how in the hell did that ever work? [was: huawei]

[william.allen.simpson at gmail.com (William Allen Simpson)]

On 6/14/13 2:57 PM, Michael Thomas wrote:
> On 06/14/2013 11:35 AM, Scott Helms wrote:
>> In $random_deployment they have no idea what the topology is and odd behavior is *always *noticed over time. The amount of time it would take to transmit useful information would nearly guarantees someone noticing and the more successful the exploit was
>> the more chance for discovery there would be.
>
> As a software developer for many, many years, I can guarantee you
> that is categorically wrong. I'd venture to say you probably don't even
> notice half. And that's for things that are just bugs or misfeatures.
> Something that was purposeful and done by people who know what
> they're doing... your odds in Vegas are better IMO.
>
> Mike, who's seen way too many "how in the hell did that ever work?"
>
Ah, how well I remember the '91 Interop.  One new dialup network
access server worked great everywhere -- except going through 3Com
routers.  Something wrong with 3Com routers?

Ha!  No, after a lot of network packet debugging, it turned out the
NAS was setting IP version to 0.  (A tiny bug in a compile.)

Only 3Com was checking the IP version!  That is, by definition,
only 3Com routers actually worked properly!!!

And we had a lot more router vendors in those days....