DEF CON 13 - Paul Vixie, The Internets March of Folly
Channel: DEFCONConference
Date: 06/02/2014

Paul Vixie, The Internets March of Folly

In this lecture we will begin with a brief introduction on a couple of the common or not so common threats that exist to the Internet and Internet infrastructure today, provide with some statistics and discuss the harm rather than potential risks.

We will then proceed to discuss problems we face dealing with these threats, and what actually gets done to combat them, globally - and by who.

We will also try and determine "where do we go from here", and if time allows take questions from the audience to form a short discussion.

Paul Vixie has been contributing to Internet protocols and UNIX systems as a protocol designer and software architect since 1980. Early in his career, he developed and introduced sends, proxynet, rtty, cron and other lesser-known tools.

Today, Paul is considered the primary modern author and technical architect of BINDv8 the Berkeley Internet Name Domain Version 8, the open source reference implementation of the Domain Name System (DNS). He formed the Internet Software Consortium (ISC) in 1994, and now acts as Chairman of its Board of Directors. The ISC reflects Paul's commitment to developing and maintaining production quality open source reference implementations of core Internet protocols.

More recently, Paul cofounded MAPS LLC (Mail Abuse Prevention System), a California nonprofit company established in 1998 with the goal of hosting the RBL (Realtime Blackhole List) and stopping the Internet's email system from being abused by spammers. Vixie is currently the Chief Technology Officer of Metromedia Fiber Network Inc (MFNX.O).

Along with Frederick Avolio, Paul co-wrote "Sendmail: Theory and Practice" (Digital Press, 1995). He has authored or co-authored several RFCs, including a Best Current Practice document on "Classless IN-ADDR.ARPA Delegation" (BCP 20). He is also responsible for overseeing the operation of F.root-servers.net, one of the thirteen Internet root domain name servers.