-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Timothy R. McKee Sent: September 24, 2001 8:29 PM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: RE: Points of Failure (was Re: National infrastructure asset) Importance: High
I know it's difficult to refrain from comment, but let's try to remember that the bad guys read this list too. While they may not have the knowledge of critical communication infrastructure points, they can certainly find and target them if we point them in the right direction. This pertains not only to our side of the ponds, but to overseas as well. We all know where the 'soft targets' of our infrastructures are located - let's keep it to ourselves or, at the very least, within small private discussion groups where everyone knows everyone and not on the public list.
Why would security by obscurity work in this case? Any terrorist with a quarter of a clue can find out the addresses of enough critical buildings to cause a huge disaster in about 30 minutes (*hint* Find sites for providers that have hardware coloed in major buildings and that list the addresses of these POPs. No names will be provided, but I have at least one in my mind. Repeat this process with some major peering points, a listing of which is quite easy to find). I might add that it's much easier to find this out than it is to crash some airplanes into prominent US buildings; I doubt a 30 minute Google search would tell you how to pilot airplanes, but perhaps I'm just a little naive. Vivien -- Vivien M. vivienm@dyndns.org Assistant System Administrator Dynamic DNS Network Services http://www.dyndns.org/