Telecommunications Americas: Offline

Website attacks don't just come from disgruntled, anti-social hackers--the computer world's equivalent to the lone gunman. Ian Mashiter, president and CEO of Burlington, Mass.-based Quarry Technologies, a maker of security service routers, notes that organized crime has muscled into the Internet world.

Online gambling sites are often the most picked on by criminal groups (often from Russia) that launch denial-of-service attacks then offer to ease up if the victims pay up. Once the attacks begin, companies can't really do anything themselves to stop them, except appeal to their service providers.

"It's gone back to 'The Godfather,' where people want protection," Mashiter says. "At a trade show in Singapore, I met some people running a gaming site that had been hit by a denial-of-service attack and had complained to Telecom Malaysia but were told the service provider just didn't have the gear in the network to stop the attacks."

Mashiter grew up in northwest England, near Manchester and Liverpool, and among other interests plays guitar in his spare time. "I try to practice about half an hour a day. I've converted this basement room into my little music room, so I go down there and strum a few cords," he says. "My main guitar is a Taylor acoustic, but I also have an Epiphone hollow-body electric guitar, just like John Lennon used to have."

Growing up near Liverpool, did you ever see the Beatles around, or was that before your time?

They were already breaking out when I was 10 or 12 years old. I lived in a small town and the Beatles did actually play that town. Their manager, Brian Epstein, had booked this gig, and by the time the gig came due they were already really famous, but Epstein insisted they fulfill all their obligations. So in this little small hole, in my small town, the Beatles, who were already world famous, played. I thought that was kind of a nice story. Their manager was an upstanding guy. They had made the appointment, so they went and did it.

Where do you fall in the Beatles vs. Rolling Stones debate? What's your preference?

I've always been a Beatles guy, and I've always been a John Lennon guy. Which doesn't mean that I don't like listening to the Rolling Stones. I admire the Rolling Stones a lot, but I guess if you had to choose.... I think Beatles fans fall between McCartney and Lennon fans as well.

Read any interesting books lately?

In terms of books, I tend to read a lot of biographies and not that many novels. I'm reading a book about Keith Richards right now, and before that I read "So You Wanna be a Rock & Roll Star"--you can probably detect a theme here--which is about a guy who was a drummer for a band that had a big hit but never made any money and was dropped by the record company.

Any parallels between the music industry and the telecom industry?

I do actually have one, yes. We were talking about this the other day, because I'm in Europe next week doing six cities in five days. One of the guys said, "Ah, just like a rock 'n roll star" and I said: "Yeah, without the drugs, without the drink, without the women. And a lesser standard of hotel probably, but apart from that, it's exactly the same." But also you can see there are similarities to building a company and being a band on the way up, because you have to create some momentum, get some customer wins, and really create a feeling that this is a company that's on the go, that other people are interested in and buying the solution.