Murphy's Law Strikes Again: AS7007
It was an average day in 1997. The Internet, fledging compared to today’s standards. Internet operators (mostly!) trusted one another. SMTP servers would be open relays; a number of open web proxies and anonymous dialout servers were available. People were worried about running out of IP space. Network Operators were worried about the CPU on their routers being taxed dealing with a full routing table of ~45,000 entries.
Then, suddenly, the internet stopped working. Network Operators everywhere sprang into action to discover the cause of the lack of traffic. And there it was. As far as the routing protocols were concerned, the entire internet existed in one location - some crappy Bay Networks router in AS7007.
Who wouldn’t want the bragging rights for that? To be able to put this on your resume, blog, signature, and everywhere: “Friday, April 25, 1997: Crashed the whole friggin’ internet.”
