Soviet era maps of Moscow (was Re: Backbone Infrastructure and Secrecy)

Wed Jul 9 11:53:02 UTC 2003

On Tue, 8 Jul 2003, Pete Kruckenberg wrote:
> So, instead, we will all continue to blindly buy "redundant"
> infrastructure that uses the same fiber bundles, because we
> don't have the information to make a more intelligent
> choice. Just makes it easier for a terrorist to do his job.

All the "official" soviet maps of Moscow were filled with errors
because someone thought it would keep invaders from figuring out
how to drive through the city.  Instead most tourists bought
Moscow maps from the US Central Intelligence Agency, because they
were more accurate than the soviet maps.

The Automobile Association of America has long offered "triptiks" as
a membership benefit.  Tell AAA the starting and ending points of
your trip, and they will create a customized map booklet of the entire
route. Think how useful a AAA membership would be to a terrorist.

I haven't seen Sean Gorman's maps so I don't know if he has really
put together something unique, or its similar to the same types of
maps other people create as we've built our networks.  The
interesting thing about many maps is how often they are incorrect,
just like the soviet era maps of Moscow.  Just because a map show fiber
runs between two points doesn't mean either the fiber or the circuits
actually follow the line on the map.  Would you consider 50 mapping
errors per trench mile good or bad?  At an Underground Damage Prevention
conference one of the speakers was explaining how to reduce the error
rate.

The second phase of frustration about network design is once you've
managed to get a map, finding out the real world doesn't match the map.

BTW, I'm still looking for decent network mapping software :-)