[88100] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: The Backhoe: A Real Cyberthreat? [ & Re: cyber-redundancy ]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Frank Coluccio)
Fri Jan 20 09:36:27 2006
From: Frank Coluccio <frank@dticonsulting.com>
To: nanog@merit.edu
Reply-To: frank@dticonsulting.com
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:35:51 -0600
Cc: Michael.Dillon@btradianz.com
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
=0D
> Imagine if 60 Hudson and 111 8th=0D
> were to go down at the same time? Finding means to mitigate this=0D
> threat is not frivolously spending the taxpayer's money,=0D
=0D
This is not only a fair question, it's the very dilemma that some of us fac=
ed=0D
during and immediately following September 11, 2001 when laying down routes=
into=0D
NJ and north to midtown from the Wall Street area of NY City held new chall=
enges.=0D
The attacks on that grim date and its after effects revealed that sites no =
longer=0D
had necessarily to be "taken down" in the traditional sense, per se, to be=
=0D
inaccessible. It was no longer only the physical integrity of building prop=
erty=0D
and underground infrastructure that was vulnerable, but the very "access" t=
o=0D
those facilities from a broader geographic footprint perspective, as well, =
was=0D
seen as something new that had to be dealt with. =0D
=0D
To answer Sean Donelan's question, yes, enterprise customers and/or their a=
gents=0D
_do _need to have specific information on the routes in which their leased=
=0D
facilities (and even dark fiber builds) are placed, ephemeral as those data=
might=0D
be at times due to SP outside plant churn. They need this data in order to =
ensure=0D
that they're not only getting the diversity/redundancy/separacy that they'r=
e=0D
paying for, but because of the more fundamental reason being that it is the=
only=0D
way they have to provide maximal assurances to stakeholders of the organiza=
tion's=0D
survivability. =0D
=0D
All of that having been said, up-to-date information on physical routes and=
=0D
common spaces and the cables that reside within them remains among the most=
=0D
problematic and opaque issues that enterprise network builders and SPs alik=
e have=0D
to deal with today in their quest to design and manage survivable networks.=
NDAs=0D
aren't going away, and the anal nature of carriers isn't about to change an=
ytime=0D
soon. The best information gathering approach to double check any informati=
on=0D
that "is" provided is very often knowing the right people to ask on an offi=
cial=0D
level, and being patient enough to wait for the right moment to ask.=0D
=0D
Frank =0D
=0D
=0D
=0D
