Issues with Gmail

Wed Sep 2 17:33:55 UTC 2009

On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 5:05 AM, Randy Bush <randy at psg.com> wrote:
> [....] the internet is a wonderful
> demonstration of building a reliable network out of reliable components.
>
> but what we have with google mail (and apps) is two scary problems
>
> o way too many users relying on a single point of failure. so it
> makes the nyt when it breaks because of the number of users
> affected, and

I choose to not assume to "what/which single point of failure" this
reference by Randy applies.   However, we can take confidence in the
fact that Google's Gmail service architecture is distributed; not to be
interpreted of course, as suggesting that within the distribution, there
isn't a single point of failure.   Perhaps, from a network operations
point of view, the point needs elaboration.

> o too many foolish people giving their private data to a data miner to
> whom they actually yeild rights to those data and who seems to store
> them for a scary long time.

Naturally, this is a separate issue, and indeed a very prickly one,
which is beyond the charter of NANOG.  Therefore, I refrain from penning
any thoughts on it.

All the best,
Robert.
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