On Thu, 11 Jul 2002, Randy Bush wrote:
I don't know which is scarier. Lucent/Bell Labs trying to design the next generation Internet architecture, or Cisco trying to design the next generation DCN/SS7 architecture.
the contest is keen. for a nice view of this insanity fueled by greed, paranoia, greed, and oh greed, see the ieprep wg of the ietf.
http://www.bell-labs.com/news/features/jaffe.html Impact of Optical, MPLS According to Jaffe, advances in network architecture and technology now coming out of Lucent and other companies may have a profound impact on cyber-security in future networks deployed by both service providers and enterprises. "Three or four years ago, all-optical switching was considered science fiction, but Lucent is providing a path to that reality with the LambdaRouter," he said. "All-optical networks don't exist yet, but they are coming, and they will greatly reduce vulnerability. "It's very hard to intercept individual packets in an all-light network because they aren't queued in output buffers at intermediate nodes. And a lightwave network gives you a better idea of where the packets have come from, which is a problem with the Internet routing protocols today's data networks use." I'm afraid this is one of those things I need help translating. I don't understand how an all-optical network improves the security of the IP layer. At best this is "improving" the security of the least vulnerable part of the network. But I could be wrong, and I'm willing to be educated.