North American Network Operators Group
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Re: Hi, we're from the government and we're here to help

  • From: Patrick Greenwell
  • Date: Fri Mar 10 13:02:09 2000 
On 9 Mar 2000, Sean Donelan wrote:

> The US Government as been amazingly pro-active in this area, or at least
> some small groups have been.  They've also consistently said the government
> can't protect the Internet.  The infrastructure is owned by private companies
> and individuals; and industry has to work together to protect it.
> 
> The question is does industry think its worthwhile to work together?

Funny you should ask that. There was a lot of discussion on Bugtraq
recently about the attacks and from those discussions another list was
started to discuss formation of an "Assocation of Responsible Internet
Providers" ([email protected]). Discussion ensued regarding what the
organization should be doing. There seemed to be general agreement 
on the idea of first creating a NOC<->NOC communication
protocol/procedures(this is at the people layer, not the technical
layer.) I suggested that the group develop a charter, form a 501(c)(6),
elect officers, obtain D&O insurance and then proceed. I also stated that
any such venture was going to require very real money to accomplish, and
asked if there was anyone willing to put their money where there mouth is,
and monetarily contribute to such a venture(I offered to put up a few
hundred dollars.)

Suddenly, the list got very, very quiet. In fact, since I posted that
message, there hasn't been a single post to the list. Emperically, this
suggests to me that while everyone is quick to spend countless
hours expressing an opinion on mailing lists, there is nobody willing to
invest in making this happen. 

I believe this to be such a common communication protocol and procedures
for handling issues to be of great necessity and desireability. If 10% of
the vast number of people that have expressed their opinions on these
issues were each willing to put up a little money, we could solve this
problem once and for all.

So, my offer stands. If there are any individuals or organizations that
would like to do something besides bemoaning the lack of coordination
between providers and actually *do* something to fix it, please contact me
privately. 


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                               Patrick Greenwell                          
                       Earth is a single point of failure.
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