A Twisty Maze Of Sewerbot Links, All Different

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.

Comments

security

[austad]

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.

Re:security

[Jordy]

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.

because...

[malakai]

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