Which ISPs are Qualified ?

[Michael Gersten]

I'm sorry, but I can't let that go.

If you talk to them for 15 or 20 minutes, you do not know, and it does
not become apparent, who knows what they are doing and who doesn't.

It becomes apparent who the interviewer believes knows what they are talking
about.

The turing test was not about proving a computer as intelligent as
a person. It was about, can a computer deceive a person.

People are able to deceive other people into thinking that they
are an AI program. See metamagical themas for a classic on this.

This was from a supposed military inlelligence AI project:
Q: "What is a foot?"
A: "12.0 inches"

Q: "What is an arm?"
A: "That information is classified."

Now, if you have a competent interviewer, the beliefs of the interviewer
will be close to reality. But in all fairness, you need three interviewers
to do a fair job (one might just hit it off poorly, or otherwise be
biased), and in any event, not all true statements can be proved.
Not all who are competent at running a network are competent at
explaining themselves to others.

Those are two different areas of expertise.

>On Wed, 09 Jul 1997 09:33:47 CDT, Jim Fleming said:
>> On Wednesday, July 09, 1997 8:34 AM, Kim Hubbard[SMTP:kimh at internic.net] wrote:
>> @ There are too many startup ISPs that really do not understand how to efficiently
>> @ utilize address space. 
>> How does the InterNIC or ARIN determine what an ISP understands ?
>
>Well, way back in the 1940s, this guy Turing propsed what is now well known
>as the Turing Test.  Just apply that.  You talk to them on the phone for
>15 or 20 minutes, and it will become readily apparent who actually knows
>what they're doing and which ones are the newbies.
>
>I've seen more than one start-up ISP who (believe it or not) had a *head*
>technical person who didn't understand subnetting.  I'm relatively sure that
>this is the sort of organization that Kim is referring to, and I have relatively
>high trust in Kim (and company) hiring techies who will be able to spot this
>sort of startup fairly easily.
>-- 
>				Valdis Kletnieks
>				Computer Systems Senior Engineer
>				Virginia Tech