"Global Crossing Ltd. on Monday said it filed for bankruptcy protection as business partners in Asia agreed to pay $750 million in cash to assume control of the high-speed communications services company as it reorganizes in the fourth-largest insolvency in U.S. history."

I ask: how does this evidence compare with Roberts' claims of a strong and rapidly expanding market for network capacity?

"Global Crossing struggled with the debt incurred from building its global network, which links more than 200 major cities in 27 countries. The one-time Wall Street darling suffered further from a glut of fiber-optic network capacity, slack demand, and declining rates for voice and data transmission services, particularly on its undersea routes."

Global Crossing Files Bankruptcy, Gets Investment

Ask and ye shall receive ...

"If correct, this would be extremely significant ... However, I have serious doubts ... In general, there is an astonishing degree of innumeracy around ... study is based on "19 largest ISPS" but does not name them. ... I am skeptical ... Why would Roberts obtain a higher estimate? I don't know, since his data is not available ... I agree with him on several important points. [dominance of business traffic; no evidence of serious slowdown in growth]"

Odlyzko's comments on Roberts' claims

If you doubt him, you can listen to his talk and review his PowerPoint presentation.

I wonder what Andrew Odlyzko has to say about these numbers ...

Larry Roberts claims Internet traffic is tripling

This recommendation is long overdue. In case you've been on the lam, the Monday, January 28 edition of the Wall Street Journal modestly describes 'The Sopranos' as "the best TV drama of modern times."

Now available on DVD. Get caught up now! ... only eight more months left until the new season begins.

The Sopranos | HBO.com

Building on the report of the initial September 2000 workshop (which I blogged recently), this joint EC-NSF workshop will be held this Thursday/Friday in Italy. Topics of interest:

* interface of nanotech with environmental science, energy, IT, materials and manufacturing, medicine, and biotech.
* scoial, ethical, political and economic issues with nanotech
* integration with education.
* impacts of similarities & differences in American and European societies on nanotech R&D

Speakers are from many US and EC institutions, including Sandia Labs, U. Cambridge, H-P, and many more. There are multiple talks on nanobio topics of interest. A full report will follow the workshop.

2002 Workshop on Social Implications | Nat'l Nanotech Initiative

Published January 17, 2002. 25 pages in Acrobat PDF.

African countries overwhelmingly expressed their support for the US-led efforts on the war against terrorism ... Some ... are reportedly sharing intelligence ... in the next phase of the terror war Africa may prove key ... ... officials note that Africa ... can play a pivotal role [but] believe that Africa is a potential breeding ground for terrorism. ... In June 1995 ... an Egyptian extremist group tried to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak ... there are over a dozen countries where terrorist groups have established a strong presence in Africa ... including Sudan and Somalia. Sudan has long been considered a rogue state ... Since 1991, Somalia has been without a central government. ... terrorist and extremist groups to flourish in Somalia ... African officials [support] extradit[ion] and apprehen[sion] of terrorist and extremist groups ... They argue that these groups are raising funds and organizing in the west, often unhindered by western governments. ...

Africa and the War on Terrorism | Congressional Research Service [PDF]

"An effort in the Senate to revive that plan and include it in the anti-terrorism bill that was signed into law October 26 received little support and was withdrawn, and on much the same grounds -- that however powerful an intelligence tool code breaking was during its golden age, in World War II and the Cold War, the technical reality is that those days are gone. Code breaking simply cannot work the magic it once did."

Yawn. This article strikes me as yet another tired variant of the "Everything changed on September 11" lamentation. Besides, Whit Diffie already told us as much (way back in 1996!), when he spoke about the resurging importance of HUMINT.

I hope David Kahn, or at least Bruce Schneier, takes the time to draft a letter to The Atlantic about this. Use of the term "code breaking" in this context suggests that cryptanalysis is a game ... it's clear that cryptanalysis has changed a lot since WW II, but so has everything else related to technology, communications, and warfighting. To suggest that existing cryptosystems are impenetrable is to claim not only that specific mathematical conjectures, such as the discrete logarithm problem or the factoring problem, are actually NP-complete, but also that the real-world systems based on such math are implemented with abstract perfection.

The truth is that cryptanalysis has long relied on human factors. The Allies were getting nowhere with Enigma until they daringly boarded a rapidly sinking U-boat to recover an operational unit. In the absence of this chance occurrence, it's questionable the Bletchley folks could have enjoyed the same success.

Budiansky claims that PGP is "supplied with most computers." I find that hard to believe. With what package? Does Microsoft ship it with Outlook these days? The Outlook 2002 product guide doesn't even mention encryption, let alone PGP.

Most of the six messages on "Post & Riposte" support Bodiansky in general but criticize this article in particular.

The Atlantic | February 2002 | Losing the Code War | Budiansky

Here's another story, this one from CNET News, about Intel's plans for a 64-bit alternative to Itanium. It offers another sales report: "Interest in Itanium remains weak. The first version of the chip debuted in May of last year. In the third quarter of 2001, only 500 servers containing Itanium were shipped, according to IDC." A senior VP at Dell says customer interest in Itanium is "effectively zero."

Intel moves forward on Itanium backup

So he did what an increasing number of senior managers uncertain of their job prospects are doing: He set himself up at his own company." ...

Hard Times Prompt an Entrepreneurial Itch

As expected, self-described "longtime security expert" Bruce Schneier has responded to the recently published Microsoft internal memo outlining Bill Gates' new-found motivation for security.

Schneier gets it mostly right. He rightly points out that trust must be earned. He champions simplicity in design and implementation. He identifies as problematic the commingling of data and code, asks for "rigid separation", and wants scripting features removed. This sidesteps the issue of insufficient user understanding regarding security, which is something no one is likely to solve any time soon.

But he also wants to put a stop to SOAP and clarify blurred distinctions between local and remote resources. This runs counter to the promise of distributed computing and is increasingly irrelevant when users' data and applications are remote, anyway.

In short, Schneier wants Microsoft to make a lot of changes that will upset, frustrate, and alienate the average customer, at least in the short- and mid-term. Although the results may be long-term positive for users and industry, Microsoft will suffer for a while. There is no easy way to quickly deploy secure infrastructure and convince users to give up things to which they've become accustomed. Schneier briefly acknowledges the business cost of his recommendations. It's important to see that what works for Sun with Java may not be feasible for Microsoft with XP and .Net. Java is mostly free, and is ultimately intended to sell more Sun hardware. The code is all Microsoft has to offer; this fact necessitates a different approach.

Schneier asks Microsoft to open-source Windows and Office, but stops short of expressing an interest in reading the code.

"Making security Microsoft's first priority will require a basic redesign of the way the company produces and markets software. It will involve a difficult cultural transition inside Microsoft. It will involve Microsoft setting aside short-term gains in order to achieve long-term goals."

'Results, Not Resolutions' | Schneier and Shostack on Gates memo