Under the heading, the more things change, the more the stay the same... I found this interesting paragraph in a government sponsored research report. To make it more interesting, I'm not going to tell you the date of the report, or the network the authors were talking about. Since the US Government paid for the work, copyright isn't a concern, now if that ain't a hint, I don't know what is :-) "Among them they noted that while worst case analysis had been done, the particular scenario had not been studied. The also suggest operators did not have all the data they needed to make proper decisions. Particularly notable was that no one could see the big picture across the entire system. The authors suggest that there is substantial improvement needed to the modeling process. For example, models used for planning are different than models used for online monitoring and control. Finally, there are thousands of system components, and as many problems waiting to occur. Based on these observations the authors suggest the following: - Online dynamic security assessment tools, and security indices. - Wide area communication network and system monitoring process. - National standards for operations and engineering. - Improved system planning and risk assessment methods. - Standard system planning and operating data models. - Validated data in simulation models. - Wide area measurement and controls." Since there is currently a $2.8billion budget request pending before Congress to fund critical infrastructure protection, do you sometimes get the feeling some researchers just cut & paste their old analysis into whatever today's hot topic is? -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation