i think that that is the point of the article - mr gorman is 'the one' 
he mapped something that those who put it together hoped was unmappable.
now it seems that they are blaming their incompetance on his skills.
could his work be used to better our 'critical' infrastructure? sure.
could it be used to render it useless? probably. will it be used to
fix things? doubtful.
if the ministry of homeland secrecy sucedes in getting it classified,
it will sit in a locked buliding somewhere, while another enterprising
individual or group uses the same tools that mr gorman used...but whom
will they be showing it to?
/joshua
NANOG's Sean Gorman is in the news:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23689-2003Jul7.html
I would find GIS like the one described *very* usefull in finding transport
providers. If I could see who has what where, I would know who to go to for
quotes. As it stands, most of this information is hard to get ahold of.
Who, besides Sean, has maps like this? The state PUC? If so, is that
information available to the public? Do you have to go thorugh a background
check and/or sign an NDA? Or is it only the providers themselves that have
the
maps for this stuff?
-Adam
"Walk with me through the Universe,
And along the way see how all of us are Connected.
Feast the eyes of your Soul,
On the Love that abounds.
In all places at once, seemingly endless,
Like your own existence."
- Stephen Hawking -
i think that that is the point of the article - mr gorman is 'the one'
he mapped something that those who put it together hoped was unmappable.
now it seems that they are blaming their incompetance on his skills.
could his work be used to better our 'critical' infrastructure? sure.
could it be used to render it useless? probably. will it be used to
fix things? doubtful.
The part that's striking to me, is that as usual, the folks in the
industry don't know when their facilities are co-mingled, in part becuase
that information simply isn't readily and easily available unless
someone's willing to go out collect the small little bits and connect the
dots... If that compartimentalization continues, then continginency
planning just remains that much harder when no-one is in a position to
make informed decisions. I seem to recall a certain baltimore tunnel fire
badly affecting a number of carriers with supposedly diverse facilities,
that had nothing to do with terrorism nor do virtually all other
facilities based outages in the US, but the consumers (carriers in this
case) would have been far better served by more information about what
all was provisioned through that tunnel.
if the ministry of homeland secrecy sucedes in getting it classified,
it will sit in a locked buliding somewhere, while another enterprising
individual or group uses the same tools that mr gorman used...but whom
will they be showing it to?
As usual, it's possible to do a huge disservice to local and state public
agency planners, private enterprise and individuals by centralizing and
obfiscating information on subjects of overriding public interest...
Something the bush administration seems to have been extremely intent on
in the previous two years.
Joel Jaeggli wrote:
The part that's striking to me, is that as usual, the folks in the
industry don't know when their facilities are co-mingled, in part becuase
that information simply isn't readily and easily available unless
someone's willing to go out collect the small little bits and connect the
Get a backhoe operator really drunk and point him in the proper direction. If more circuits go down than you expected, then you know they are co-mingled at that point. 
-Jack
Quoting Joel Jaeggli <joelja@darkwing.uoregon.edu>:
The part that's striking to me, is that as usual, the folks in the
industry don't know when their facilities are co-mingled, in part becuase
that information simply isn't readily and easily available unless
someone's willing to go out collect the small little bits and connect the
dots... If that compartimentalization continues, then continginency
planning just remains that much harder when no-one is in a position to
make informed decisions.
Exactly. I think we all agree that this kind of information would be usefull
for a variety of reasons (locating available resources, ensuring path
redundancy, identifying critical points of failure, etc). I think we all agree
that this information, in the wrong hands, can also be used for naughty
purposes.
How do we balance these opposing factors? I like the idea of a clearinghouse
where one can access the data after a background check and a NDA. At the state
level, the logical place would be the PUC. They have all the data, but do they
have it all in a single GIS database? They should, but I doubt they do.
At the national level, is there any department or agency to go to? It certainly
doesn't sound like it. What would it take to get a project such as Mr. Gorman's
done by the federal government so that there would be a single place to go?
Does the government already have this information locked up behind closed
doors? It seems like they would. Is there any reason not to make it available
to interested parties that have a valid reason to access it?
Would the infrastructure owners oppose such a system being publically
available? After all, they don't want their competitors to copy their good
design or take advantage of underserved markets revealed by the maps. But it
seems they would have much to gain as well - potential customers will know who
to go to for service.
It sounds like the current trend is toward supressing this kind of information.
But as an industry, it is in our best interest to compile this information and
make it available to the proper parties.
-Adam
Except for the fact that it expensive and time consuming to do background checks. The FBI is still chewing through a backlog of thousands of post-9/11 checks that need to be done.
Classifying the data also raises questions of:
A) who will pay for the checks?
B) what are the criteria for being granted clearance?
C) how can the information be compartmentalized to prevent unintended disclosure to those not authorized to view the data?
D) what threat/s is/are reduced by classifying the data?
E) will the data be more or less reliable after classification?
F) what legislation will be required to ensure that new data is classified upon creation?
Will backhoe operators need to have background checks if they're trenching for new fiber runs?
There's too much hair here to make it practical, IMHO.