Who wants to be in charge of the Internet today?

Fri Jun 23 23:53:08 UTC 2006

> The Business Roundtable, composed of the CEOs of 160 large U.S. 
companies,
> said neither the government nor the private sector has a coordinated 
plan
> to respond to an attack, natural disaster or other disruption of the
> Internet. While individual government agencies and companies have their
> own emergency plans in place, little coordination exists between the
> groups, according to the study.

I don't believe that this is entirely true. I think that
there is a lot of coordination between companies at an
industry level, for instance the automotive industry or
the financial services industry. This coordination doesn't
get much visibility outside of the industry concerned
but that doesn't mean that it isn't there. In fact, I
strongly suspect that visibility of this coordination
does not often reach the CEO level in these companies
because much of the coordination is between specialist
groups within the companies. Does your CEO know that
you participate in NANOG?

One might even venture to suggest that there is no
point in coordinating emergency plans between companies
who have little or no direct business relationships
unless it is at a metropolitan level, i.e. New York
area businesses, Los Angeles area businesses. After 
all, why should NY businesses plan for earthquakes
and why should LA plan for a hurricane?

--Michael Dillon