[Web4lib] Fwd: About Computer Networking: How MySpace May BeHurting Your Network

[Jonathan Gorman]

Hi Robin, 

I have a hard time believing this is your problem.

First, the only person who seems to be saying the DNS is a problem being "president of architecture at InfoBlox, which sells DNS appliances to carriers and corporations".  Granted, I think the article is probably right in the sentence where it states MySpace and similar pages are gaining in popularity and probably increasing bandwidth loads.  But this would most likely be seen as in increase in both your down and up stream usage.  

Even if there was increased DNS traffic, it should show up both incoming and outcoming loads.  

In addition, MySpace has been popular for quite a while now.  You would have seen this increase much earlier.

More likely are these scenarios:

1) Your user base has changed within the last month or two (students on break) and for some reason these users are uploading far more then they are downloading.

2) Your computers have been compromised by a virus/script kiddy/patron who's messed with them/etc.  They are either spewing spam out into the network or being used as illegal file servers.  


Or, as I think now, if you're talking percentage-wise, i suppose it is possible that a group of  prolific posters or computer user could drive the amount of outgoing internet traffic.  But this affect isn't likely to be limited to MySpace.  Given the historical disparity in incoming/outgoing traffic, it could appear to be a minor increase for incoming traffic but large one for outgoing.

A network audit to see exactly what ip addresses all that traffic is going to and what exactly is the nature of the traffic would be a good place to start.

Jon Gorman
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