We passed that article around the office here.. I found it interesting as I've not been a fan of ATM so far... My boss knows a guy at Sprint (in the article, there's a guy from Sprint's Internet group that has bad things to say about ATM, and says they aren't going to use it) so he called him up and asked about the article. They guy says "WHAT? We're installing a huge ATM network! Fax me that article!" The left doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Sounds like every place I've ever worked.. Ryan ---------- Previous Message ---------- To: cypherpunks cc: From: rcgraves @ ix.netcom.com (Rich Graves) @ smtp Date: 10/21/96 11:22:08 PM Subject: Interesting article on ATM in Wired (of all places) Since I ordinarily do nothing but bash the journal of hype and unreadable blue-on-orange type, I figured I should express appreciation for Steve Steinberg's "Netheads vs. Bellheads" article starting on page 145 of the October issue. The ATM v. real networks battle is one that is becoming increasingly important at gads of institutions, such as mine. In addition to economic efficiency, there are civil liberties reasons to favor the current packet-switched technology over circuit-switched bit-mangling. The nexus on this technical front isn't as tight as it is on the encryption front, but I'd urge people in positions of technical or budgetary responsibility to line up with the good guys, i.e., us netheads. You don't want an Internet controlled by ATM technology. It would make censorship, wiretapping, and other forms of nastiness by government and other armed thugs far too easy. I'm speaking only for myself, of course, and of course there are technical reasons I'd prefer to implement gigabit Ethernet as well. The leader "Why the net should grow up" in the October 19th issue of _The Economist_, whose net reporting has improved markedly with the addition of some new staff, may also be of interest. Some overlaps with the Wired article, though the writers probably weren't technically savvy enough to realize that they were talking about the same thing. More comments on that when I find time. -rich