Verizon Central Office Heist Spoiled By 911 Outage

Qbans writes with a link the NYTimes story on a foiled robbery attempt at a Verizon Central Office in White Plains, New York, snipping "The plan seemed simple enough. The building had been cased and the burglars knew exactly what they wanted - advanced computer circuit panels that could be sold on the black market for hundreds of thousands of dollars." Qbans points out that this story parallels a previous story on how equipment was (successfully) stolen last May. Update: 11/27 22:01 GMT by T : Reader Dave C contributes a link to coverage at the registration-free JournalNews.com.

Comments

Serial number for components....

[mikael]

For any telecommunications equipment used by the government and connected to the public telephone network, I would expect each component to have a network requestable serial number. That would quickly reduce the black market value for such components in a way similar to mobile phones

Often security isn't what we'd wish

[Sycraft-fu]

About 10 years ago I got a tour of the Tellus facility in Alberta, at that time Alberta Government Telephone. My uncle was one of the senior telcom engineers there so he arranged the whole thing. Security was fairly impressive going through the front, getting checked in and our visitor badges and everything. However, as we were walking around, he opened a door to the alley and noted often people would prop it open so they could duck out and back in.

This i, unfortunately, often the case. Security is well intentioned, but isn't completely thought through and has holes in it. Also, you'd be amazed what social engineering and some confidence can get you. If you act like you are supposed to be somewhere, it's amazing how peopel will just assume you are.

A couple years ago I was working for network operations on campus and we were upgrading the speed of building links, which involved a swap of the media converters. Most buildings we just go and get access to the room with our keys, since it's a dedicated room. However for the campus police, it's back in the 911 room with the other equipment. So when we went the staff member (I was a student) had his telcom ID and we both had university ID and driver licenses. The manager was by the phone if a verification call was needed.

We walked into the lobby, and it looked to be quite a secure location. All the doors were locked, all the glass was bulletproof. We went over to the window for the 911 call centre and told them we were form telecom and needed to get at the network gear. They said "ok" and let us in, took us to the closet, let us in there, and left us alone with all the 911 gear (and our switch). No ID was checked.

Dial 911 and die....

[sadomikeyism]

it takes a considerable lack of conscience to pull off such a stunt

Their disregard for others is only matched by political buffoons who disarm law abiding citizens and expect them to survive criminal incidents long enough to call 911 and wait for cops to get off their donut laden fat asses to come do their public servant pay grade jobs.

What is so surprising about this incident is that cops actually showed up in time to catch the perpetrators. I guess that multi-thousand dollar circuit boards are more important than human lives to the cops as well.