[126747] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: BT strike could affect internet and phone connections
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven Bellovin)
Fri May 28 10:24:59 2010
From: Steven Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
In-Reply-To: <4BFF7A7C.4060102@bogus.com>
Date: Fri, 28 May 2010 10:24:29 -0400
To: joel jaeggli <joelja@bogus.com>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On May 28, 2010, at 4:10 36AM, joel jaeggli wrote:
> On 2010-05-27 17:57, andrew.wallace wrote:
>> On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 1:17 AM, joel jaeggli<joelja@bogus.com>
>> wrote:
>>> On 2010-05-27 10:42, andrew.wallace wrote:
>>>>=20
>>>> Look at it from an attackers point of view. If you're thinking
>>>> about carrying out an electronic jihad of some kind when is the
>>>> best time? A normal working day or during an engineers strike
>>>> that only happens once every 23 years?
>>>=20
>>> Not to put to fine a point on it, a normal working day is the best
>>> time to strike if you want to maximize the value of your attack.
>>=20
>> The point I'm getting at is this strike of this nature is a threat to
>> national security and the internet is supposed to be classed as
>> critical infrastructure, so shouldn't it be against the law for them
>> to strike?
>=20
> The phone system has been critical infrastructure for 120 years...
>=20
>> Or has the law in the UK not got as far as the United States has on
>> deeming what's critical infrastructure yet?
>>=20
>> We are far behind the United States and its about time we played
>> catch-up.
>=20
> I don't think a CWA strike has been declared illegal in recent =
history...
>=20
In general, strikes by telco, power company employees, etc., are legal =
in the US. Under certain circumstances involving the national interest, =
the president can order workers back to their jobs for 80 days, after =
which they're free to walk out again. The only people who can never =
strikes are public employees.
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
