[Backbone Infrastructure and Secrecy]

Joel Jaeggli joelja at darkwing.uoregon.edu
Tue Jul 8 16:43:08 UTC 2003


On Tue, 8 Jul 2003, Joshua Sahala wrote:

> 
> i think that that is the point of the article - mr gorman is 'the one' ;)
> he mapped something that those who put it together hoped was unmappable.
> now it seems that they are blaming their incompetance on his skills. 
> could his work be used to better our 'critical'  infrastructure? sure.  
> could it be used to render it useless?  probably.  will it be used to 
> fix things?  doubtful.

The part that's striking to me, is that as usual, the folks in the
industry don't know when their facilities are co-mingled, in part becuase
that information simply isn't readily and easily available unless
someone's willing to go out collect the small little bits and connect the
dots... If that compartimentalization continues, then continginency
planning just remains that much harder when no-one is in a position to
make informed decisions. I seem to recall a certain baltimore tunnel fire 
badly affecting a number of carriers with supposedly diverse facilities, 
that had nothing to do with terrorism nor do virtually all other 
facilities based outages in the US, but the consumers (carriers in this 
case) would have been far better served by more information about what 
all was provisioned through that tunnel.

> if the ministry of homeland secrecy sucedes in getting it classified,
> it will sit in a locked buliding somewhere, while another enterprising
> individual or group uses the same tools that mr gorman used...but whom
> will they be showing it to?

As usual, it's possible to do a huge disservice to local and state public 
agency planners, private enterprise and individuals by centralizing and 
obfiscating information on subjects of overriding public interest... 
Something the bush administration seems to have been extremely intent on 
in the previous two years.

> /joshua
> 
> Adam Kujawski <adamkuj at amplex.net> wrote:
> > 
> > NANOG's Sean Gorman is in the news:
> > 
> > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23689-2003Jul7.html
> > 
> > I would find GIS like the one described *very* usefull in finding transport
> 
> > providers. If I could see who has what where, I would know who to go to for
> 
> > quotes. As it stands, most of this information is hard to get ahold of.
> > 
> > Who, besides Sean, has maps like this? The state PUC? If so, is that 
> > information available to the public? Do you have to go thorugh a background
> 
> > check and/or sign an NDA? Or is it only the providers themselves that have
> the 
> > maps for this stuff?
> > 
> > -Adam
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> "Walk with me through the Universe,
>  And along the way see how all of us are Connected.
>  Feast the eyes of your Soul,
>  On the Love that abounds.
>  In all places at once, seemingly endless,
>  Like your own existence."
>      - Stephen Hawking -
> 
> 
> 

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Joel Jaeggli	      Academic User Services   joelja at darkwing.uoregon.edu    
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