nanog mailing list archives

Re: London incidents


From: Jim Popovitch <jimpop () yahoo com>
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 09:56:42 -0700 (PDT)


--- "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick () ianai net> wrote:

No, it's damned if you take stupid action, damned if you do not do  
something you should.

People in charge of our security should not be allowed to take  
whatever action comes to mind in the name of security.  

Then who should, and with data from who's mind?  I suppose they (the 
ones in charge) could spend their time polling the audience, but that
has it's price and uncertainty too.

Intelligent, useful, competent decisions should be made.  If they cannot
make them, we should find someone who can.

But they did make a decision, it is only some (majority or not, but clearly
not all) that are still not convinced of the competency of their decision.
(note: some will never be convinced, some will always be convinced).

Billions of dollars, millions of person-hours, and more frustration  
than I can quantify is not a good price to pay for the infinitesimal  
increase in security (if any) we have received through decisions like  
this one.

How can you accurately know this?  I think you are just presuming, but 
you (like I) will never really truly know.  We don't like spending that
money, but we have no proof that not spending it is better.  We can all
agree that it could probably be spent wiser, but this is the US Government.

I think the world has shown that cellphones have been used over and  
over
to detonate explosive devices.  Why wait for it to be proved again
before doing something?  AFAIK "Emergency Only" mode allows for 911
calls, just not inbound/outbound calls.  Besides, the US (at least) is
full of a lot of people who need to hang up the phone and start  
driving
good again.

Your logic is ... illogical.  If you cannot see why, I will not be  
able to explain it to you.  (But you probably feel safer knowing I  
can't pack a Zippo in my checked in baggage.)

No, your logic is ... illogical.., and I will not show you where. ;-)

As for the "Emergency Only" mode, the original poster said _power was  
cut_ to the repeaters.  Could you explain to me how this allows for  
911 calls please?

The original poster quoted a news report, how may times have you seen
technically accurate news reports?  I don't know the source of the 
report but I do know that some people think the the whole internet is
down when only it is their connection.  In this case (someone saying that 
the port authority had shutdown cellphone access) there are so many 
possible interpretations that it is impossible to really know without 
firsthand knowledge.  Speculation as to "how", is just as bad as speculation
as to "why" (which is why I jumped into this cat fight).

-Jim P. (who is tired of being caught in traffic behind weaving,
slowing/speeding, hand-waving and head-shaking, cellphone "drivers")

Not really relevant to the discussion at hand.

Mom?  :-)   <--- notice the smiley

-Jim P.




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