MSS Initiative

NEW (11/30/03): We now have MORE fixed sites than broken sites listed! Thanks to everyone who has helped our cause!

As you might have just read, there are a lot of sites out there that are fundamentally broken in the RFC 2923 sense. In an effort to steer away from MSS Clamping, I decided to started an initiative to notify sysadmins about the "brokenage" of their sites.

Shortly (and I mean days) after I got this idea, I got an email from Richard van den Berg, who, coincidentally, had the same idea. So, we decided to work together in an effort to help eliminate this problem from the Internet.

In accordance with security, open source, and other similar practices no sites will be ostracized unless they refuse to communicate or fix their site. The idea here is that we will notify admins of problem websites and give them at least two weeks to respond. After that time, we will list them here in the 'pending' (read: black) list, along with info on when they were contacted and what, if any response there was.

For a detailed description of what the PMTUD Blackhole is, please see Phil's MSS page and RFC 2923.

A copy of the letter that we send to admins is located here.

If you would like to report a broken site, BE SURE IT IS BROKEN. We have provided instructions on how to test if a site is affected by the PMTUD Blackhole here. We may provide a script for this at some point, but the instructions should suffice. When you're sure it's broken, email it to mss@ipom.com.

SITES FIXED: 19
WHAT'S HERE
OTHER LINKS


Name URL Contacted Any response
Overture http://perf.overture.com April 14, 2007 None
CNET http://www.cnet.com April 14, 2007 Out of office reply from Noel Cragg, but no further response.
Cisco http://www.cisco.com April 14, 2007 None - hostmaster@ doesn't seem to be a valid email address and they provide no alternative address on their site.
Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com
http://www.hotmail.com
April 14, 2007 None - hostmaster@ doesn't seem to be a valid email address and they provide no alternative address on their site.
Ebay http://promo.ebay.com January 25, 2003 None
04/14/07 - Noticed that search.ebay.com and cgi.ebay.com were fixed but they link to promo.ebay.com which is still broken.
Verisign http://www.verisign.com/ February 9, 2002 02/11/02 - Human reply saying they forward the email to the correct department
02/20/02 - Email giving ticket number and saying to call if we have any further problems
03/18/02 - Richard called them. The support person said she would pass on the message to the appropriate department.
11/29/03 - We noticed they were fixed
07/08/07 - We received a report they were broken again!
Security Focus http://www.securityfocus.com/ February 4, 2002 None.
04/17/02 - We noticed they were fixed
10/19/02 - We then noticed they were broken again!
11/29/03 - We noticed they were fixed - again
07/08/07 - We received a report they were broken again!
Discreet http://www.discreet.com/ February 24, 2002 Automated
04/14/07 - verified still broken
mp3.com http://ww.mp3.com/ February 23, 2002 Automated
04/14/07 - hardware/software.mp3.com no longer exist, but mp3.com is still broken
Windows and .NET Magazine http://www.winntmag.com/ February 9, 2002 Automated
04/14/07 - verified still broken
Sears http://www.sears.com/ February 9, 2002 Automated
04/14/07 - verified still broken
Id Software http://www.idsoftware.com/ February 9, 2002 None
04/14/07 - verified still broken
Iomega http://www.iomega.com/ February 9, 2002 None
04/14/07 - verified still broken

Last Updated: 07/07/07

This page is © Phil Dibowitz 2001 - 2007