On 6/6/24 08:02, Ron B via zanog-discuss wrote:

My opinion is that as an industry we need to engage via bodies like ISPA and others with government to declare landing stations, submarine cables and data centres as national keypoints under the relevant Act. That provides the ability to call in the military, escalating it to being more than a police matter.

The oxygen in this kind of room is above my pay grade :-).

On a serious note, it is safe to assume that there are some undocumented subsea cables that are in use by governments for military and intelligence purposes. I have no doubt that those would be actively policed and protected as a matter of course.

For the rest of the commercial subsea cables, considering the decentralized nature of the Internet and its infrastructure, especially as it pertains to non-national networks and international waters, I'd be hard-pressed to see how most governments (let alone South Africa) deals with this as a key priority.

Most energy producing and fuel processing plants have that designation even though its private property.

IPP's (Independent Power Producers) or NUG's (Non-Utility Generators) are not the majority in the world. Most countries maintain central control of energy generation and management. And even when IPP's and NUG's do exist, they are highly regulated, and thus, highly policed.

While I think that the Internet has become as basic a need for humanity as has been water, power, shelter and food, it is not apparent to me that individual governments, in and of themselves, have elevated it to that status quite yet.

Many keypoint buildings are private property. Heck, even the police does not own its own building. The Internet going dark has a dramatic and negative economic impact and should be provided the same coverage.

From a common sense standpoint, I don't disagree.

But governments tend to have different priorities from private enterprise when it comes to the basic requirements to sustain life. You're right, a loss of Internet connectivity may mean a company cannot pay salaries because it can't gain access to its crypto fund, let's say... but if food and water infrastructure were to fail due to a lack of protection by the state, people could lose their lives.

So yes, a lack of connectivity would be terribly debilitating for a modern economy. However, hunger and thirst would take people a lot sooner than broken wi-fi :-).

Mark.