http://www.thebunker.net/ -----Original Message----- From: Eric Kuhnke [mailto:eric@fnordsystems.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 3:48 PM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Backbone Infrastructure and Secrecy I recall reading, last year, about a "Cyber Bunker" outside London UK which is being offered as colo to major banks. The banks were raving praise about it. This facility is an ex-RAF centralized radar control site, buried dozens of feet underground w/ thick concrete and designed to withstand nuclear weapon overpressure. Blast doors, EMF shielding, dual-redundant air filtered generators, the works. The people who bought it and turned it into a colo neglected to mention one thing: It's in the middle of a farm field with a single homed fiber route to Telehouse Docklands. Anyone have a backhoe? *snip* DIVERSE ROUTES, people! At 05:30 PM 7/9/2003 +0100, you wrote:

Michael.Dillon@radianz.com wrote:

...

However we can work to spread out the infrastructure more so that it is harder for terrorists to find a single point of failure to attack. If they have to coordinate an attack on 3 or 4 locations, there is an increased probability that something will go wrong (as on 9/11) and one or more of their targets will escape total destruction.

I hate to be a doom sayer, but any chump with a couple of tools and rudimentary knowledge can lift manholes, cut cables and jump to another location in minutes. No amount of diversity could defend against a concerted attack like that unless you start installing very special low-level routes away from street level into many many buildings. Maybe you guys in the US are historically more paranoid, but London is just covered in single points of major failure for telecoms.

Protecting the switching centres (IP or voice) looks great, but walk a few hundred feet and all senblence of physical security breaks.

Peter