[sz4kerto]

UK has that (called the HSCN). I don't think it's a good thing. Couple of years ago you had to pay hundreds of dollars for a a TLS certificate because there were only a couple of 'approved' certificate providers. It also provides a false sense of security and provides an excuse to bad security policies. The bandwidth is low and expensive.

[simonjgreen]

It’s not sure it’s quite the same, HSCN does provide border connectivity to Internet as well as a peering exchange. Sjunet on the other hand is an entirely private network with no border connectivity. I have dealt with both.

[actionfromafar]

Whether an implementation is bad is orthogonal to whether the idea itself is good.

[sz4kerto]

I don't agree fully. If some idea looks really good but implementations tend to be very problematic then the idea is likely presented incompletely or inaccurately, because it carries some hidden/non-apparent risk.

Some good-looking ideas almost always result in beneficial implementations, some good-looking ideas almost always result in bad implementations.

[ithkuil]

If all implementations of a "good" idea are bad then that's a strong indication that the "good" idea might have some significant flaws.

If the "good" idea has some bad implementations as well as some good implementations (like the swedish network example?) then perhaps you shouldn't dismiss the "good" idea so quickly

[actionfromafar]

Sure, let's get to concrete things. What is a separate physical network worth, availability wise? Kind of hard to answer. It depends on the threat model. Even geography.

[roenxi]

In this case though the two things are closely intertwined. The reason we all use the internet is because it is the most fit-for-purpose network for moving bits around between intranets. If there was a substantially more effective way to do it then it'd be cheaper or better and we'd all migrate to it over time. Countless businesses at all levels of the abstraction stack labour to make the internet cheaper and more convenient (CDNs are unbelievable, I say!).

So people choosing to create a new network are, with high confidence, going to end up with networks that are substantially worse at moving bits around cost effectively than the internet. The reality that they are inconvenient and expensive is built in once the deliberate choice is made to avoid the internet. It might be worth the cost, but the cost comes with the idea.

[3np]

Not sure what you are even refering to. Could you be specific? Got examples in mind?

[roenxi]

HSCN was said to be imperfect. It is inherent in the idea of building something like HSCN that sometimes the implementation is just bad in some aspects. actionfromafar's objection to that (idea independent from implementation) is invalid, because inherent in the idea of building something like HSCN rather than just using the internet is that implementations will suffer from relative imperfect. The fact there are relative imperfections is baked in to the idea.

[citrin_ru]

> It also provides a false sense of security

The same argument was against seat belts in cars and bicycle/motorcycle hemlets. IMHO this arguments is rarely good. False sense of security should not be addressed by removing protection.

> provides an excuse to bad security policies

It should not be used as an excuse but bad policies in air-gaped network is less bad than bad policies in the Interned connected one. I doubt policies will be quickly improve as soon as you connect to the Internet.

[digging]

> provides an excuse to bad security policies

That's a (highly predictable) implementation problem of HSCN, not a problem with the idea. These complaints boil down to the same old thing: stupidly written law setting a (potentially) good policy up for failure.