What is NANOG's role?
I was surprised to read in the March 25 issue of NetworkWorld Alecia Cooper
at Sprint comments that Sprint is just following NANOG's recommendations
to block addresses to minimize the number of router table entries. I
must have missed something, because I don't remember NANOG ever making
any recommendation, of any sort.
Is this just a case of bad reporting by Joanie Wexler at NetworkWorld? A
bad case of passing the buck by Alecia Cooper at Sprint? Or something else?
It's most definitely something else. Most people are trained from birth
that organizations with acronyms rule the world, thus NANOG and IEPG
and ISOC must be the rulers of the Internet world.
Since most NANOG/IEPG/ISOC people are clueless when it comes to things
like public relations, press releases, spin control, etc... is it any
wonder that the press marches merrily off in their own direction.
There is actually opportunity here for groups like NANOG to have some
influence and communicate with the public in a positive fashion. I
suggest that a good first step would be to release a communique to the
press after every NANOG meeting and a good second step would be to urge
ISOC to spend more money on general educational issues to make people in
general more aware of operational and architectural issues.
Michael Dillon Voice: +1-604-546-8022
Memra Software Inc. Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com E-mail: michael@memra.com