⬅️ Designed Sealed Delivered 🧭 The End of the Inflated Expectations ➡️

Uh Zoom ZPR

October 1, 2023 by Jay Cuthrell

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This week we take a look at Zero-Trust Packet Routing (ZPR).

This week’s musical inspiration in title and lyrics:

Getting Informed

As a quick reminder, Fudge Sunday covered “Zero Trust” through the lends of Billy Joel lyrics this time last year…

https://fudge.org/archive/a-matter-of-zero-trust/

Now it’s time for reading 📖 and watching 📺 suggestions:

First, 📖 " Zero Trust was supposed to revolutionize cybersecurity. Here’s why that hasn’t happened yet " in which David Strom at SiliconANGLE covers the highs and lows so far for all things Zero Trust related. (HT to Michael Coté’s Wunderkammer)
Second, 📺 Creator of Zero Trust Gives You a 30 Second Elevator Pitch in which Kevin Bocek interviews John Kindervag on the perils of anthropomorphized packets.

I eat up a decade 🎶

Year ago during my late 1990s career at Nortel, someone shared a phrase that sticks with me to this day:

“Don’t confuse packets with pockets” — Telecom veteran staring into the packets abyss

At the time, IP networking was growing by leaps and bounds with names like Cisco and others. However, there were still traditional telecom equipment providers selling non-IP based solutions such as ATM switches.

In early 1998, the competition for ATM switch marketshare was feverish.

https://www.hpcwire.com/1998/03/13/research-names-fore-1-atm-lan-switch-adapter-revenue/

Nortel bought Bay Networks in late 1998 to become Nortel Networks and eventually peaked at $250B market cap in 2000.

https://www.wired.com/1998/06/nortel-buys-bay-networks-3/

Next, the dot-com bubble burst… and many things happened.

By late 2008, Nortel Networks was heading for Chapter 11.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nortel-timeline-sb/timeline-key-dates-in-the-history-of-nortel-idUSTRE50D3N120090115

Recombination 🎶

You might be saying…

Wait a second Jay… What does this have to do with Zero-Trust Packet Routing (ZPR)?

Well, as we enter the latter portion of the year 2023, I am left asking a similar question around confusing people and packets why are we still treating packets and people in some trusted sense 15 years later.

Also, most of the companies and technologies that I recall from my telecom career are primarily owned under one company — Oracle. Also to this day, Oracle’s mergers and acquisitions strategy around telecommunications, networking, and cloud fascinates me.

https://www.oracle.com/corporate/acquisitions/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Oracle

“Don’t confuse packets with people and especially not their pocketbooks” — increasingly me in 2023

For whatever reasons — but most likely Oracle Cloud World — my LinkedIn feeds and other social feeds have surfaced links that reference an Oracle press release about Zero-Trust Packet Routing (ZPR) and their smartNIC infused Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/oracle-hopes-to-make-zero-trust-packet-routing-a-new-security-standard-how-it-works/2023/09/

https://www.msspalert.com/news/oracle-applied-invention-collaborate-on-open-standard-for-network-data-security

But, curiously, there was no obvious link to where one could learn more about ZPR. 🧐

So, I went digging and you’re welcome. 🤓

The goal of ZPR is to create something new…

A new Identity-Aware Network Security Layer

Source: https://zpr.org

Zero-trust Packet Routing (ZPR) creates an identity-aware network security layer, called a ZPRnet, that allows organizations to enforce uniform security policies across all their systems and users. It works seamlessly on-premises, in clouds, and over remote connections. The policies are based on the authenticated identity and attributes of both the communicators and the communicated data.

Source: https://zpr.pubpub.org