Notes on the Internet for Bell Heads
Sean Donelan
sean at donelan.com
Fri Jul 12 03:25:17 UTC 2002
On Thu, 11 Jul 2002, Randy Bush wrote:
> > I don't know which is scarier. Lucent/Bell Labs trying to design
> > the next generation Internet architecture, or Cisco trying to
> > design the next generation DCN/SS7 architecture.
>
> the contest is keen. for a nice view of this insanity fueled by
> greed, paranoia, greed, and oh greed, see the ieprep wg of the
> ietf.
http://www.bell-labs.com/news/features/jaffe.html
Impact of Optical, MPLS
According to Jaffe, advances in network architecture and technology now
coming out of Lucent and other companies may have a profound impact on
cyber-security in future networks deployed by both service providers and
enterprises.
"Three or four years ago, all-optical switching was considered science
fiction, but Lucent is providing a path to that reality with the
LambdaRouter," he said. "All-optical networks don't exist yet, but they
are coming, and they will greatly reduce vulnerability.
"It's very hard to intercept individual packets in an all-light network
because they aren't queued in output buffers at intermediate nodes. And
a lightwave network gives you a better idea of where the packets have come
from, which is a problem with the Internet routing protocols today's
data networks use."
I'm afraid this is one of those things I need help translating. I don't
understand how an all-optical network improves the security of the IP
layer. At best this is "improving" the security of the least vulnerable
part of the network. But I could be wrong, and I'm willing to be
educated.
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