$400 million network upgrade for the Pentagon

Mon Aug 12 20:54:03 UTC 2002

At 12:44 PM -0400 2002/08/12, Sean Donelan wrote:

>  Building a surviable network in such a small area, relatively speaking the
>  Pentagon is small, is a much harder problem than diversity on a regional
>  or even national network.

	Keep in mind that it was DARPA that funded the original research 
on what we now call the Internet.  There are plenty of clueless 
morons in the building (the one with four sides and a spare), but 
there are also some exceptionally sharp people.

>  http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0812/news-dod-08-12-02.asp
>
>    "Among the problems DOD encountered Sept. 11 was a computing environment
>    with many points of failure -- applications or databases that, if
>    removed, could not be recovered and critical network links that, if
>    down, could not be worked around.

	Perhaps true for the unclassified systems.  But then they're not 
really that critical to the real day-to-day operations.  Moreover, 
where the plane struck is not the side where the majority of this 
kind of networking is done.

	I worked there for about five years.  I know where a lot of the 
unclassified networking was done, and I know where a fair amount of 
the classified processing was done.  The classified areas were not in 
any danger from the airplane attack.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles at skynet.be>

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
     -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.

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