[gnso-ff-pdp-may08] Cost of Delay - V1.o

["Mike O'Connor" <mike@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Ok, here's a back of the envelope story to tell...

1) Taking Joe's references, so far we get a SWAG annual cost of 
attacks of around $500 billion...
Estimate (annual $'s, billions)

Software piracy                 $ 48
Counterfeit drug sales          $ 75
Counterfeit goods               $ 200
Illegal gambling                ---
Child exploitation              ---
Slavery                         ---
Cost of fighting spam           $ 140
Malware                         $ 13

Total                           $ 476

2) Presume a proportion of those attacks that can be stopped by 
eliminating Fast Flux -- let's use a SWAG of 5%
3) Presume that our proposed actions aren't 100% effective at 
eliminating Fast Flux -- let's use a SWAG 50% effectiveness
4) Then our hypothetical solutions could reduce the annual cost of 
harms by about $12 billion a year ($500b * 50% * 5%)
5) And thus the monthly cost of delay (missed opportunity to save 
that money) is $1 billion.
6) Sure, the numbers need to be firmed up.  Let's say my guesses are 
optimistic by a factor of 10, just to correct for that (and inject a 
proper bean-counter conservatism into the analysis).  So the cost of 
delay is $100,000,000/month.
7) Assume 160 work-hours in a month (I know, hardly any of us only 
work 40 hours a week, but bear with me)
Based on all that, every HOUR we don't solve this costs stakeholders 
$625,000 in lost opportunity to reduce costs.
But wait...  There's more.

Benefits can come from more than cost-reduction.  Most of the time, 
when I am hunting for things to justify a project I look for things 
that fit on the following list;
- Increase revenue
- Improve quality
- Reduce response-time
- Reduce costs

Note that "reduce costs" is at the bottom of the list -- on 
purpose.  Cost-reduction is historically over-promised and 
under-delivered.  Besides, it is a lot more fun to do the other things.
What do you think of the story so far?  Should we kick off threads to 
try to identify the ways that our efforts to curtail Fast Flux could; 
increase revenue, improve quality and/or reduce response-time for 
stakeholders?  I bet those would increase the cost of delay (missed 
opportunity to benefit).
m


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