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People seem to be confused about the meaning of "critical infrastructure" so I decided to see what Google has to say. The first thing it comes up with is an American government organization called the Department for Homeland Security. On their question and answer page they say this: http://www.ciao.gov/publicaffairs/qsandas.htm

Why should Europe and the RIPE region care about what the US defines as critical infrastructure?

Two reasons. 1. We were talking about Google and if you use Google to search for "critical infrastructure" that is the first link that comes up. 2. There was confusion about the meaning of the English language phrase "critical infrastructure" and it is useful to study how native speakers of English define this phrase. The U.S.A. contains a large number of native English speakers. If you prefer European sources, here is a PDF booklet from the UK's National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre formed in 1999 before the U.S.A. was putting so much emphasis on homeland security. http://www.niscc.gov.uk/aboutniscc/booklet/NISCC%20Booklet2.pdf And if you want EU sources, then here is a report to the EU Parliament on Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA) that is published in both English and German http://www.europarl.eu.int/workshop/itsecurity/docs/helmbrecht_en.pdf http://www.europarl.eu.int/workshop/itsecurity/docs/helmbrecht_de.pdf The point is that "critical infrastructure" is a term that many people already use in policies and they always find it important to provide a definition for the term within the context that they are discussing. RIPE can do the same. --Michael Dillon (living and working in London)