your Decanter
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summer quarter anyone?
I know UW still has about 10k kids still running around doing summer stuff right now. Not to mention their Wifi covers a huge portion of the U-district.
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Limp Gawd
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That's true there is summer quarter, but most people aren't given financial aid during the summer because there is very little aid to go around. I think you'd find more people working and taking classes rather than sitting in the dorm room surfing the internet the whole 3 months which discounts the amount of traffic during the day. Unless your parents are paying all your expenses during summer quarter/session, you probably have a job to pay rent and expenses like the rest of us.
theDreamer
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During one quarter this past summer at my college two out of the five days the incoming freshmen were on campus doing there orientation and what not.
This just adds to the amount during the summer, and while it is still not equal to a normal fall/spring semester, many campuses limit the wifi/internet connections to do work also.
This just adds to the amount during the summer, and while it is still not equal to a normal fall/spring semester, many campuses limit the wifi/internet connections to do work also.
there are a lot of uw students who dont have to pay for anything.
0ptional
Don't Trust Your Friends with Your Decanter
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UW is like that
My sister was one of those people.Also, I'm like that up at WWU; my parents just did a great job saving for us and want us to have it as easy as possible while we're at school so we can do really well and I'm extremely grateful for it.
But this issue at hand can't be Apple's if say, every starbucks/tully's on the planet hasn't complained about this either.
Well, it seems that it was an issue with the Cisco network -
Official Statement -
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2007/07/cisco_apple.html
Official Statement -
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2007/07/cisco_apple.html
Arcygenical
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I don't understand this frame of thought... Duke is doing what they can to fix the problem, and banned the device out of sheer desperation. They're doing their part to ammend the issue, and until they get a response out of Apple, they're refusing to allow it on the network.
That makes total sense. Ban it if you can't fix it, fix it when you can, and re-allow it when it's fixed. Now, the confiscation and expulsion thing is just lulzy.
Mistrblank
Limp Gawd
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You are flat out wrong and still stating things I have not said. I never said iPhone users have any more rights than anyone else, but they do have the right to use a device they paid for. And singling them out without having a proper network safeguards in place seems silly to me. Kindly, please stop putting words in my mouth.
My argument is that Duke is unprepared for such attacks (and the administration is reacting poorly). I don't care where they come from whether it be intentional or unintentional. And minority or not, it is a potential problem and to ignore a DoS attack because it is in the minority is both naive and a POOR POLICY.
You are talking about restricting policy and I have said the same thing all along, you restrict access by cutting off users attacking you (filtering MACs for example). But the appearance here is that Duke is not even planning to do that. Their plan is to restrict by school policy (which still leaves them open to attack) and confiscate devices.
As it turns out, it may be a Cisco problem. So once again the wheels of university administration have unjustly treated their own students as criminals and quickly assigned blame.
Oh, and btw:
"Banning 400 - 1,000 MAC Addresses and even more when they come up sounds like a huge waste of time to me."
Is a pretty simple task when you do it automatically, I don't know why you'd think you need to scroll through logs daily to do so. Cisco should be able to show them how or at least point them to the devices and software to do so. It doesn't take much to realize after the first few thousand or so hits in a second you have a rogue device and you should have it cut off, particularly since all of the ARP requests probably look exactly the same. Or even simpler, maybe QoS measures should be in place to ensure that any particular device is not taking up all of an access point's bandwidth.
Somebody should submit this to Fark with a Duke sucks tag.
Where's that constitutional ammendment...
They can use their device however they want, but they are not entitled to wireless access on my network.
Any organization has the right to set whatever usage policies they need to deliver whatever service they feel is core to their organization on their own network.
Apple doesn't give the user the right to use the device they paid for with the EDGE provider of their choice. That must have you really uptight about how they are abusing their users' "rights".
Mistrblank
Limp Gawd
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Do not put words in my mouth. I never said they were entitled to a wireless access on anyone else's network. The issue is Duke wants to confiscate iPhones for a bug (that has recently been realized to be of Duke's own fault.
EDGE is not Wi-Fi.
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