Seamus Heaney began his translation of Beowulf with "So", rendering the Old English "Hwaet" in a more natural way than the usual archaic "Listen!", "Lo!", "Hark!" kind of thing. In the introductory note, he explains: "'so' operates as an expression that obliterates all previous discourse and narrative, and at the same time functions as an exclamation calling for immediate attention." Far from being a chatty colloquialism, it is a solemn, weighty kind of "so" for Heaney.
Maybe part of the explanation for this specific attack is incompetence - miscommunication, comparatively junior people exceeding their authority, subordinates afraid to object, and everyone doubling down rather than admitting defeat. I could definitely imagine that the people who devised and built out the capability being furious at it being deployed like this.
> BGP announcements, themselves unencrypted, aren't protected with DNSSEC.
This is true, but only because BGP announcements don't involve DNS, and so all the DNS security in the world won't help. Agreed that there is a lot of scope for doing better on BGP security, though - and indeed DNS security.
The fact that "all the DNS security in the world won't help" is part of my point. There aren't really any places where "all the DNS security in the world" will help.
I wonder if this even needs to be something in the home. Wouldn't it also make sense to install these things, in bulk, in a place where they could service several homes? Say, at the block level. If it is part of power distribution infrastructure as opposed to a consumer product, then that simplifies some of the safety and maintenance issues; concerns like weight or volume are even less important if they are housed in a dedicated structure.
