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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.
someone is stealing my telephone equipment!
And they would have got away with it, if it wasn't for those meddling kids!
blackmarket == ebay??
So they tried to steal the same exact stuff at the same exact location, twice? Catch me once, shame on you... catch me twice, shame on me! Glad they caught them...
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
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.
The night before Thanksgiving, about 8 p.m., they entered the Verizon building in White Plains undetected and set to work.
But as the criminals removed the panels, they soon triggered problems across Westchester County. Most problematic, 911 systems across the region began to crash. By the time some 150 panels were removed, roughly 25,000 people had lost 911 service.
At 9:51 p.m., the White Plains Police received a call alerting them to the fact that there might be a problem at the Verizon building. Still unaware that burglars were at work inside, a patrol car rolled up to the site, according to Inspector Daniel Jackson.
"Literally, the two guys were walking out the door," Mr. Jackson said. They were carrying two large boxes when the officer shouted for them to stop. The men dropped the stolen boxes, fled on foot and were eventually run down by the officer and arrested, Mr. Jackson said.
The two men were identified in a criminal complaint as Larry D. Davis, 43, of Brooklyn, and Gailican Phillips, 34 of Manhattan.
They have been charged with conspiracy to commit interstate shipment of stolen property, a federal crime with a maximum sentence of five years in jail, according to the complaint.
Mr. Jackson said that the burglary itself was not as disturbing as the widespread effect it had on the 911 system.
The police are working with the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security on the case. Terrorism has been ruled out as a possible motive.
Although the burglary occurred in the Verizon building, the stolen equipment belonged to some half-dozen other telecommunications companies that use the premises to house part of their operations. No Verizon customers were affected, a company official said.
Dan Diaz Zapata, a spokesman for Verizon, said the building had many levels of security - from video cameras to security badges to on-site guards - and that the company was cooperating with local and federal authorities. Mr. Zapata said that Verizon had redundancy capabilities built into its system that would have prevented a theft of their own equipment from having such a wide impact.
Mr. Jackson said that there had been a theft at the building once before, in 2003, and the police had reason to believe one of the two men involved Wednesday also took part in that operation. He would not elaborate on other details in that case. However, much less was stolen then.
According to the complaint filed in Southern District of New York, the circuit boards ranged in value from $5,000 to $70,000 each and, all told, were worth in excess of $1 million. The plan was to deliver them to an unnamed co-conspirator who, in turn, planned to sell them to an unnamed company in California, according to the complaint.
"There apparently is a strong, robust black market for this stuff," said a federal law enforcement official, who insisted on anonymity for fear of saying something that would compromise the investigation.
There have been two other similar burglaries in New York City and New Jersey in recent years, according to Mr. Jackson. Those thefts were much smaller in scale.
National Infrastructure Coordination Center of the Department of Homeland Security is also working with local police because of concern that the 911 system could be relatively easily compromised.
After arresting the two men and photographing the stolen circuit panels, the police returned them to the companies that owned them. Once reinstalled, the 911 problems ended, and by 7 a.m. the system was back to normal, Mr. Jackson said.
Police said the panels that were stolen were each about the size of a legal pad and are used by telecommunications companies to transmit data and connect calls. There is an industry standard for the panels and they can easily be transferred from one computer to another.
Potential buyers of the panels on the black market range from small telecommunications companies to overseas clients, the police said.
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
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
...are there really that many calls for emergency assistance, or are they basing it on a people-per-exchange basis?
and WHO do you call when 911 don't respond?
http://www.frugle.co.uk/
Ghostbusters!
Interesting that someone wishes to steal this stuff.
Doubly interesting that theres obviously a market for this equipment.
Is it analgous to the theft of The Scream? Authorities must have a fair idea of the potential recipients from the get go. Be it international or not.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Does this mean that the telecommunications companies using the Verizon premises are not Verizon customers? Is that what it says on the rent check?
If you think deeply enough, you will have no single direction for your outrage.
If someone died as a result of not having 911 services, these guys could be in even bigger trouble.
"The men dropped the stolen boxes, fled on foot and were eventually run down by the officer and arrested, Mr. Jackson said." Wait... they had them in boxes and when the officer showed up they dropped them?? It doesnt mention any of them being damaged...
"brxref
Federal conspiracy charges were filed in White Plains yesterday against two men whose alleged attempt to steal 150 circuit boards from a Verizon building Wednesday night disrupted 911 emergency service across the county for about seven hours.
oops - I'm sure they weren't interested in disrupting 911 service across state lines to make it a Federal "conspiracy" charge. Sounds like they will be made an example of and will likely end up in federal "pound-me-in-the-ass" prison.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
"There apparently is a strong, robust black market for this stuff," said a federal law enforcement official, who insisted on anonymity for fear of saying something that would compromise the investigation.
Maybe I'm confused here, but how does giving your name out compromise the investigation? I'm tired of all these federal officials who insist on being anonymous and hidden. Shouldn't LEO's be forthright and honest?
I know its an American saying but in (British) English, that would imply mowing them down with the patrol-car.
I'd have to say 'Fair Play' to that
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Most computer items of any price are for sale on ebay (even very expensive network switches and routers). What kind of cards were these and the one in NYC? I assume they are re-selling to other telcos. Wonder why you never see them on ebay.
Actually, it's a perfect half-assed plot.
"What'll we do if someone figures out we're here?"
"Nothing, who are they going to call anyway? We're taking down 911!"
"That's brilliant!"
Heh heh.
Like what I said? You might like my music
It was so obviously not terrorists. I mean, come on, the guys were stealing stuff. If they were terrorists, they'd have just blown themselves up when they got next to the boards in the building.
Hey look, a snake! Oh, sorry, I guess it was just a plain rope.
(It's pissing me off too that every time someone yells fire there's immediately a discussion about whether or not the fire is terrorism, and when it turns out there's no fire, whether or not the person yelling fire is a terrorist. Jeez, we had regular crime before 9/11, we still have it)
Like what I said? You might like my music
Verizon != Verizon Wireless, if equipment is stolen from the White Plains Verizon office, it will have nothing to do with cell phone service.
from anonymous sources:
(4 ea) ws-x4515
(6 ea) ws-x6724-sfp
(5 ea) ws-f6700-cfc
(10 ea) ws-sup720
(10 ea) ws-f6k-pfc3a
(8 ea) ws-x6704-10ge
(32 ea) xenpak 10000mbps 802.3 line cards
The reason they could be hit with murder charges is that, if in the comission of a felony someone dies as a result, you are guilty of murder. So if you rob a store with guns, the police show up and shoot your partner, you are guilty of murder since your comission of the felony was the proximate cause of the death.
Not all states have laws like that, but many do. Since they were comitting a felony, they could be charged.
Now someone who spills coffee on the boards by accident isn't comitting a felony, they are making a mistake. The most they could be charged with is manslaghuter for gross neglience (since there is no situation where liquids should be anywhere near the equipment) however in all likelyhood they'd not be charged, just fired by the company and sued by the victim's family.
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.
Think of it as the difference between arson on an abandoned warehouse catching the security guard, or the homeless man, versus leaving the stove on by accident. One is an accident, one is a crime. I hope a crime that causes additional harm means more severe charges.
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
This article scares the hell out of me. Not because some dudes broke into a building and stole some stuff -- that's to be expected. It's because removing a few isolated pieces of equipment managed to paralyze the county's 911 system. Seriously -- do they actually run tests to see what happens if they pull the plug?
The rule for redundancy is that you've gotta have the equipment in more than one place. The redundant equipment shouldn't have been in the same building, let alone the same town.
A few years ago, an underground steam explosion knocked out the main phone and power stations for my area (both of which were stupidly placed smack next to each other). Because of the way the network was designed, phone service was not interrupted at all and the power went out for about 10 minutes. This was from an explosion which completely severed the connections to both buildings. THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD WORK.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I'd be willing to bet they were stealing line cards from CLEC coloc chassis, which would totally kill the phone/DSL service from the CLEC's clients. Instead of saynig "25,000 people lost phone service" I'm guessing they said "25,000 people lost access to 911, which meant they could have DIED!"
.bombs, the market is fairly flooded with carrier gear. Unless it's zero day goods, the value on this crap drops like a rock.
Too bad there aren't more tech details.
And I guess the people from NYT haven't tried to sell this type of equipment. Given the gluttony of
PS: Portmaster 4 for sale, contact me off list.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
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.
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves
These guys were caught because of stupidity and greed.
They were in the building, pulling cards that were in active use, for about TWO HOURS. According to the article they arrived around 8pm, and the police didn't get a report that there might be a problem at that building until 9:51. Sometime after that, the police car arrived at the building, where they caught the guys walking out.
It makes me wonder about how much more successful an intelligent thief could be -- these guys made an earlier hit on the same building, which went smoothly (and they took much less)... so they got greedy and overconfident. And paid for it by getting caught in a stupid way (um, these boards are in use; people's phone service *will* be affected; no, you don't want to hang around all night).
Don't these guys watch any movies? How classic is that mistake?