Re: facebook 'routing flaw'?

["Matthew Leeds" <mleeds@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There is a fairly in depth discussion of the issue here:

http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010/01/facebook-att-play-fast-and-loose-with-user-authentication.ars

Not a routing issue, more of a proxy issue, and not uncommon in mobile carrier 
networks. Getting security right in a mobile application is tricky given how 
carriers manage Internet access. With the growth of smartphones these kinds of 
issues will become more prevalent until carriers refactor how they manage 
traffic via their proxy's. I'll also note that while the referenced article 
suggests the use of SSL, there are issues with support in the mobile 
environment for SSL in terms of which certificate authorities are pre-installed 
on phones, whether applications have access to the certificate store on the 
mobile device (or need an embedded certificate), how certificate chaining and 
wildcarding is supported, and so on.

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On 1/16/2010 at 7:39 AM Michael Scheidell wrote:

>AP Report says it was a 'routing problem'? any idea what they are
>talking about, do THEY know what they are talking about?
>Did AT&T mix up the destination ip addresses? did facebook NOT CHECK IP
>ADDRESS AND COOKIES and disable the session when the ip changed?
>
><http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/01/16/network-flaw-causes-scary-web-error/>
>
>SAN FRANCISCO ? A Georgia mother and her two daughters logged onto
>Facebook from mobile phones last weekend and wound up in a startling
>place: strangers' accounts with full access to troves of private
>information.
>
>The glitch ? the result of a routing problem at the family's wireless
>carrier, AT&T ? revealed a little known security flaw with far reaching
>implications for everyone on the Internet, not just Facebook users.
>
>--
>Michael Scheidell, CTO
>Phone: 561-999-5000, x 1259
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