Re: [tlug] What would happen to the Internet if the US fell off the map

[Attila Kinali <attila@example.com>]

Moin,

Jee.. you are keeping me from working with your long and hard
to answer mails :-)

Thus i will answer only partially and leave the rest for later
when i have more time.

On Sat, 4 Aug 2007 16:25:24 +0900
"Josh Glover" <jmglov@example.com> wrote:

> On 03/08/07, Attila Kinali <attila@example.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, 3 Aug 2007 15:14:20 +0900
> > "Josh Glover" <jmglov@example.com> wrote:
> >
> > > On 02/08/07, Attila Kinali <attila@example.com> wrote:
> > > > That's what you think. The internet isn't as redundand as you'd imagine.
> > >
> > > Yes, that is what I think, and unless you give me evidence to the
> > > contrary, I think my knowledge of Internet redundancy is at least
> > > equivalent to your own.
> >
> > Giving evidence is difficult, because the exact structure of the
> > internet is not completely known and even less understood.
> 
> Sorry, I probably took offence where it was not intended (as was
> pointed out to me in an off-list reply).
>
> I felt that your tone was condescending, and let my feathers get a bit ruffled.

Sorry, the fault is also mine. I should be more carefull on how
i write things and depend less on my culturual reference frame.
Although, i should be used to that by now, it happens from time
to time that i misstep in my wording. No offence was intended.
Sorry about that.
 
> Here is what I meant: if you have worked for a major ISP or have some
> kind of special insight, you really should say so. Otherwise, we have
> to treat your opinion as equivalent to anyone else's; just a
> semi-informed guess.
[...]
> This is full disclosure, and helps others judge how much weight to
> assign to what we say.
> 
> Please do the same; I don't know you or what you do for a living, but
> you obviously have more knowledge about the Internet than the average
> lay-geek. Please tell us roughly how you came by it (e.g. are you a
> hobbyist? security reseearcher? work for an ISP? work for the
> government? etc.).

I usualy refrain from doing so because i neither want to give
the impression that i'm a show-off nor do i want that people
judge me from what i claim to have done in the past. I rather
want that people accept me as just another guy around and judge
me by what i do here and now.

But well, here some bits of pieces about my background:
I studied electrical engineering at a certain known university
in Switzerland which mostly gave me some knowledge about how
networking devices are build and what the technical limits
of those are today. Beside that i'm a knowledge junky, especially
about technological and scientific knowledge. I read and collect
most of what gets into my hands in forms of books and scientific
papers and dig into what currently interessts me (which can change
from one day to another and span over a lot of totaly unrelated fields).

That said, i digged alot into how networking works, not only by
principles (like most universities teach), but also looking at
implementations and at times trying some implementations myself.
I've also a few friends who work or worked at transit ISPs and
which i from time to time pester with "what if" questions about
algorithms used.

My second strong interest field is video coding where i help
at times in a certain well known project (though most of the
stuff done there is way over my head).

Third field is logic design of ASICs and FPGAs 
(ie, that what people generaly call as "chips") and try to help
in another, not so well known project that was mentioned here
a few days ago.

Due to my long time involvement in OSS projects i know
fairly well how the "community"[1] works and behaves.

And last but not least, i also have a family heritage of
having an interest in medicine and biology, but that's definitly
my weakest point.

I hope that gives somewhat an idea what my background is.

> Actually, Attila, if you have the time, it would be pretty cool to
> work up an annotated version of "WSRtE", where you point out the bits
> you consider questionable. Then other experts (i.e. not me) can
> respond. I seriously think it would be a cool project for TLUG, and
> Cory Doctorow would surely get a kick out of it (he's a very cool,
> down-to-earth guy who would welcome interesting discussion on his
> piece).

Currently i don't have the time for this. I'm pretty much
booked until end of August. (yes, i procrastinating by reading
the tlug ml :-)

But IIRC you live around Tokyo? So we could meet in September,
when i will be in Japan for 3 weeks and go over some of the
stuf there.

But overall, there are IMHO only minor inaccurancies in the story.
I give Cory a major credit for actually knowing what he writes about.
Heck, he even knows the difference between virii and wurms which
is not even common knowledge among sysadmins.

			Attila Kinali

[1] With "community" i mean here the part of the huge
OSS community i am able to see. It might be a good average over
the whole community, but it's just a part of it never the less.
-- 
Praised are the Fountains of Shelieth, the silver harp of the waters,
But blest in my name forever this stream that stanched my thirst!
                         -- Deed of Morred