At 12:39 AM 7/22/04 -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote:
On Wed, 21 Jul 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
I'm following the Principle of not underestimating the adversary,
Don't go overboard: remember that there is a difference between underestimating your adversary and unrealistically *over*estimating your adversary.
Good point. Channelling Hettinga, crypto is economics.
I (and I suspect you) live in the "high tech" world,
Um, yes :-)
while a large part of academia tends to believe that the USG is around ten years *behind* them (oh, to have such an ego!). In my personal experience, they tend to have roughly a five year lead on what my world considers "bleeding edge". That said, I'm willing to cut them a few more years of slack when doing the necessary threat assessment, but I just do not believe they are 20, or even 10 years ahead. And that is not an
"idle" belief, it's a considered, long formed opinion, based on an awful lot of input data.
Fair 'nuff. You know that 5 year predictions are too conservative, and 20 year predictions too liberal. Ask Orwell. My point is only that they will be killed should they leak their actual capabilities.
Perhaps that grants the Maryland trogdyltes too much, but again, conservatism rules in this game.
Conservatism in the real world, unreasonable paranoia in the academic world (a necessary thing in that context).
My academic experience had nothing to do with networking. I'm just a manic mechanic, okay?
They also get radioisotope power supplies, etc.
This is actually a *very* good point. It would also address the off-shore splice vs power issue nicely. But we are still constrained by backhaul.
Ergo my dark fiber remark, even if naif.
Yes, VA and DC have gluts of glass. In fact, that is one of the most concentrated glut areas.
And most worth observing...
While this cannot be discounted in toto, the tech comes to them from academia (most of the time), so generally, if you are widely read, you'll have a pretty good idea of what's *possible*. You are likely dead-on accurate about the fabs though.
In the *public* lit.
Albeit, "Nortel" (even if Canadian, eh?)
Yup. The Irony Meter is hanging out at the right of the scale again :-)
Bent so many needles, I don't even know my real name...
Undersea taps are hard. No matter how you figure it.
You think subs are just toys?
The actual intel/counterintel guys make shit for money.
What I meant was, Ames and that FBI dude Hansen (sp?), at least the KGB got Ames' wife as part of the package, whereas the FBI CI dude let his wife off as part of the deal he cut. Nice xian that he was, he was into strippers. All under $2e6, all capable of reading their own records. Go figure, eh? See you in Athens, or before :-)