Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 9th Apr 2006 12:49 UTC, submitted by rycamor
FreeBSD developer Poul-Henning Kamp (PHK) happens to run a tier-1 NTP server, intended only for use by ISPs' main servers in Denmark, and specifically not intended for individual client connections, not to mention client connections from anywhere else in the world. He offers this service pro bono to ISPs. Unfortunately, D-Link has decided to abuse the open nature of the NTP protocol and has actually hard-coded PHK's server hostname in the firmware of several of their home network products. Since contacting D-Link yielded no results, PHK went public.
Thread beginning with comment 113141
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:
2005-08-20
You know... until Dlink finds a solution, he could try and block access to his server from any/all dlink NIC's through blocking the MAC addresses...
No he couldn't. First of all, the MAC address never makes out of the routers local network (the subnet controlled by the isp). Secondly, many routers do a MAC address clone of one of the pcs inside the network. This is very common for anybody who first set up their broadband while directly connected and then inserted the router.
Finally, as has been pointed out, filtering doesn't stop the traffic from coming. He could easily whitelist based on ip addresses from Denmark. He could easily filter based on the fact that the dlink devices are using an old version of the protocol. But that won't stop the routers all over the world from continuing to send crap to him. It's not the processing power on his machine that's the problem, it's the fact that the network around the machine has to deliver the traffic. I imagine setting up a filter on the outside for that traffic in a place as complicated as an internet exchange would be far more trouble than just paying for the bandwidth or removing the dns entry.
Edited 2006-04-09 18:28