On Tue, 8 Jul 2003, Pete Kruckenberg wrote:
So, instead, we will all continue to blindly buy "redundant" infrastructure that uses the same fiber bundles, because we don't have the information to make a more intelligent choice. Just makes it easier for a terrorist to do his job.
All the "official" soviet maps of Moscow were filled with errors because someone thought it would keep invaders from figuring out how to drive through the city. Instead most tourists bought Moscow maps from the US Central Intelligence Agency, because they were more accurate than the soviet maps. The Automobile Association of America has long offered "triptiks" as a membership benefit. Tell AAA the starting and ending points of your trip, and they will create a customized map booklet of the entire route. Think how useful a AAA membership would be to a terrorist. I haven't seen Sean Gorman's maps so I don't know if he has really put together something unique, or its similar to the same types of maps other people create as we've built our networks. The interesting thing about many maps is how often they are incorrect, just like the soviet era maps of Moscow. Just because a map show fiber runs between two points doesn't mean either the fiber or the circuits actually follow the line on the map. Would you consider 50 mapping errors per trench mile good or bad? At an Underground Damage Prevention conference one of the speakers was explaining how to reduce the error rate. The second phase of frustration about network design is once you've managed to get a map, finding out the real world doesn't match the map. BTW, I'm still looking for decent network mapping software :-)