Cisco creeps me out. I think it’s how successful they are somehow affirms my suspicions that they’re plotting world domination or something. I mean their hardware is *everywhere*. I can even state as a matter of fact, that if you’re reading this soon after it was written, you’ve already had these very packets fondled by no less than four Cisco boxes.
It starts to get scarier when you think about all the other things that are handled by Cisco hardware – ATM transactions, merchant transactions, phone calls, both mobile and fixed data, or even CCTV cameras.
They’re all closed source and “standards” compliant. It just seems weird to me.
Creepy hardware aside, I’ve always been a secret fan of Radia Perlman. She’s been a huge driving force in network and network security protocols for a while now. What I like best about her work is that it’s written with a certain grace about it. It always stood out to me among other networking papers.