I won't disagree that the physical security of the last mile is quite fragile, but I'm not sure the same holds true for the global Internet. There's no single

I won't disagree that the physical security of the last mile is quite fragile, but I'm not sure the same holds true for the global Internet. There's no single topology of the Internet, but if I had to try and sum it up: it approaches a mesh at the core, and approaches a star at the edge. Backbones peer with thousands of providers; businesses may have a primary and backup ISP; home users are lucky to even have a second ISP offering service in their area.