Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

A Twisty Maze Of Sewerbot Links, All Different

Posted by timothy on from the get-your-mind-back-in-the-gutter dept.

skids writes "Look before you sit! Sewer systems all over the world are under seige by robots laying fiber to the curb -- and beyond. There's even a standards body forming. (Doesn't that consitute a one-level recursion of 'pipes carrying filth'?)" It's been a while since we last mentioned these things.

7 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. security by austad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The bad part about this, is that the fiber will be easy to access for people who would like to do bad things to it, like chop it in half. Right now, most fiber is buried and terminates in locked buildings/closets/etc. But simply lifting a manhole cover gives an attacker access.

    A few years ago, there was a guy in Fargo, ND who wanted to rob a stereo shop called Site On Sound. The shop had an alarm system, so instead of just chopping the wires on the outside of the building, he obtained some city blueprints and found where the largest bundle of phone wires went, and cut it in half with a chainsaw. Apparently, it was a 2 foot thick bundle of twisted pairs, and the entire city of Fargo was completely without phone service for nearly a week while the 2 foot thick cable was spliced back together.

    Hope they don't plan on running anything too important over sewer fiber. It's cheap, but it has far greater risk than burying it.

    --
    Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
    1. Re:security by Jordy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I fail to see how this is any less secure than burying fiber and placing big signs around it warning there is a fiber drop so someone with a backhoe doesn't accidentally dig it up. Even in a city where the cable is buried under the road, there are access points all over the place.

      In fact, many of these robots are built to run cable in piping that is inaccessible to humans so they are *more* secure than running fiber next to train tracks or under roads.

      --
      The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
    2. Re:security by Banjonardo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree, it's all about money. A person who is determined enough will get there eventually, whether it is reasonably easy, like the sewer, or harder, like with locked access points. It's like in military fortifications- why build a wall of double thickness if they're gonna use explosives on it? Build two walls, so they have to blow one up, clear the debris, then blow the other one up. That way you give yourself more time than with a double-wall. It's all about how determined the other guy is.

      --

      -----

      Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton

  2. Re:I thought it was... by Cade144 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Given the right size paycheck, I'd gladly put on my hip waders and go down there and start running fiber, no problem.

    But there's the rub, people are expensive, cantankerous, and insist on frivolities like safety. 'Bots are ideal for jobs where people are too expensive or the environment too dangerous.


    Go, go, Sewerbots!

  3. How do you protect the fibers from the sewage? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Insightful
    You can put the rings in the sewer and install the pipes in the rings but many sewers have leaked pipes that fill up the sewers. I read in Time Magazine about 5 years ago that only a two-thirds of raw sewage makes it to the waste water treatment plants. The other third leaks into the sewers themselves and into the groundwater contaminating many beaches. If a sewer has a foot of sludge on the bottom then how is the robot going to law cable or keep the sewage out of the pipes carrying the fiber? As a kid I enjoyed playing in storm drains and I opened a few sewer lids thinking they were drainage systems. Most had close to a foot of sewage on the buttom.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  4. because... by malakai · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It cost more to dig up the streets and lay your 'data pipe' then the pipe can generate income over an acceptable period of time. Sure a city could amortize it over 100 years, and _might _ make a profit on the money equal to some other investment they could have done with the money, but there's no guarantee in 100 years this data pipe of yours will still be as usefull. Too risky, too costly, there are better ways to put tax dollars to work.

    -malakai

    --
    -Malakai
    A Dragon Lives in my Garage
  5. Re:Lawyers by Skiboo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why should we put money into developing robots...

    If you think the lawyers would be cheaper, there's a bridge I'd like to sell you.

    (After you sign this 400-page End Bridge Owner License Agreement)