As a side note the thanks for responses on Equinix were off list responses - was not meant to be sarcasm since there were not any on list responses. Back to the topic - the first question is the cost of protecting an asset less than the cost of loosing the asset. If the answer is yes then there is economic justification for protection. I believe the issue will not be one of the government deciding what assets are ciritcal, but more likely the insurace industry. At the end of the day the insurance industry has to come to terms with how to deal with network downage. The value they put on assets for insurance and reassurance will most likey be the trigger. Then you can start get an answer to your question of who is most critical - who has the most loose finacially from downage. From the examples you listed I'd say NASDAQ. The question becomes what infrastructure is that critical node or sector most dependent on. It is the interdependecies that causes the rub, who is responsible, who is left holdig the bag, who has the ability to pay etc. ----- Original Message ----- From: batz <batsy@vapour.net> Date: Thursday, September 5, 2002 4:36 pm Subject: Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection

On Thu, 5 Sep 2002 sgorman1@gmu.edu wrote:

:I completely agree with statement. It is not a matter of wanting to :know where the importants hubs are - we have a pretty good handle on :that, but what the impacts would be of a hub loss from an operational :stand point. Maybe this is a discussion that needs to be off- line. :My goal is to provide some context and validation for the research :that is being carried out.

The vulnerability is relative to the priority and value of the asset being protected. Without definition of those assets from the government, or whatever stakeholder needs to know, it is difficult to explain.

Operationally, you can talk about various meet-me points, hubs, exchangesand routes as being critical, but the sites those links service will be the metric by which their importance is measured.

Until our various political masters decide what sites they think are truely critical, any assessment will be relative to shifting prioritiesof participants in the discussion.

Who is more critical; Nasdaq, Google, WCOM or the GSA? You can see how this becomes relative pretty quickly.

-- batz