[AusNOG] Network Atlas (AU Help)

[Ross Marston]

Thanks for the explanation and your point of View Mahmet.
Unfortunately it has only served to cement my previous concerns.  Please put My vote as “Thanks for the offer, but… No Thanks”.  From what you’ve written below, I remain unconvinced that you have considered the issues adequately.  If you really want this to happen in a functional manner, why not make it a logical map.  Not Physical.
I do however appreciate the explanation, and I for one hope you find a way to use your entrepreneurial powers for good in the future.

Best wishes. 
Ross Marston


From: Mehmet Akcin <mehmet at akcin.net>
Date: Monday, 3 December 2018 at 7:21 am
To: Ross Marston <ross at ramtech.net.au>
Cc: "<ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>" <ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Network Atlas (AU Help)

hi Ross, 

thank you for your message. 

As we have explained in our website , http://www.networkatlas.org -- Network Atlas is a crowd-sourced near real-time map of the global Internet infrastructure detailing the world's submarine and terrestrial networks in real time. I am not claiming we are network planning tool. We are visualization of what network links are operating, and what not. If a network link is down, what could be potential backup links people can find capacity, in addition to that visualizing datacenters, cities where network density (both from subsea and terrestrial stand point) will enable enterprises to acquire capacity rapidly.

Network Atlas is only the platform which enables people who has capacity to visualize it in a way that it can be easily consumed by Enterprise, Government, and various other agencies. Operational Status, Network Density Points, and Diverse possibilities are what we are here to "HIGH LEVEL" display, and let people make decisions based on that. Network Fiber owners will be able add networks to the map, update listings with more accurate information and use the atlas' near real-time data to track outages and identify possible areas of expansion. How are we going to make this data "Near realtime?" similar to how Google Maps and Waze works. We provide platform and mechanisms for people to report operational status. At the end it's all up to to community to help support the initiative, we are going to have people in various parts of the world, who will be editors with access to change status of cables, or approve status change requests reporting an operational issue.

One of the functions we are working on providing direct connection to the people who can buy a capacity on a given route. We do not take commission for this, we are not middle man (obviously we are the platform but once the connection is established, people can continue to talk directly and we want that, we want companies who do not know how to engage directly with sales team to find this map useful. In most of places, teams are too small to have dedicated procurement teams, engineers doing this work and getting frustrated. We are trying , I am not saying we will be successful here, to make it easy for them to request a quote., once you will go to website and say, I want capacity on this link, it will connect you to sales people who will respond you directly.In future releases we are planning humbly to "Design my route" function which basically you select pop A and pop B, and it will make a design recommendation based on information we have and will give you an option to request a quote. 

The members of this list are probably do not need to use this map for these type of things, but i can assure you , last 6 months i have spent so much time with Enterprises around the world, helping them transform their networks, and they are super interested and excited for a tool which can provide a service which otherwise was a blackbox in the past. 

We are intentionally in the state we are with some ambiguity because we are working with the community on how to develop our product and make it most useful to most amount of people. Perhaps it is a waste of time and money for me to work on this from many point of view, but i believe the product which I envision in 1 year (which I am still crafting every day with new ideas) is going to be useful to many (again , not saying to experts in here but those who are trying to become one, as a stepping stone, this too might be useful...)

thank you for the opportunity to expand and explain more, perhaps I should create a FAQ in the website and put these answer, and more.

On Sat, Dec 1, 2018 at 11:41 PM Ross Marston <mailto:ross at ramtech.net.au> wrote:
Hi Mehmet, 
I must admit I am at somewhat of a loss to see the benefit of this product to anyone other than those who are either, bored and have nothing better to do than look at network maps, or those with an interest in harming those networks.  I'd be fascinated to hear your view on what it's imagined benefit is.  Any user of a supplier's physical network can get information from the supplier if needed.  No one else needs to know it IMO.

In my experience so far in life, collating private, sensitive information and publishing it publicly, and easily searchable, is nearly always a recipe for future disaster.  In my work in InfoSec, I can assure you, I don't see any upsides to this sort of info being freely and easily in the public domain.  I must admit to also wondering if the developers of this product, have considered it's potential negative impact?
Just my 2c worth...

Kind regards
Ross Marston

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