[AusNOG] NBN must avoid becoming 'failed state'

[Mark Newton]

On 18/09/2010, at 12:07 PM, David Hughes wrote:

> Security BCP's should be implemented regardless of the available bandwidth, however the end result of malicious use of unsecured networks will be much more significant when your outbound capacity increases by more than an order of magnitude.

Sounds like the same stuff we were all talking about when ADSL started 
taking over from dialup.

Didn't really happen.  Speaking holistically, it's hard to argue that the
state of the security art is any worse now than it's ever been.

Now that broadband market penetration is nearing market saturation, the
NBN will be just as "always on" and only slightly more ubiquitous than
DSL.  All it'll change is the raw available bandwidth, and I'd argue that
the availability of bandwidth ceased to be a significant issue in the
security world on the day that malcontents worked out they could saturate
anyone's bandwidth supply with a sufficiently large botnet.

The behaviours exhibited by those who use the network will stay the same.
Hard to see how the threat model will change.

(I wasn't at Roland's presso. Hoping and assuming the press got the wrong
end of the stick, because the accounts I read seemed irrationally alarmist)


  - mark

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Mark Newton                               Email:  newton at internode.com.au (W)
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