Vulnerbilities of Interconnection

Thu Sep 5 23:41:05 UTC 2002

On Thu, 5 Sep 2002 sgorman1 at gmu.edu wrote:

:The question is what if someone was gunning for your fiber.  To date 
:cuts have been unintentional.  Obviously the risk level is much higher 
:doing a phyisical attack, but the bad guys in this scenario are not 
:teenage hackers in the parents basement.  

This happened recently  in Quebec where there is a labour
dispute with Videotron and one of the unions representing its workers.
The dispute has been exaserbated by the sabotage of the companies fiber
lines. 

Now, while this may affect Videotrons bottom line, it only becomes a 
critical infrastructure issue when it becomes a Hydro Quebec issue, 
or it interferes with the provinces ability to deliver services. 

Honestly, if a few million people can't get their porn streams, the
world isn't going to end. If 911 operators, or ambulance services 
can't direct emergency crews for 10 people, then you have a serious
problem. 

:There is a good foundation of knowledge on the implications of cyber 
:attacks, but the what-if of an intentional physical attack is an 
:important question I believe.  The context in this discussion has been 
:very valuable and many thanks to everyone that has offered opinions.

The What-If questions have to be sorted from a particular view, and
it will be the legislators view which will ultimately matter. You 
can bluesky, whiteboard, game and scheme all you like, but there are
only a few opinions that matter when it comes to deciding what 
is of importance to national security, and until we hear from them, 
we can be as paranoid and imaginative as we want, and it won't help
the infrastructure become more secure. 

So, as for Nasdaq, vs Google, vs the GSA vs Agriculture vs CNN, 
until we have the correct order in which to place these entities, 
we can't provide a useful or accurate model of how vulnerable the
infrastructure is. 

You mentioned that you thought Nasdaq would be the most important 
asset to protect, but what happens if some Internet 
traders on AOL can't make their trades because of a fiber cut, vs
not being able to get their infotainment from CNN, vs weather
and crop data data not getting to farmers on time. It's a relative
and ultimately political discussion.  

--
batz