When Your Backhoe Cuts "Black" Fiber

bernieS writes "The Washington Post describes what happens when a construction backhoe accidentally cuts buried fiber so secret that it doesn't appear on public maps — and what happens when the Men in Black SUVs appear out of nowhere. Apparently, the numerous secret fiber and utility lines used by government intelligence agencies are being dug up with increasing frequency with all the increased construction projects in the DC area. It's amazing how quickly they get repaired!"

Comments

Re:Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what they want you to believe, the original posters have all been deleted.

Our tax dollars at work.

[Celeste R]

There are reasons why it's important that public records are kept.

If they wanted to keep people from knowing where or what exactly it was, they could simply have marked it as something it wasn't.. and beyond that, they could encrypt what goes on that fiber.

They aren't without options; and ultimately they're currently fighting the system, and putting our tax dollars to work in ways that could be prevented.

It's understandable that they want to keep secrets secret, but isn't covering it up going to draw more attention than fudging the paperwork?

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[GreenTech11]

They probably "fudge" the paperwork on their important wires, these are just decoys *Puts on tinfoil hat*

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Celeste R]

Oh, and I have to wonder a little: there's very little infrastructure terrorism, instead there's much more information terrorism at work. (i.e. the Pentagon hack that lost us the plans to the next air superiority fighter).

The government does a half-assed job securing its own computers, but they'll lock down what's between the computers... that's like having a convoy that's well protected, then having that same convoy deliver without any security detail.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution I would use, since they know there's a big dig in that area.. these agencies should have:
          1) gotten someone with the clearance to map out these classified lines.
          2) Give some foremen etc. working on the dig just a block-by-block set of overlays to show their secret fiber. That way it won't reveal where it's going to or coming from, no actual information leak, but they know line exists in order to move it.

          Although... if they can withstand these unplanned outages OK, I suppose running out the SUVs post-cut works *shrug*.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[fuego451]

Really! Just mark it as a 4" natural gas line. Any backhoe operator worth his salt knows that cooked backhoe guy isn't a pretty sight.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Timothy Brownawell]

Oh, and I have to wonder a little: there's very little infrastructure terrorism, instead there's much more information terrorism at work. (i.e. the Pentagon hack that lost us the plans to the next air superiority fighter).

WTF does stealing plans have to do with scaring people?

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

That wasn't terrorism. That was good old fashioned espionage. Spies and saboteurs are related to terrorists, in that they're all tools of "total warfare" doctrine, but it's not the same thing.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[hedwards]

Until somebody goes to fix the natural gas line and can't figure out which one to work on. Or worse can't figure out which one to tap when rebuilding the home.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Shadow of Eternity]

Sewage line then, it's probably full of shit anyway.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Ethanol-fueled]

WTF does stealing plans have to do with scaring people?

The government can use plans being stolen as an excuse to scare their people with the threat of scaring people? :)

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[__aaclcg7560]

The Rebel Alliance steals the plans to the Death Star. Darth Vader blows up a planet. People get scared that their planet is next. You don't need to be a Jedi to figure that one out. :P

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[rtb61]

The reality is more likely laziness and ego, of believing they are above the law. They just couldn't be bothered doing the appropriate paper work and now as a result are spending tens of thousands of dollars repairing no longer secret cables, which have now been identified as bring emphatically secret by the cables being hidden and subject to high risk of being accidentally dug up. Of course as a contractor you could sue the government for any delays caused by the government delaying access while they repair the undeclared cable.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Celeste R]

Terrorism is totally relative, but it does scare me that someone else can now make the things that has won wars for us in the past, especially with things being at a less than peaceful state worldwide. (N Korea, Iran, etc)

If we can't protect ourselves sufficiently in any sense, doesn't it warrant a word to describe it? Is the lack of protection intellectually always going to be so naive as to assume that it's not going to be used against us?

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

then people would want to put more shit in it. just mark it as private cable, setup a fake local cable company and if anyone asks give them vague answers like we only serve certain customers or some BS like that.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Beardo the Bearded]

This is the first things I thought of - mark it as something else.

"Fibre cable x21-45. Carries: CCT footage of parking lots A-F in Sector 7."

Make two physically separate redundant feeds. The other one is marked with something like "Library Interconnect".

Then if either line gets cut at some point, have a couple of guys in a van show up, act like a regular repair crew, and fix the line quickly. Trust me, I've worked as a Civil Engineering Assistant, and they don't care what's in the line, just that there's a line. If you hit something that isn't on the map, they are going to find it and trace it no matter how long it takes. It'll be in a pipe. You can run a 60Hz powerline into the pipe and read the path from the surface. Maybe it's fibre this time -- maybe it's the water main or black water, or WCS -- both at the same time. The point is if you don't file your plans the town will send a poor fucking co-op student out there to mark the fucking thing on the map.

Then - bam - your secret line is on the maps in the Town Hall marked as "unknown line".

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[aaarrrgggh]

Hell, just put the fiber in a 4" gas line! Valves become a little problem, but you could have some cast with a bypass for the fiber to pass through.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Kjella]

There are reasons why it's important that public records are kept.

And there are reasons secret records are kept... It's not a perfect either-or.

If they wanted to keep people from knowing where or what exactly it was, they could simply have marked it as something it wasn't.. and beyond that, they could encrypt what goes on that fiber.

Take map. Place ruler and draw the lines. Oh, it's something important connecting building A to building B, you can't hide that unless you run markers so wide it's meaningless and you know it's not their super secret sewage system. You can bet it's all well encrypted, but there's more to it than wiretapping, there are these little things called reconnaissance and chain of command. Imagine a real state of war, unlikely as it might seem right now. Cut the right wires, jam anything wireless and you got generals looking at blank screens with no information of what's going on and no way to command their troops. Now I'm no military expert but that sounds to me like a rather serious threat to national security. Don't you think so too?

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Abreu]

To be completely fair, Vader did not blow up Alderaan, Tarkin was responsible for that little example of state terrorism...

Vader did not voice any objection to the plan, though

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[gdtau]

Australia has a "dial before you dig" system. The builder submits *their* plans. These are run against registrations of interest in particular streets, and the builders plans copied out to the registered parties. It it then up to the holder of the underground asset to directly contact the builder. The staff of the dial before you dig agency is vetted by the security agencies. This retains the privacy of installations -- even the dial before you dig agency doesn't know the path of your underground asset in any detail which wouldn't be apparent from physical inspection. The assets holders commit not to sue if the builder has lodged plans and the asset holder didn't list the locality of the asset in the database or didn't contact the builder. As a result, all builders send in their plans, since no one wants a huge fiber/water/sewage/electricity/gas repair and compensation bill. The result is a system which leads to Australia having much less backhoe incidents than the US.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Dan541]

Only terrorists use encryption!

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[digitalchinky]

You think? Military secrecy is far more important than you give credit.

Our cheap 30 dollar widget added to our existing stockpile of shoulder launched anti-aircraft missiles will ground your trillion dollar paper tiger in a heart beat. How so? We built this little gizmo to outwit the countermeasures built in to your trillion dollar paper tiger stacked up over there in the corner of our intelligence office. Not only that, but from those reference specs, we were also able to reverse engineer the bog standard state of the art used on most of your other aircraft too.

See the picture?

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Slaves can't sue their masters!

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[v1]

Part of the problem is they are moving lines. In this case half of the job was digging for construction and the other half was digging up and moving known utilities out of the way of the construction. So if you show them where your "gas lines" are at, they are likely to try to move some of them to get them out of their way. And then they are statistically a lot more likely to be discovered for what they are than if they just don't tell you and hope you don't try to move a line on top of one of theirs or dig a tunnel through it.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[v1]

just put the fiber in a 4" gas line

I'd be willing to bet that's been done before.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[v1]

ego, of believing they are above the law

Where have YOU been lately? They are above the law.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[v1]

Many cities in the USA have the same thing, a single number you can call, but it usually results in someone coming out to the land with a flag planter. They use different colors for various services - blue for water, yellow for gas, red for electric, and white for other things such as phone, cable tv, and fiber, so even if they came out and marked their secret line with the rest, you'd have no way of distinguishing it from say a buried telephone trunk without actually digging it up.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[sumdumass]

The government does a half-assed job securing its own computers, but they'll lock down what's between the computers... that's like having a convoy that's well protected, then having that same convoy deliver without any security detail.

Not really, these computer systems are no where near the internet. They are secured by strict access restrictions (physical security) and the lack of interconnection to places without that.

In short, and to keep with your military convoy scenario, you can't really think of this convoy as a regular supply convoy behind the lines. Think of it as the one the president is in when touring the camps and the others are just running supplies to relatively safe camps. These systems serviced by the secrete fiber are something completely different then the main systems you keep hearing about with the breaches. Those systems use publicly accessible and most likely publicly documented lines.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Kadin2048]

There are lots of natural gas pipelines under the ground besides the low-pressure ones that end users tap into to run domestic appliances. The higher-pressure transportation pipelines aren't something you touch unless you want to die a spectacular death, so they'd be guaranteed to be left alone by everyone save the gas company. And if you wanted to protect against that, you could create some sort of paper company that owned it and was responsible for maintenance: I've never met a utility company that would touch something once they got an inkling of a way in which it could be made somebody else's problem.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[soren202]

Only terrorists use encryption!

Nooo, you're thinking Linux

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[sumdumass]

Most likely you/the contractor couldn't sue the government for anything in this case. This is Washington DC and congress has the final say in everything that goes on in Washington. If Congress ok'd the lines in the first place, then congress would have to grant the ability to suit over them in order to allow you to sue. This is part of the sovereign immunity that all US governments enjoy.

More then likely, the lines were placed in back during the cold war and possibly upgraded since then. Intercepting communications during the cold war by taping fiber lines or even copper lines was a real and seen threat. We did it to them and they did it to us. Ego and Laziness really has nothing to do with it. Especially when congress has ultimate control over DC. Many people forget that Washing DC is a territory/district, not a state and the constitution specifically give congress control of it.

As for being secrete, they still can be secrete. There are probably alternate paths that the fiber channels cover and the only real difference is that now someone would have either keep a signal live on these lines to detect any interruption or drive the path several times a day to check for any digging or anything around them. IF nothing is detected, they would still be good for backup routes if ever needed, if something is ever detected, then replacing them through another location and just making the existing lines public would work just as well.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[bigsteve@dstc]

It's understandable that they want to keep secrets secret, but isn't covering it up going to draw more attention than fudging the paperwork?

Only if someone digs it up. The problem with fudged paperwork is that someone might figure out the ruse, and start looking for other examples of fudged paperwork. Instead of having to fix a single back-hoed fibre, the unnamed agency may find that many ultra-secret fibres are potentially compromised and need to be replaced. Now THAT would be a waste of tax-payer's money!

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't they burry the secret lines 2-3x deeper than normal lines?

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[clarkkent09]

The ones with fudged paperwork are also decoys. For really important stuff they use Twitter. Nobody would expect that.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Opportunist]

It's actually worse. Because now they are KNOWN to be super-secret government lines.

I mean, think about it: You dig up a cable that shouldn't be there and rip it apart. You hop off your 'dozer and still stare at the wire, wondering wtf it's doing here, while a suspiciously unmarked car screeches to halt next to you, out come a few suits and tell you you didn't see anything (sneaky-stealthy as our secret policemen are). They could just as well guard it with a similar tape they use for high voltage wires here (they put in yellow-red plastic tape about half a foot above high power wires and gas lines, so when you dig it up you KNOW you shouldn't dig any deeper) and mark it "secret government wire, do not dig deeper".

Mark it as a gas line, mark it as high voltage lines, hell, mark it as sewage pipes, but not marking it at all is asking for trouble.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[NitsujTPU]

You mean that foreign intelligence agencies might suddenly become suspicious that something secret is going on when a group of black SUVs show up at a construction site?

No way! That's why the SUVs are BLACK! Duh!

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

The important lines are actually encased in a concrete/metal/rebar mesh along their entire length anyway and still encrypted end to end.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

The government does a half-assed job securing its own computers, but they'll lock down what's between the computers... that's like having a convoy that's well protected, then having that same convoy deliver without any security detail.

I've said for a long time that it's the same with businesses that use your credit card or other personal data. They make a big deal about using "secure web pages". Then they let any bozo have unsecured access to it.

In compliance with the /. requirement to bolster any point, no matter how insignificant, with an automotive analogy, I hereby submit the one I've used for years. It's like sending gold bullion in an armored truck from A to B. In each case, the truck backs up to a closed roll-down door. With the back of the truck firmly locked to the wall, the door is rolled up, the truck doors are opened into the secure facility (at either end) and the gold transferred between the truck and the facility. Then the truck doors are closed, the door is rolled down and the tuck leaves. But, at the destination, the gold is left sitting out where it can be messed with by any passer-by.

I mention this because something similar once happened to me. Back when a 20 meg (not gig) disk drive for a mini-computer was about two feet x three feet x 18 inches tall (and cost a few thousand dollars), some outfit delivered one to us. After waiting an adequate amount of time, I called the outfit to ask where the drive was. They said it had been delivered three days earlier.

Down at the loading dock, I was told they'd been wondering when someone would be by to pick it up. Like "Maybe when you tell me it's there, guys". Not their job, I guess, even though it was about a fifteen-foot square dock, which was left open to the street all day long, with no one with a direct view of it from their office.

BTW, on another occasion, we ordered a line printer (a few hundred pounds worth) from the same vendor. There were huge delays (many weeks) in getting it to us, when they said it would be just a few days. By the time it was finally delivered (with no forewarning) the building's only freight elevator had been out of service for a week, with two weeks remaining to complete the work. Since it was only a very old two-story (plus basement) building, there were no other interior passenger elevators.

The bozos who had caused the delay due to their poor scheduling had to eat the cost to rent some specialized equipment to hump the printer up a short flight of stairs to the front of the building, then up another long flight up to the destination floor.

The Six Ps of Success -- Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then - bam - your secret line is on the maps in the Town Hall marked as "unknown line".

So mark a few secret sewer lines as "NSA unencrypted data feed". Then, after the spy guys dig up a few shit-water pipes, they'll give up and leave the real one alone.

Easy.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[AnAdventurer]

Actually we find out who the pilots are and shot them on the way into work.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[notmebug]

Terrorism is totally relative, but it does scare me that someone else can now make the things that has won wars for us in the past, especially with things being at a less than peaceful state worldwide. (N Korea, Iran, etc)

China steals plans.

Joint Strike Fighters show up on sale at Wal-Mart.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[bigbigbison]

we have that in the USA too. you call in and someone comes out and plants flags, spray paints the gras where the lines are supposed to be. I would imagine that Australia having many fewer backhoe incidents than the USA would have something to do with Australia have less than 10% as many people as the USA.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Kral_Blbec]

This is part of the sovereign immunity that all US governments enjoy.

How many US governments are there?

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Ihmhi]

The ideal situation would be for the natural gas line to be owned by a government front company that is nigh-impossible to connect to any federal agency.

Gotta repair/upgrade the line? Dress up in uniform, close the area off due to a "gas leak", and get to work.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[MaskedSlacker]

Not with this new-fangled patriot act. Declare them all terrorists!

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[MaskedSlacker]

Black-suited men inbound for figuring out their scheme. RUN FOR THE HILLS!

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Majik Sheff]

The state of Iowa here in the US has a system very much like that in place and it works quite well in my experience. You call a toll-free number, tell them roughly where you want to dig and a couple of days later you have a mess of flags and spray paint that tells you where not to dig.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[MadnessASAP]

Wait... So whose the terrorist here again?

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[tibman]

The vast majority of gov computers are used for email, memos, excel, and making fancy powerpoint/impress presentations for the next weekly training meeting. But there are very important systems throughout the world that depend on a secure transport system.

My guess is these lines weren't public accessible cables anyways. The DOD has many separate networks that mirror the internet in every way except they don't actually touch the "net" .. or each other. Who cares if they aren't in the public record? Even if the public paid for them, they aren't for public use. Security always has it's downsides i guess

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[fishbowl]

>See the picture?

If you really were involved in making that gizmo you wouldn't be blabbing about it here.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[bytesex]

Or run your data line through a gas line. Where you /also/ use the gas.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[blitzkrieg3]

that's like having a convoy that's well protected, then having that same convoy deliver without any security detail.

Repeat after me, "The internet is not a big truck, it is a series of tubes"

I can't believe it's 5 hours and no one has yet made this joke...

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[micheas]

This is part of the sovereign immunity that all US governments enjoy.

How many US governments are there?

51 (Fifty States, plus the federal.)

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Merls the Sneaky]

Unless they get lucky the first time.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL!!! .... I think ... I hope

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[SupremoMan]

5... well 6 if you count Texas, but I don't.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[__aaclcg7560]

Ewoks.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[sxpert]

In effect, you are somewhat right. those pipes are hermetically sealed and under pressure, and have the fiber cable inside.
when a break occurs, they can detect it by the loss of pressure

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Z00L00K]

Trying to keep physical objects that are geographically fixed a secret is just stupid.

The important thing isn't that it exists or not, it is what it's used for.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[ScottBob]

I'd be willing to bet that's been done before.

Many gas pipeline companies bury communications links right alongside their pipelines that communicate with flow meters and pressure gauges, send instructions to compressor stations along the pipeline to throttle up or down, or shut and open valves remotely to keep up with demand. They wouldn't run the cable inside the pipelines, though, because they occasionally send devices called "pigs" through the pipes to check for corrosion on the inside of the pipeline. The pigs would simply shred any cables inside the pipeline.

Now it's conceivable that a secret agency could slip in their communications link alongside the pipeline company's link as it's being built; of course they would lie and tell the pipeline constructors that they're such-and-such communications company looking for a protected right-of-way for their cable. Then when someone dials the call-before-you-dig hotline, they're told there's two communications links and a 36 inch gas pipeline buried there. Guaranteed the contractor will be more concerned about hitting the pipeline than any cables buried right next to it, and stay far away from it.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[omglolbah]

Amusingly you hit the mark quite well in one sense...

Many cables are pressurized to help detect breaks in the outer layers before the signal degrades.

Putting cables in pipes is common, at least in the offshore/onshore oil/gas industry. You really dont want your cables exposed in such an environment ;)

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[twostix]

"Well you didn't have to go to all that trouble, we would have given the tech to you if you promise to keep buying our debt...
.
.
.
please for the love of god keep buying our debt" - US Government

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cut the right wires, jam anything wireless and you got generals looking at blank screens with no information of what's going on and no way to command their troops.

A lady I know who is heavily into amateur radio using military comm gear has an interesting sig file. It reads:

The President can make me a General, however it is communications that makes me a Commander.

__ General Curtis LeMay

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

No. What are you on about?

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[h4rm0ny]

Funny, I can't believe we made it five hours without someone making that joke.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[h4rm0ny]

Two. The one you know about, and the one you... don't.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Full of burs?

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[goldcd]

If they'd just turned up a couple of days later in AT&T outfits, then this would never have been a story. So for the sake of getting their fibre back on-line immediately, they've 'lost' the secret value - actually, they've now definitely flagged it as 'secret'

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did these plans include the software?

Modern fighters are aerodynamically unstable. It's what gives them such awesome agility, but only when controlled by the right software, which took quite a lot of simulator time to get right. Even if other nation stole the software too, I doubt they'd be able to build the plane so exactly to the stolen specs that the software could fly it. Just a little bit off, such as using a different metal alloy, could make it differently unstable in a way the software can't correct for.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[ionix5891]

we also get added self destruct option :D

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Rick17JJ]

Here in Arizona, backhoe drivers are supposed to call Blue Stake at at least 2 days before digging. It is a free service. The Blue Stake guy comes out, with his electronic detection equipment, and sprays color coded paint spots on the ground. Different colors of paint (or sometimes colored brushes on a nail) are used to identify where the underground gas lines, telephone lines, and sewer lines are.

I am not sure if they also locate water lines too or not. Recently, in my neighborhood, a very small water company, saw that Blue Staking had been done along the edge of the highway. They looked closer and noticed that there were not any marks for their 2 inch water pipe. They immediately called the contractor and personally showed him where their water pipe was.

You would think that the government would do much the same thing. It seems like the government employees should have heard about the area being Blue Staked. If not, then perhaps they might have at least seen the paint marks or the backhoe. They could have said something like, "please carefully dig the next few feet by hand."

Years ago, I saw a licensed contractor using a backhoe driver rip through an underground 300 pair telephone line, while installing a sewer line on our property. Fortunately, he was digging far enough away from the Blue Staker's paint marks, to not be held responsible for paying for the repair. Blue Stake had been off by several feet, on where the telephone line was. Do they have anything like Blue Stake in the Washington area?

About a year ago, a plumber, need to replace a manhole on our property, and called to have area Blue Staked. As the Blue Stake guy finished, I told him that I knew he had missed a couple of 120 volt underground power lines and also 3 underground, several pair, telephone lines. He told me those were privately owned, and do not matter. He refused to even try to look for them. When the backhoe driver arrived, I warned him about that and he called some other guy to quickly come out and locate those. We soon had some more paint marks on the ground.

By the way, the www.azbluestake.com website, does not display properly under Firefox. A significant portion of the text and graphics are missing. Perhaps the utility companies, feel that users of standards compliant browsers, only need to know half as much about how Blue Staking works.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, that's almost as brilliant as someone using a pair of thick glasses to hide their secret identity!

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[bcmm]

WTF does stealing plans have to do with scaring people?

The US Government doesn't like it.

What did you think think terrorism meant?

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[stephanruby]

It's amazing how quickly they get repaired!

Take away a man's porn, and you better have it repaired damn quickly!

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually It's been done, I remember seeing some sort of sempra energy corperate gloss sheet on placing fiber *inside* the gas pipes, The Idea was to use the pipe as a sort of already in place conduit so streets would not have to be dug.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[jonbryce]

Just mark it as a telephone cable. Then when you find it, you think nothing of it and deal with it the way you deal with all the other telephone cables.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US it's 1 888 DIG SAFE

They will answer 24/7/365

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[spartacus_prime]

And for vitally important stuff they use the Spanish Inquisition.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the REALLY stupid thing about all this. The end user does not just start working once they find out what's there, the one-call service lets the digger know who the owners are. The digger is then responsible for coordinating with the owning agencies.

If the MIB would just make a fake telco company, then this would all be coordinated simply and there'd be no problem. None of the regular companies would bother their stuff, and the MIB could shut down communications on a link that's being dug near. Then they could tell the end user ' go ahead and move it for us' or 'sorry, we have critical specs, we will send our own splicing team for that link'. The end user / digger does not care who does the work so long as it's on time.

Someone in government is really wasting a lot of tax dollars here on cloak-and-dagger bullspit.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Our cheap 30 dollar widget added to our existing stockpile of shoulder launched anti-aircraft missiles will ground your trillion dollar paper tiger in a heart beat. How so? We built this little gizmo to outwit the countermeasures built in to your trillion dollar paper tiger stacked up over there in the corner of our intelligence office.

If a $30 widget can beat the countermeasures in a $1,000,000,000 design, then you should have spent $1,000,100,000 to have someone think up the $30 device and then counter it.

It better be that the scary thing about having the trillion dollar plans stolen is that someone can now build a fighter we ourselves can't beat, without having to do a trillion dollars worth of research. Death Star exhaust ports notwithstanding, searching for exploits in large, complex devices is not especially realistic.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Critical Facilities]

Then when someone dials the call-before-you-dig hotline, they're told there's two communications links and a 36 inch gas pipeline buried there. Guaranteed the contractor will be more concerned about hitting the pipeline than any cables buried right next to it, and stay far away from it.

I blame the contractor on this one. Just because a utility was not listed on whatever plans he/she was reading, doesn't excuse making no real effort to detect that utility in the first place. In truth, many Private Locating Companies use Ground Penetrating Radar which is fully capable of finding just about anything underground. These aren't your usual "ULOCO" guys, and yes, they're more expensive. However, if the alternative is accidentally hitting an expensive/secret/critical comm. line, I'd rather put the money in the budget to begin with (especially if I know I'm working in an area where this type of thing happens frequently).

Just my 2 cents.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

See that is logical, The government is not logical. By the way check the railroads the right of way on those are huge.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[MattSausage]

I'd be willing to bet that's been done before. Many gas pipeline companies bury communications links right alongside their pipelines that communicate with flow meters and pressure gauges, send instructions to compressor stations along the pipeline to throttle up or down, or shut and open valves remotely to keep up with demand. They wouldn't run the cable inside the pipelines, though, because they occasionally send devices called "pigs" through the pipes to check for corrosion on the inside of the pipeline. The pigs would simply shred any cables inside the pipeline. Now it's conceivable that a secret agency could slip in their communications link alongside the pipeline company's link as it's being built; of course they would lie and tell the pipeline constructors that they're such-and-such communications company looking for a protected right-of-way for their cable. Then when someone dials the call-before-you-dig hotline, they're told there's two communications links and a 36 inch gas pipeline buried there. Guaranteed the contractor will be more concerned about hitting the pipeline than any cables buried right next to it, and stay far away from it.

Why not encase the fiber in a tiny steel tube or something, and actually have the fiber embedded into the pipe itself. that way it would never be detected, cleaning pigs could do their job, and not only would the maps be marked, but they would be properly marked at that, instead of just decoy. All it would take is money right? and repairs in case the pipe was ever ruptured, but still.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

ah yes smells like a de sheet ful idea to me

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[evilkasper]

So if they have super secret squirrel fiber lines buried all over the place, wouldn't it be prudent to keep tabs on pending construction, and use means at their disposal to mark their ultra secret lines as a gas main or something? Surely they weren't just hoping the backhoes would miss.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Attila Dimedici]

I think you missed the point (it's even in the summary). These lines weren't on the "dial before you dig" maps.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[e2d2]

Although the article makes allusions in the beginning to this particular wire being not on any charts, an unknown wire, the truth is they knew up front about these wires in the area (one of many in a mesh) and had been warned. That comes later in the article. Fact is, they should have known about this wire when digging.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[way2trivial]

A gun is pretty cheap.. often so is paying someone to pull the trigger.

Would you have killed Simon? what do you do in this situation?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120749/plotsummary

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Crookdotter]

I don't think they were terrorists. Guerillas maybe. Or Baboons.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[chud67]

"There are reasons why it's important that public records are kept."

Yep, here's a story that illustrates that point pretty well: Gas line explosion rocks neighborhood, sparks fire

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[tatman]

It's not like someone could gather up all the "incidents" and start piecing together where some of this stuff lies to begin with either.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[TrekkieTechie]

Clearly they should start using black flags as well, to mark the unmarked lines.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they should be using invisible flags, with invisible runes on them. That way they can keep the line secret.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[nonumnos]

Virginia has a dial-before-you-dig system called "Miss Util". [ www.missutility.net ]

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Dekker3D]

nonononoooooo! it's the wookies! they're smelly, they're hairy, they're always running around with a weapon of some sort and they've even got the foreign language that nobody understands down to a tee!

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[wykell]

That's because nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Their chief weapon is surprise. Surprise and fear, fear and surprise, their two weapons are fear and surprise and ruthless efficiency. Their THREE weapons are fear, and surprise, and ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[jger_13]

:::Insert Chewbacca Defense Here::: The defense rests.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Pollardito]

But in the low event that someone does break through your line, showing up in three black SUVs seconds later is about the worst thing you can do to minimize the exposure...hence the Washington Post article seeing readers worldwide. Can't they mark the lines somehow so that the line-cutter calls some [possibly fake] utility, and then the call is forwarded to the right people to come in and move the line themselves? The article takes pains to detail that these guys are cutting lines accidentally all the time (government or no), but it was the black SUVs that were memorable.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually we keep it in clear text that way everything you see you think is code words.

You hear that boy, code words! Damn haystacks.

On a side note you will not have to worry about this for long we are using something new you don't even know about yet. So this is moot.

AC.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[sumdumass]

There is the federal US government and the State governments inside the US. Then to a more limited extent with respect to sovereign immunity, the city, county and township governments within the states. The total would be difficult to calculate because of the different aspects of sovereign immunity and when it applies and doesn't apply.

The term US governments was supposed to mean any government within the US and not just the US federal government.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

I assure you, the information running on those lines is most definitely encrypted. If a wire goes beyond where there is 24/7 guard presence, that wire is encrypted.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[jamstar7]

Terrorism is totally relative, but it does scare me that someone else can now make the things that has won wars for us in the past, especially with things being at a less than peaceful state worldwide. (N Korea, Iran, etc)

Word is, half of North Korea is starving so that the government could develop a Hiroshima-class nuke that didn't work alongside a delivery system that also failed. Considering the tech they're trying to develop (and failing miserably at) is 65 years old, I'm really not too worried about the North Koreans. It's almost as if somebody's feeding them info that looks good, but is total fail at the implementation, designed to make them spend shitpiles of money on fail products. And isn't getting stuck in a serious buying cycle a good part of what caused the Soviet Union to come undone at the seams?

No, the guys I'm more worried about are the Chinese and the Israelis. Both are smart as hell, have plenty of access to American nuclear technology, and the industrial base to build the shit. The Chinese are already 'out' in the nuclear club and building a ballistic missile delivery system cunningly designed as a space program (or is it the other way around?), but the Israelis keep claiming they don't have any. If I was outnumbered 100 to 1 in an area of the world where everybody hated me and I had zero intention on moving out, I'd sure as hell get the best weapons I could find. That would include nukes and CBMs, treaties be damned.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[HeronBlademaster]

These systems serviced by the secrete fiber are something completely different then the main systems you keep hearing about with the breaches.

Well there's your problem... the fiber is leaking!

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Dragonslicer]

I would hope that important government departments have redundant connections with each other. If there's only a single piece of fiber connecting the White House to the Pentagon, someone with a clue needs to take over running government infrastructure. If any enemy nation is capable of cutting every physical communications line and jamming all wireless signals in our nation's capital city, there's a fairly high chance that we're already screwed.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Jesus_666]

The government could use a light drizzle as an excuse to scare people with the threat of scaring people.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[littlerubberfeet]

The point is if you don't file your plans the town will send a poor fucking co-op student out there to mark the fucking thing on the map.

The thing about Northern Virginia is that the rules are different. Nobody wants to know, and nobody cares about random fibre lines. The local governments just want to ignore it. Fort Belvoir, CIA, NDRO, Tyson's Corner complex, the multitudes of defense contractors linked to or serving active DoD operations (Lockheed, EADS, Boeing, SAIC, Northrop, Raytheon, GD, UT, L-3 Communications, ATT, etc.) all have 'off map' needs. No Northern Virginian government just sends their poor co-op students out to map stuff. The local governments don't want to touch that mess. Better to just make it someone else's problem. Fairfax County doesn't care if 'black' lines get cut, because the Fairfax County voters don't care if lines get cut. I know a guy at a datacenter in Reston who was bird watching. He had a pair of decent binoculars. After a few minutes on his lunch break outside his building, a black SUV shows up, and they pester him with questions before telling him to stop and go back inside. He still has no idea which of the dozen building visible from his the US government has interests in.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Archangel Michael]

sounds remarkably like our IT department.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[amh131]

A usually reliable source informs me that Tarkin was holding Vaders leash -- it's not really surprising that he wouldn't object. A sharp yank on the leash always gets *my* attention. There was no mention of leash length, however.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[famebait]

I've never met a utility company that would touch something once they got an inkling of a way in which it could be made somebody else's problem.

That's nothing. I've never met a utility company at all.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Shinmizu]

I expected the Spanish Inquisition, but I got mustard instead. Stupid Burger King.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Kartoffel]

Absolutely been done, though compressed air is far more likely than natural gas. Divide the pipe into compartments, pressurize each compartment, and install a pressure transducer in each segment. If one of the segments gets breached it loses pressure and you can tell exactly where the damage happened.

I think this stuff is outlined in the old TEMPEST specs. It's not just about EM leakage, but damage detection and mitigation and airgapping of different levels of classification. I bet there's plenty of triple runs of pipe going into buildings in northern Virginia: SIPRNet, NIPRNet and JWICS ought to be in separate conduits.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[sorak]

And Alderon truthers form to claim that Alderon was secretly destroyed from with...by space Jews. <ducks>

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Philip_the_physicist]

In most places I am aware of which have it, Dial Before You Dig is a service which anyone who runs cables or pipelines underground can (or even must) register their routes, and if the owner doesn't register the line, the consequences are entirely their problem. Conversely, if someone doesn't check before digging, then whatever happens is their fault. In my local area, I do not believe any information is given out about the owner, only the type of line and the depth, in normal circumstances, and even if the information about the owner is revaeled, a government cable could be anything from old internet backbone to military secret networks, and anything in between. It might be of vague interest to someone at teh site, but it would be fairly hard ofr a spy to find out which of the lines are interesting, which are uninteresting, and which are obsolete or dark.

OTOH, if the cabling is kept secret, once someone digs through it, they then have to try to figure out who owns it and whether it is in use, which draws attention to the cable. then the maintenance and security mobs turn up, and draw even more attention. With the amount of ongoing construc like this.tion around the place, it is actually surprising that more black fibre isn't being found

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[aaarrrgggh]

Fiber without tracer lines is very difficult to locate accurately. For one major data center I worked for, we made a contractor who was doing excavation for utility improvements within 20' of the recorded location use air lances and vacuum trucks. They ended up needing to excavate a 24" trench 4' deep for a total length of 300'.

And, they still managed to cut two fibers and a 500-pair cable...

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[geminidomino]

A little penicillin will clear that right up.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[jaraxle]

And for vitally important stuff they use the Spanish Inquisition.

Somehow, I expected that response...

~jaraxle

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[AlHunt]

Repeat after me, "The internet is not a big truck, it is a series of tubes"

Not only is Internet a big truck, in India it's delivered by trucks, buses and motorcycles.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Zionist Jew who has been to Israel many times and has friends in the IDF, if you think Israel doesn't have nukes you're a fool.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[kd5zex]

IIRC, that is exactly how the American electrical conduit system was started. During the time where gas lamps were being replaced with electric lights there was a handy pipe already in the wall in which to run the wires through.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're thinking of the Spanish Inquisition.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Jesus_666]

The real one will be marked "NSA sewage", of course.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Tryle]

Wait wookies are Al-Qaeda?

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Critical Facilities]

No argument that it's difficult, but it is definitely do-able. I've actually had properly trained Utility Locators use GPR to locate plastic conduit that was completely empty, and they were able to do it (we were needing to confirm the existence of some "sleeves" on one worksite, as well as confirm that there were no other hazards in the area prior to digging).

Sounds like your contractor had the right idea, but without having been there, it's hard to comment on how they could have cut 2 fiber lines and a 500 pair cable (the latter should have been quite easy to find). Yes, vacuum excavation combined with careful hand digging is called for in situations like this. While it is expensive and time consuming, it's probably cheaper than accidentally cutting a backbone fiber line.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[csartanis]

A trillion dollar device is built on more than security through obscurity. Losing the secret plans to the next-gen fighter aircraft isn't going to allow anyone to build a $30 counter weapon. And if it does? Then that device wasn't worth a trillion dollars and deserves to be grounded permanently.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of that stuff is routed over the public internet for less-than-critical access. Point to point links between agencies or contractors might be over dedicated fiber for guaranteed performance although they are probably provisioned along with phones and everything else through a shared fiber trunk.

It doesn't have to be compartmentalized if its encrypted, but they need to be secretive such that someone (terrorist, foreign intelligence agent, paranoid schizophrenic) doesn't identify it as being mission-critical, attack it, and degrade availability.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[be951]

China steals plans.

Joint Strike Fighters show up on sale at Wal-Mart.

3. US borrows a ton of money from China, and goes on a Wal-Mart buying spree.

4. This economic stimulus, along with a sudden surge in correspondence courses for "Joint Strike Fighter Aircraft Mechanic" pulls the US out of the current recession.

5. ????

5. profit?

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[ddusza]

Nope. Definitely the Gungans.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahahahah...try again. You forget things like Puerto Rico, American Indians, and other sovereign, semi-sovereign, and subservient governments within the US borders.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

How dare you forget Puerto Rico and other US territories!!!

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[HTH NE1]

Wait... So whose the terrorist here again?

Ours.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[HTH NE1]

In the US it's 1 888 DIG SAFE

They will answer 24/7/365

Except for one leap day every septade (seven years), unless that septade covers a year divisible by 100 but not by 400 and not any other year divisible by 4 (e.g. 2097-2103, if they happen to fall that way).

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[HTH NE1]

Only Linux uses encryption?

Only encryption uses Linux?

Only Linux uses terrorists?

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[EvilBudMan]

It sounds like your a man of experience because that is exactly how to keep it hid unless you have to many people working on it and one leaks to the press. Let them just run razor wire and watch towers over top of it, dogs, electronic surveillance, men with guns, shoot to kill signs, etc. The gas line idea would keep your average Joe away from it though.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[EvilBudMan]

A lot of times a good backhoe operator would feel the line protection before he got caught up in it. That's how high pressure gas lines are constructed. I believe they have a sheath around them so that even without a map the backhoe guy should know he is running into something that should be there before he cuts the line completely, but it might have been a big piece of equipment, I just didn't read that far.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[EvilBudMan]

You forgot territorial as well.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you tell us more about these pigs? Are there pictures on the internet of such devices? Do they ever get stuck? Are they self powered or have an umbilical cord?

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[danomac]

I read that as the systems were leaking fibre, I'd say it's time for a secret diaper.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Stanislav_J]

If they'd just turned up a couple of days later in AT&T outfits, then this would never have been a story.

The two-day delay there is the key to believability -- no "real" AT&T guys show up within minutes of a problem. Frankly, from my past dealings with them, I think even two days would seem suspiciously fast...

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Brian Gordon]

You missed my point.. it's not the research that costs a trillion dollars it's the availability of high-tech materials, the hundred million dollars to buy them, the industrial infrastructure to process them, the engineers with masters degrees to put them together, and the fighter pilots with 15 years of experience to fly them. If you're the dictator of some piddling third-world country, all of those requirements are out of reach.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[JumpDrive]

It's understandable that they want to keep secrets secret, but isn't covering it up going to draw more attention than fudging the paperwork?
It's more of a government tradition to do it this way.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

51 (Fifty States, plus the federal.)

You forgot about all the puppet governments the US as put in place around the world. So 51+.

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, call it a gas main. That would keep backhoes far away. Another brilliant move by the folks who brought us the USPS, IRS, VA and FEMA. Cant wait for my free health care....

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[badkarmadayaccount]

Steal it?

Re:Our tax dollars at work.

[yklktk]

And for vitally important stuff they use the Spanish Inquisition.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Ok...

[jamstar7]

So who you supposed to notify when you dig? If the fiber is secret, nobody's going to tell you where it's at, and nobody's going to 'fess up about the ownership of said fiber.

And who do you make the check out to when you do cut it? Or would a 'Hey, how the hell can we know when we cut a top secret fiber? How we supposed to know it's there if it's top secret and we don't have clearance???' defense work in court when the other guy's lawyers come at you for damages?

Re:Ok...

[weirdcrashingnoises]

I'm going to guess that they don't come at you for damages, as that would only make their little "secret" more public.

and on an unrelated side note, ianal.

Re:Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

Many states have a requirement to call a locater service X days before you dig. You call one number and all the utilities come out and mark their stuff. Then, when you dig if you cut something that wasn't marked, it isn't your problem. Cut something marked and you pay.

I can only guess why super-duper secret fiber wasn't buried a little deeper than usual to avoid this kind of thing.

Re:Ok...

[camperdave]

How we supposed to know it's there if it's top secret and we don't have clearance?

Well, all you have to do is read the cable. It says "Top Secret Cable. Do Not Cut" right on it.

Re:Ok...

[MichaelSmith]

In my experience the easiest and least costly to find out who owns a cable (or for that matter, if it is used at all) is to cut it then wait for the repair guy/police/black helicopters to show up.

Its much easier than dialing 1100 from a mobile phone in the air conditioned comfort of your digging machine.

And yes, I used to work in a job where we put a lot of cables in the ground around road construction sites, and had a lot of them dug up.

Re:Ok...

[genner]

So who you supposed to notify when you dig? If the fiber is secret, nobody's going to tell you where it's at, and nobody's going to 'fess up about the ownership of said fiber.

And who do you make the check out to when you do cut it? Or would a 'Hey, how the hell can we know when we cut a top secret fiber? How we supposed to know it's there if it's top secret and we don't have clearance???' defense work in court when the other guy's lawyers come at you for damages?

Considering how often they cut fiber that is on the map and get away with it, I doubt this would be a problem.

Re:Ok...

[Bob9113]

So who you supposed to notify when you dig?

Notification is easy: You go into the bathroom, turn on the water, and quietly whisper where you are planning to dig. They'll hear. :)

Re:Ok...

[Todd Fisher]

So who you supposed to notify when you dig? You're not. That's the secret part of it.

If the fiber is secret, nobody's going to tell you where it's at, and nobody's going to 'fess up about the ownership of said fiber. Correct, that's why the serious men who pull up to the site and get busy fixing it don't tell you who they are.

And who do you make the check out to when you do cut it? The serious men will not ask for payment

Or would a 'Hey, how the hell can we know when we cut a top secret fiber? Rule #1 of accidentally cutting "black" fiber: Do not talk smack to the serious men.

How we supposed to know it's there if it's top secret and we don't have clearance??? See Rule #1.

defense work in court when the other guy's lawyers come at you for damages?There will be nothing to go to court about.

Re:Ok...

[jamstar7]

Many states have a requirement to call a locater service X days before you dig. You call one number and all the utilities come out and mark their stuff. Then, when you dig if you cut something that wasn't marked, it isn't your problem. Cut something marked and you pay.

But who's gonna mark it, what's it gonna get marked as, and who you gonna call? It's a secret, remember?

Re:Ok...

[X0563511]

That's the point. Read his post a bit more carefully.

They call the "white" utilities, who come and mark their shit. You've covered your ass. If any of the "black" utilities' stuff gets damaged, it's not your problem.

Re:Ok...

[oddaddresstrap]

If you call 811 and have the underground utilities marked, it's my understanding that you're good to go. If you hit something you weren't told about, not your problem.

If you *don't* call to have them located and you dig something up, you're pretty much on the hook for the whole shebang.

Re:Ok...

[Anpheus]

I heard you just have to think about digging up top secret fiber and they get the black SUVs ready.

Re:Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to guess that they don't come at you for damages, as that would only make their little "secret" more public.

If you bothered to read the article, you would see they tried to bill one contractor for $300,000.

and on an unrelated side note, ianal.

Well, I AM anal. I read the article before posting.

Re:Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you call 811 and have the underground utilities marked, it's my understanding that you're good to go. If you hit something you weren't told about, not your problem.

Unless it's a gas line. Then it's everyone's problem.

Re:Ok...

[weirdcrashingnoises]

"They" being AT&T then dropped that charge right away after a "Are you nuts?"

The charges just disappeared.

But rest assured AT&T will get that money, or at least some portion of it, probably from the government. Because both AT&T and the government (or whatever agency it is) know that forcing the charges would just create more outrage and publicity over the matter.

I read the article before posting.

Then I guess you don't have enough reading comprehension, because there is no chance that a telco who is really "coming at you for damages" will back down with just an "are you nuts" reply. If you don't believe me try it on your next cellphone bill.

Re:Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

and on an unrelated side note, i enjoy being a dick.

Re:Ok...

[Tuoqui]

Oh sure that's handy if you have your top secret CIA Ground Penetrating X-Ray Imaging device. Oh right...

Re:Ok...

[v1]

somehow this whole idea of "secret fiber" reminds me of "secret laws", things you can do that will get you arrested that aren't on the open books.

I think in this case they just come out and quickly fix it themselves and tell you not to talk about it, they don't hold you liable or monetarily responsible.

Re:Ok...

[hibernia]

It's state law in Nebraska to call before you dig (http://www.ne-diggers.com/). Most other states should have something similar.

What the hotline does it send out notice to various utility companies and they look to see if it impacts them and do a locate if needed.

The rule of thumb, as I understand it, if they do the locate and you hit something not marked in the area you are digging, that particular utility that is at fault.

Re:Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, we dug up and ruptured a residential gas line with a bobcat (small backhoe) because they marked the wrong route through our proposed dig area. We ran away and called for help. The gas truck drove up, the guy looked into the hole and sized up the damage, then climbed down with his vice-grip pliers and clamped off the plastic direct-burial gas tubing. I wish I would have known it was that simple, as we could have reduced the amount of gas filling the neighborhood while the truck made its away over...

Re:Ok...

[v1]

For the important stuff they also do a lot more to protect it.

For example, fiber backbones around here are quite the setup. They bury the cable itself at least 4 ft down. It's an armored cable that is designed to be completely undamaged by being run over by a caterpillar on asphalt and nearly impossible to break by stretching. (kevlar cord backbone, PVC spar with six fiber tubes, corrugated steel armor, antivarmint/self-sealing resin, and 1/8" very tough PVC jacket). One foot above that they bury a wide red streamer that's very elastic and hard to cut. If your backhoe gets to that first it's really hard to miss because you'll stretch it out of the ground like a rubber band. And all the dirt they use to fill in the trench is stained red. I don't know how effective the red stain ends up being, but it may be something that a backhoe operator would be much more likely to notice during his work than you or I.

Re:Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I AM anal. I read the article before posting.

Better watch out. That kind of behavior might get your slashdot poster credentials revoked!! Imagine!! Reading the article! Humpf.

Oh, and get off my lawn!

Re:Ok...

[digitalunity]

Actually this is pretty plausible. Best guess-

AT&T built and operates the cable. A branch of the federal government pays AT&T to operate it.

Cable is cut, AT&T fixes it at great expense. AT&T asks customer(feds) to pay for it and they say "no it's your line, you pay for it". AT&T asks construction company to pay and feds quickly pick up the tab to make the matter disappear.

I've never worked in telecom, but I have worked in construction and this is a pretty common scenario when accidents occur.

Re:Ok...

[digitalunity]

Well, seeing as the NSA is supposedly using DPI on all internet traffic they can get their hands on through AT&T pipes, seems to me the following email would work, addressed to the DOD's assigned AT&T Sales rep:

From: digitalunity@myhost.com
To: sdonahoe@att.com
Subject: digging
Hi Sean,
I plan to dig at 123 Anderson St., DC(see attached street drawings) and if you wouldn't mind, please pass it on to your customers that we may be cutting lines that don't appear on the official utility map.

thxbye.
.

This has a double effect. The AT&T sales rep might actually pass it on to the people that need to know, and if not, the NSA will pass it on for them!

Re:Ok...

[pitterpatter]

Unless it's a gas line. Then it's everyone's problem.

I don't know who's on the hook for your backhoe bucket if it's an unmarked 5kV power line, but I'm pretty sure your operator has to cover his own laundry bill.

Re:Ok...

[Opportunist]

My guess would be that that "one number" then informs everyone. Phone, gas, water, sewage and the tomato import export company. Should the tomato company find out that some of their lines could be endangered, you might notice that the phone company sent you two different guys. Maybe the first one forgot to mark a line, but the second one covered that.

Re:Ok...

[Opportunist]

How do you know about Project Clearsky? Would you mind coming over here for a talk?

Re:Ok...

[sponga]

You call the USA, literally.

USA= Underground Service Alert
The number is 811 and you have to call 2 days prior to when you begin your work to cover your ass in court in case you hit any power/gas lines.

I am thinking that they didn't trench this line but use a pressurized piston to push the line/pipe through the ground soil, that is the cheap way to do it these days and it is like sideways drilling. They don't always go perfectly straight at the same elevation, most likely they tried to push this line under a building and came too close to the foundation working area where they are most likely to dig.
4 feet down is gas lines, about 6 feet you start hitting electrical/sewer to put it into perspective.

They send out gas line crews and electric company officals to paint mark where all the lines are located so you do not him them.

Now I work with a Civil Engineer and our main business is road construction, we have hit everything you can think of from Native American graves to fiber lines that run to ammo depot bunkers for security. You would think something this top secret fiber lines would be buried deeper or it would be encased in red cement around the top or sand to give warning you are about to hit it. They usually pour red colored cement(electrical) or sand on top(gas lines), so that when you are digging and start to hit the red stuff it will give you a warning.

My favorite was the mile long tunnel at Fort McCarthur in San Pedros, CA that ran under the hill there. Some of the oldest IBM machines I have ever seen were there collecting dust and huge generators.

Re:Ok...

[jesseck]

The above poster was modded as funny... but I agree. They're secret, they're supposed to stay that way, and they will. This was an explanation, not a joke.

Re:Ok...

[MaskedSlacker]

I thought the CIA was a cocaine import export company.

Re:Ok...

[sxpert]

last I checked, it was MCI that got the fiber optic market.
now, I have no clue to who bought them out over the last 30 years ;)

Re:Ok...

[edward2020]

In my experience, having operated a back hoe off and on for 10 years, both the "red streamer" and the fill (smallish gravel gets used around here) aren't necessary to tell when you've dug past another ditch. The soil in the ditch you cross is visibly and tactilely different from undisturbed ground. Also, FYI, we hit a fiber line about as big around as my arm (it was marked ~15 feet from where it really was) once and the people who fixed it showed up within the hour - it was not a national security line, just a commercial com line. I know this b/c the gas station that was right there couldn't process credit cards 'till it was fixed.

Re:Ok...

[freedom_india]

Cable is cut, AT&T fixes it at great expense. AT&T asks customer(feds) to pay for it and they say "no it's your line, you pay for it". AT&T asks construction company to pay and feds quickly pick up the tab to make the matter disappear.

Having a bro-in-law working as a Telecom CTO, i asked him and his response was: "i can neither confirm nor deny this happens."

Re:Ok...

[TapeCutter]

"Should the tomato company find out that some of their lines could be endangered"

I knew wild tomato plants are a common sight at shit farms due to all the seeds coming down the line but I didn't know they had turned it into an industry!

Re:Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

See Rule #1.

Only applies during a raid.

Re:Ok...

[h4rm0ny]

Given that his bro-in-law posts his responses on Slashdot, that's probably pretty wise. ;)

Re:Ok...

[backwardMechanic]

Nobody. They come and find you. Did this in the UK with a bunch of volunteers laying cycle-path. We had a visit from a helicopter, tools down, sign here to say you won't touch this hole again, official secrets act and all. And a bunch of very upset volunteers. We did our homework, we had notified, checked for services, etc. Thanks HMG, you made us look bad and took no responsibility. Oh, and it wasn't fibre. It was a freakin' gas main!

Re:Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

You may laugh, but over here there are actually lines marked "State property -- Priority". Not on maps, but printed on the cable itself.

Re:Ok...

[Random_Goblin]

there are a lot of those places in the UK, the fuel pipelines that take aviation fuel around the country are a good example

lots of them are semi-secret some accidently show up on some versions of maps and then vanish a bit later

mark thomas did a TV show on them mark thomas secret map of britain

mind you lots of stuff just gets accidently lost, one project i was working on found a 100KV powerline by digging through it, you'd think it would be quite hard to miss on your maps that you have a 100KV line missing if you were the power company, but apparently not

we went back through the version of the mapping, and it was there up to a minor version change in 1976, and then gone on all future versions

probably someone left for a lunch on friday meaning to add it it when they got back, and then never did

i suspect there is vast amounts of stuff not on maps becuase of errors like this

Re:Ok...

[Rick17JJ]

I have also occasionally operated a small, very old backhoe, on our private property, now and then, over the last 25 years. Any time I saw an unexpected change in material, or unexpectedly easy digging, I would suspect that I was getting close to something. Fortunately, I knew that most of the water, sewer, telephone lines, and underground electric lines on our property, had been shaded with tree sand. That had been done to protect them from the sharp edges of rocks. Whenever I saw sand, I would start digging carefully by hand.

I did not use the old backhoe very often, and it was mostly on our private property, which I was very familiar with. Fortunately, I was nearly aways far away from natural gas lines, or any publicly owned utilities. But, here in Arizona, when I was closer to a public road, I always called to have the area Blue Staked first. Blue Stake is a free utility locating service, which we have in Arizona. They probably have something similar in most other states. There is also a private service which, we have occasionally used, which would locate our privately owned underground electric lines for us (Blue Stake would not do that).

Slashdot probably is not the kind of website, where very many people hang out, who do much digging, either by hand or with a backhoe. Yes, like you, I could sometimes, tactilely feel that something was different. I always watch very carefully, for soil changes, when I am digging with our backhoe (or by hand). I also watch for debris, which looks like it had been thrown back into a ditch.

Re:Ok...

[jonbryce]

They are now part of Verizon.

Re:Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy must have one of those fancy light pens I keep thinking I remember. I think. No wait... I don't. Nevermind.

Re:Ok...

[darthflo]

[...] who you gonna call?

Ghost Busters?

Re:Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot mention that the cable was never cut because it was never there and neither were the serious men who weren't fixing the nonexistant cable.

Re:Ok...

[QuantumPion]

My favorite was the mile long tunnel at Fort McCarthur in San Pedros, CA that ran under the hill there. Some of the oldest IBM machines I have ever seen were there collecting dust and huge generators.

Did you blow it up just in case it was Skynet?

Re:Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

and on an unrelated side note, i enjoy being a dick.

it's hard out there for a dick

Re:Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you guys have a whole lot better of direct burial fiber than the companies in Canada tent to use,

Terraspan Networks tends to run 6 strand "vertical channel" in what MAY be a 12-18" trench, for what they call: "quick-fiber". cuts like a 14/2.

to be fair, they can trench ~2-3KM (about 1.25-1.8miles) of the stuff a day.

Re:Ok...

[afidel]

This has a double effect. The AT&T sales rep might actually pass it on to the people that need to know, and if not, the NSA will pass it on for them!

HAHAHAHA, thanks I needed that laugh. I see you've never dealt with AT&T before, the chances of the rep passing that info along are about the same as the sun going nova tomorrow. Oh and I have little faith in the NSA, nothing in that message would have been caught by first level filtering so while it might be stored for some time there's basically no change of it being read.

Re:Ok...

[badkarmadayaccount]

Candlejack, Candlejack, Candle... ^&%(^*(^)NO CARRIER&^&*^(*^%*(#$}{}}{this may be valid perl}

Re:Ok...

[v1]

I don't know what speed they lay it here but it's quite the automated setup. Looks like a giant chainsaw sticking into the ground at an angle. Big reel of this orange PVC tubing, and small reel of the red streamer. It just slowly goes across the land laying and burying the cable as it moves.

There's another group out here running more pedestrian cable with cooler toys. They park the truck where they want one end. Then you see a guy with what looks like a big remote control slowly walking away from the truck, looking at the device and fiddling with it. 3-5ft below him is the head of the drill. He controls the speed and the depth. If he's approaching a known like a sewer pipe, he can direct it up or down, or to go under say a street or get more clearance on something. When he gets where he's going, it's directed up and breaks surface. No digging required, and much less likely to damage something, he'd have to hit it dead on.

Two Ends of the Cable

[superid]

I see that ONE end of the cable is the NSA's, but I wonder where the other one goes....

Re:Two Ends of the Cable

[Roskolnikov]

At&t

Re:Two Ends of the Cable

[DigiShaman]

Up the tax payers ass, naturally.

Re:Two Ends of the Cable

[hedwards]

But what IEEE spec covers that? It's IEEE1394, isn't it?

Re:Two Ends of the Cable

[kv9]

But what IEEE spec covers that? It's IEEE1984, isn't it?

fixed that for you.

Re:Two Ends of the Cable

[machine321]

Perhaps you refer to IEEE 830-1984, "IEEE Guide to Software Requirements Specifications".

Re:Two Ends of the Cable

[deniable]

Gives you a Burning Ring of Firewire, just like a good curry.

Under pressure...

[Roskolnikov]

Having seen lines ran in pressurized pipes (pressure drop... alarms) and break location by reflection it doesn't shock me at all to see this; being spooks you would think they would use easements or dig deeper than usual
to secure such things, but like most work I bet it was contracted out to the cheapest labor they could trust.

I will say though, not listing the location suggests much; if they are afraid that someone could tap into fiber without detection it most likely means they are already doing so, sometimes the thing you fear the most reveals much about your current state.

Re:Under pressure...

[Nicholas Evans]

I think they'd be more worried about somebody cutting all of their fiber at once and knocking an office off the network when something critical was happening.

The NSA probably encrypts all their traffic over-the-wire.

Re:Under pressure...

[bgerlich]

Maybe the reason the location of the cable was "secret" is because the cable was laid without proper procedures and paperwork.

Maybe there were no fancy detection systems, just a couple of guys waiting in an empty lot around the corner and a middle management guy in a murky office somewhere praying for the cable not to get cut and hoping that he will avoid the shitstorm coming his way. It's not like the construction site was a secret and it's not like those things pop up overnight.

Re:Under pressure...

[greyhueofdoubt]

I hate to say it, but no, not really. My podunk base in podunk, minnesota applies the same security and cryptography. For example one of our systems that contains NO secret information, NO C&C abilities, and NO administrative rights requires an *18 character* password that must be changed monthly. One each: letter, upper case letter, number, special character, no words, nothing similar to your last 6 passwords etc. And this is behind our secure two-factor login system and on a secure network. And yet, when the base upgraded to fiber, it was done by 3 guys working out of a rented U-Haul truck. Watched it with my own eyes.

This is just the gov't doing what it does best.

-b

Re:Under pressure...

[sumdumass]

During the cold war, we regularly taped into Russia's fiber and copper lines. They did the same to us or so we expected then to have because we could do it to them. The Russians weren't exactly stupid.

We even have/had subs who's entire job was to find under sea cables coming off the coast of Russia and place bell taps on them.

Fiber can be tapped in much the same way except you need to get around or near the actual fiber lines. This means a cut in the sheath surrounding the bundle. I can't find a reference but I do remember a positive pressurized device that would encapsulate a undersea cable allowing the sheathing to be removed and patched without the sea water penetrating. This same device could probably be used to defeat a pressurized line buried in the ground too. Just stick a regulator on the end of a stout hypodermic needle and penetrate the line, wait for the pressure to equalize and then work with relative impunity.

Re:Under pressure...

[TheLink]

Yeah and when they screw up, I bet they try to shift the blame on trawlers, sharks or someone dragging an anchor...

Re:Under pressure...

[Anonymous Coward]

On a military base I guess that might be OK since physical security is presumably very good, but you realize that a lot of people are just going to write their password down if it's an 18-character one that has to be changed monthly.

That still means its easier for internal abuse if a secretary or a lower-ranking soldier realizes their superior writes down their password and what's to get revenge for something. This probably still isn't an issue in the military or at the very least is very rare.

Re:Under pressure...

[aicrules]

And it's almost certainly a violation of policy for you to post this policy as you're immediately degrading said policy's ability to provide security.

Re:Under pressure...

[sumdumass]

That's entirely possible. However, the recent cuts in the middle east actually was because of someone dragging an anchor. I would assume that when they screw up, they would initially not comment on it at all outside of "don't look at me, I didn't do anything to it".

Re:Under pressure...

[greyhueofdoubt]

Well, not really. There is a purpose to have a password being longer than 15 characters that involves how windows stores the hash, and I won't get into it. Knowing why it works makes it no easier to compromise.

If you search for CAMS/IMDS, you'll come across all kinds of bitching and moaning about this security policy. You want to hear about degraded security? All the people in my backshop share the same password which is written on a postit on the monitor. They got sick of wasting man-hours trying to come up with new strict passwords all the time.

Hell, the password that accesses all my personnel and financial info is only 7 characters. And it's more secure because I don't write it down.

-b

Re:Under pressure...

[TheLink]

I didn't say they'd comment when they screw up.

I'm sure they'd make the break look like an anchor or something else did it rather than it looking like a tap/splice gone wrong.

If it helps (I doubt it) they could get some boat to drag an anchor...

Re:Under pressure...

[sumdumass]

OK, I see your point now. If they screw up, they make the screw up physically resemble one of those other scenarios to deflect suspicion. That seems plausible and probably effective.

Re:Under pressure...

[Anonymous Coward]

rented U-Haul truck

You wouldn't expect the CIA to use a truck marked "CIA Cable Crafters", would you?

Re:Under pressure...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the operation was called Ivy Bells. It cost millions of dollars back then. We had to send subs down there with divers risking their lives until one day Ronald Pelton (an NSA analyst) went to Soviet embassy and sold the info to the Ruskies for $35K.

It is funny how we spend millions of dollars on this cool advanced technology and the Russians can spend less than %1 by hacking people.

At the end of the day, none of that mattered that much. All these spy games were just that, expensive show-offs.

My Dad

[Anonymous Coward]

My dad cut through a cell phone line about a month ago with his bulldozer (he lives on a farm) when we was clearing some soil for his rhubarb. About 30 minutes later a helicopter was circling overhead. Soon there after he met with a FBI agent who showed up on scene. The Verizon workers showed up after that and about 12 hours later the line was patched. This wasnt a fiber line, just a normal cell line, but they took it pretty seriously. We havent gotten a bill in the mail yet, but we are expecting one any day.

Re:My Dad

[HeavyD14]

What the hell is a cell phone line?

Re:My Dad

[Dachannien]

That better be some damn tasty rhubarb.

Re:My Dad

[blue l0g1c]

A line that runs to the cell phone tower?

Re:My Dad

[chill]

A back haul line that runs from the tower to a CLEC. You didn't think they operated on a mesh configuration, did you? They are essentially big access points.

T-1s used to be common, as are bonded T-1s for rural areas. DS-3s and OC-3 fiber beyond that.

Re:My Dad

[MichaelSmith]

Was it on his property? How deep was it? If Verizon ran a shallow cable across his land they should be liable. One farmer here in Victoria, Australia sued Telstra (a big telco) because they ran twisted pair inside his boundary. His equipment dug it up and now that land is useless for farming because his produce is full if little bits of copper wire. It took a while but he won the case.

Re:My Dad

[BiggerIsBetter]

My dad cut through a cell phone line about a month ago with his bulldozer (he lives on a farm) when we was clearing some soil for his rhubarb.

One assumes he was doing this on his own land, and that he didn't know the line was there... so that suggests it was put down without his knowledge or consent?

Re:My Dad

[Jared555]

Or it was placed there before he owned the property

Re:My Dad

[adosch]

I actually have planted rhubarb many times in my life and may I ask why in THE HELL your old man used a bulldozer to plant rhubarb? You guys 'bored' on the farm and need to find a reason to bring out the big toys to play?

Re:My Dad

[ubergeek09]

It could be that the area was brushy and they needed to clear out multifloral rose/small trees/whatever the hell is growing there in order to have a place to plant the rhubarb

Re:My Dad

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends on where you are. In some places, you're legally required to call a digging hotline and wait for someone to come out and mark off all the underground utilities. If you don't and you hit something, you're the one who's liable for their repair costs (much less your own problems from your digging). Also: In some locations very shallow digging may not legally require the process just mentioned, but moving a shallow amount of ground over a large enough area is covered by zoning laws and requires a permit.

Re:My Dad

[sumdumass]

A buddy of mine cut a copper phone cable a few years back running some drain tile to the drainage ditch along the road. They didn't get the helocopters of FBI but a couple of verizon trucks kept running up and down the road. Finally one of them pulls in the drive and asked is anyone was doing any construction around there. They said no but then remembered putting the drain tile in and offered that.

They ended up using the backhoe to dig up access to the line, the guy used a signal wand to find it. The guy and someone else worked for about 6 hours patching 500 some copper lines back together. His total bill was around $6,000 but he ended up getting it cut in half because they were about a foot outside of the right of way. Unfortunately, they placed the drain tile into the right of way so it would have been cut either way so they split the difference. I guess the bill would have been a little more if Verizon would have had to send it's own backhoe out.

They told a story of a fiber line being cut on the other side of the road (fiber on one side and the older copper on the other) that cost the guy 1 million per day that it was down. I guess whoever cuts the line pays for the lost service too. Hope that give you an idea of how much the bill will be.

Re:My Dad

[notmebug]

That better be some damn tasty rhubarb.

Mmm... tastes like state secrets...

Re:My Dad

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be that the area was brushy and they needed to clear out multifloral rose/small trees/whatever the hell is growing there in order to have a place to plant the rhubarb

Could be the was a big ol' root runnin' through the rhubarb patch... a root that looked vaguely like a large OC-3 cable...

Re:My Dad

[noidentity]

My dad cut through a cell phone line[...]

I guess back in his day cell phones had a long wire... be thankful they're now wireless!

Re:My Dad

[Mathness]

... the guy used a signal wand to find it.

One would have expected Harry Potter to get a less mundane job.

Re:My Dad

[kriston]

The party responsible for the damage does have some protection if they had already called your area's "one call" utility locator system. In our area it's called "Miss Utility." The name is so clever I had to mention it. Some areas it's even a 3-digit phone number like "811." If the lines weren't marked by the utility locator and you damage them you can get some relief from liability but ONLY if you called the locator and allowed enough time for the lines to be marked.

Re:My Dad

[sumdumass]

I don't know if the guys name was harry potter or not. A signal wand is a flashlight type device with a cone over the end of it and they can hold lens filters on the very end of them. This one had a UV filter and was able to illuminate part of the coating around the cables allowing them to detect the wires in the trench with just a tiny portion showing through the dirt.

Re:My Dad

[JerryLove]

I wasn't aware that they were allowed to run cable across (non-easment) private property to begin with.

I understand in the CIA's case if they do this, but running cable to a cell tower across a private farm? Did your dad forget that he let them do that, or buy the farm after it was done?

Re:My Dad

[sumdumass]

Good call for mentioning that.

In my area, it's 1-800-dig or the Ohio Utilities Protection Service! .

I didn't find that out about it until after the scenario my friend had and I totally forgot about it when until you reminded me. I guess it is free to mark public utilities but private lines may end up costing. I'm required to give at least 48 hours (legal hours not including holidays, weekends and so on) notice before digging and if they fail to mark the lines, you can assume they have declared that they have no lines in the area. Or at least in my area.

Thanks for reminding me of that.

Re:My Dad

[afidel]

Some sites are remote enough to use microwave backhauls, there are a few in Yellowstone and a few around the grand canyon that I've seen.

Nothing to see here ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... move along, please.

Re:Nothing to see here ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Behold! The infamous NSA mind trick at display here.

fiber?

[socsoc]

Where in TFA does it mention fiber? It says line over and over again. For all we know it could have been Cat 3

Re:fiber?

[yincrash]

The first sentence.

This part happens all the time: A construction crew putting up an office building in the heart of Tysons Corner a few years ago hit a fiber optic cable no one knew was there.

Re:fiber?

[marcansoft]

The first sentence.

Re:Obligatory slurs

[Ethanol-fueled]

Why dont they just pay with double cheesebugers?

Oh, wait.

I can imagine the conversation

[blue l0g1c]

MiB: Pardon me, you seem to have cut our wire. Contractor: Who are you? MiB: Oh us, uh, we're nobody. Contractor: Well, whose wire is this and why hasn't it been documented? MiB: What wire? Contractor: This wire right here! Whose wire is this? MiB: That? That's nobody's Contractor: Ah HA! So it is yours! MiB: What's whose now?

Re:I can imagine the conversation

[blue l0g1c]

What you submitted appears below. If there is a mistake...well, you should have used the 'Preview' button!

*facepalm*

Re:I can imagine the conversation

[Ian Alexander]

You missed the end, where they explain that it was just some swamp gas.

Re:I can imagine the conversation

[Anpheus]

It's just the line that connects the swamp gas sensor to the weather balloon feedback loop.

Nothing to see here.

Re:I can imagine the conversation

[Nyvhek]

I agree with the +5 funny, but I think some line breaks would really have helped here.

President's personal porn link

[syousef]

No president wants to go back to browsing the Internet on a slow link y'all. By taking out the line you're now responsible for $100 worth of that other kind of cable bill.

CAT 3? Nope. It was fishing line.

[CFD339]

For all the help the article has, it could very well be nylon fishing wire stretched tightly between some tin cans on opposite sides of DC.

Already on site

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason the "men in black" SUV's arrive so soon, is because they are already know where their lines run, and are already close to the site, and have been monitoring all radio traffic on site (and likely all other communications), and even have a visual link to the work site close to their black utilities.

Story from the year 2000

[Anonymous Coward]

Read TFA. .."Georgelas, the developer whose company was overseeing the work in 2000"..

That's nearly a decade ago!

Not a new problem

[R2.0]

I worked with a civil engineer who was on the Washington Metro construction for a while. One day the unearthed a concrete ductbank that wasn't on any maps, etc. SOP was that, if it's not accounted for, cut it, so they did.

Within 5 minutes the Secret Service was down in the hole, had stopped work and kicked everybody out of the tunnel - apparently, the ductbank housed the "nuclear hotline" and losing contact with the other side could have been interpreted as a prelude to an attack.

Puckered assholes all around, that day.

Re:Not a new problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like bullshit to me.

Re:Not a new problem

[LordKronos]

If that is really what the line was for, then nobody would have told you that's what it was for.

Re:Not a new problem

[RyoShin]

With all this, wouldn't Washington have some sort of department that all construction plans have to be submitted to, and the lone guy with security clearance compares the construction zones with secret lines/locations? I would think this would save a lot of time and hassle and, considering how the government likes to create useless jobs, am surprised that it doesn't seem to exist (but not surprised if it does exist and they just don't do their job right).

Re:Not a new problem

[__aaclcg7560]

Sounds like FUD to me. :P

Re:Not a new problem

[aaarrrgggh]

look up SCIF. Security is all about compartmentalization. Make sure no one person knows all the secrets.

With the cost of tunnel boring machines now, you would think anything really critical would be far too deep for things like this.

Re:Not a new problem

[Tomfrh]

Sounds like BS to me too. We often come across unexpected cables and you don't just cut them.

Re:Not a new problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, you misunderstand compartmentalization grasshopper. There is not one lone guy with security clearances to all the secret stuff that's going on. It'd have to be a large department, with guys with clearances from each, and that would threaten the compartmentalization. Other than that, good idea though.

Re:Not a new problem

[MacAnkka]

Maybe they already have something like that in place? Just because there is some sort of construction going on near a secret cable, doesn't mean it will certainly be cut. It would make sense to keep a close eye on construction projects that have a possibility to cut a black wire, but only step in when it actually happens. Telling everyone who does some construction near your secret cable to be careful not cut that secret cable that's not supposed to be there would seem to defeat the whole idea of a secret cable

Re:Not a new problem

[foo fighter]

You'd think so, wouldn't you.

Re:Not a new problem

[kriston]

Well, as you can surmise by this obvious urban legend, it did not actually happen. (Ft).

Re:Not a new problem

[Eivind Eklund]

Sounds like BS to me too. We often come across unexpected cables and you don't just cut them.

That varies. I know of at least one company that instituted the policy of "If you don't know it, cut it"; they'd had a problem of their network slowly getting undocumented over years, spent a lot of effort and money on getting it in order again, and had the "cut undocumented stuff" policy to make sure it didn't get undocumented again. It really would cut down on motivation for somebody to think "I'll document it later".

Eivind.

Re:Not a new problem

[u38cg]

Mmm. And while I'm no expert, I'm fairly sure the hotline is not the purview of the USSS.

Doesn't surprise me

[guruevi]

There is a lot of cable in the ground even for civil use that isn't really on the plans. But the government and it's agencies really have a thing for not documenting anything for whatever reason.

I work in a building that was commissioned by the Atomic Energy Commission for the Manhattan Project. It should've been torn down a long time ago but it was more expensive to do that than to renovate it. Right now we're inheriting the 2nd floor of the building where they have been empty since the end of the Cold War (I recently found a stash of unopened era software) but nobody has any plans to the original layout (they went missing somewhere in the 50's) so the DoE did a (nuclear and structural) survey of the site and mapped it out. However the contractors started working and found a room with a lead door, 15" concrete walls, a chair and a small observation window. Needed to do a whole new nuclear survey and remap the whole thing by an internal team. The architect recreated his plans with the new data and found out that there is a bunch of space missing on the (currently empty) 3rd floor. We're not yet renovating there but for some or another reason the decision was made from higher up to leave the 3rd floor untouched until we really need that space.

Re:Doesn't surprise me

[Mr680x0]

What is this Cold War era software? It sounds interesting.

Re:Doesn't surprise me

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you like to play Global Thermonuclear War?

(Y/N?)

Re:Doesn't surprise me

[guruevi]

The more commonly known stuff is the first versions of Lotus 1-2-3, OS/2 for Windows 3.0, a few pictogram libraries (for a Commodore) and Laplink. There was a bunch of old hardware thrown out too and now we're tearing out the last 10-Base 5 (transceivers still hanging in) and we threw out a 'router' the size of a full rack.

Re:Doesn't surprise me

[Anonymous Coward]

There's space... missing... on the 3rd floor?

I think you need something more than an architect to worry about that one! Where's Doctor Who when he's needed?

Re:Doesn't surprise me

[macshit]

Gee that actually sounds like a pretty cool location to work...
(what city is this building in?)

Re:Doesn't surprise me

[Nefarious Wheel]

However the contractors started working and found a room with a lead door, 15" concrete walls, a chair and a small observation window.

Ignoring for the moment the fear of radioactive spiders, arbitrarily green physicists or other subcultural agents, I presume someone poked a radiation-measuring instrument in the general direction of the inside of that room?

Re:Doesn't surprise me

[MikeBabcock]

So that's where the top-secret super-collider was located.

Re:Doesn't surprise me

[ColaMan]

Ignoring for the moment the fear of radioactive spiders, arbitrarily green physicists or other subcultural agents, I presume someone poked a radiation-measuring instrument in the general direction of the inside of that room?

Or maybe one should poke a radiation-measuring instrument around the outside of that room?

*tightens tinfoil hat*

::EYES ONLY::EYES ONLY::EYES ONLY::
::PROJECT CUPCAKE::
::START DATE JUNE 25 1964::
::PROJECT BRIEF::

This project involves dusting the second floor of our disused research building with radionuclides of a quantity typical of the levels generated by large-scale atomic weaponry at close range. Subsequent to this dusting, the floor will then be populated with monkeys that are trained to perform menial, repetitive tasks for as long as possible. An observer will be positioned in the shielded room (originally used for research) on this floor and will be able to record the ability of the monkeys to perform their tasks, as well as the subsequent rapid death of the monkeys. Due to high levels of radioactivity and the long life of decay products, it is recommended that this building no longer be used after this project.

::END BRIEF::
 
::EYES ONLY::EYES ONLY::EYES ONLY::EYES ONLY::
::ADDENDUM TO PROJECT CUPCAKE::AUGUST 5 1967::
::PROJECT BRIEF ADDENDUM::

In addition to the previous research, the long term effect of radioactive compounds on humans to be studied at the facility until the background radiation drops to ambient levels. As such, this building is to be leased to the general public and local cancer and leukemia rates monitored until further notice.
::END BRIEF::

Re:Doesn't surprise me

[jonwil]

OS/2 for Windows? You mean there was actually a time when Microsoft and IBM WEREN'T at each others throats?

Re:Doesn't surprise me

[Tokerat]

There's space... missing... on the 3rd floor?

The entrance to John Malkovitch's head is up there.

Re:Doesn't surprise me

[Anonymous Coward]

This might help explain it: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3346382/Triumph_of_the_Nerds

No surprise here...

[__aaclcg7560]

A former roommate of mine works for the FBI as a network technician and carries a gun when goes to a location. He would neither confirm nor deny that some network issues deserve to be shot on sight.

Re:No surprise here...

[Shadow of Eternity]

I've had networking issues like that before, one of them never did figure out where to order "IR cables".

Re:No surprise here...

[Gen. Malaise]

Im a private sector tech who does the same thing..... parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx require a similar response....

Re:No surprise here...

[Anonymous Coward]

A former roommate of mine works for the FBI as a network technician and carries a gun when goes to a location. He would neither confirm nor deny that some network issues deserve to be shot on sight.

The gun is for issues flagged as PEBKAC right?

Happens in business also

[JavaManJim]

Way back when I graduated college and started work for a major USA oil company.

The IT department had a neat graphics printer. Oil companies generally have a lot of money resulting in great toys. One of the experienced IT developers said; "Watch, this graphics printer prints the coolest maps!". That map had printed just an interesting six inches on its way to 30". Then security showed up. Confiscated the map. Shut down the terminal and printer. And wrote everyone up. Security said about ten words. Then left. We looked at each other mystified and shrugged.

Oh yes, the oil company could and did hire all sorts of experts. Those security folks likely had serious experience.

Thanks,
The J

Re:Happens in business also

[greyhueofdoubt]

Maybe it was a map of where they stored all the secret over-unity motors and prototypes of 100-MPG, 200 horsepower engines that they are trying to keep hidden.

My guess? They got tired of employees wasting ink printing out highway maps of the eastern seaboard so they called in the professionals.

-b

Re:Happens in business also

[JavaManJim]

Nothing so exotic. And this was Dallas TX. We were guys. Guys don't and never did use maps. Just keep on driving.

It was no doubt extremely valuable. A geographical seismic map. Probably of some area they were thinking of leasing. Oil drilling is serious money. Money to drill but much more money comes out of the ground.

Thanks

Re:Happens in business also

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you had found the map of Dick Cheney's undisclosed location.

Dark black fiber?

[blake182]

It makes me wonder if there's dark black fiber. Or is it black dark fiber... Either way, it's fiber that you don't know is there, and doesn't transmit any data.

So if you cut it, does it make a noise?

Re:Dark black fiber?

[__aaclcg7560]

Black fiber belongs to the government. Dark fiber belongs to Google. ;)

Re:Dark black fiber?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, when Google starts selling its surplus fiber lines to the NSA...

Re:Dark black fiber?

[The Rizz]

So black dark fiber belongs to The Gooblement?

Oh, for christ's sake

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent's link leads to horrible malicious shock site, avoid at all costs. Yeah, I know I'm an idiot for clicking, shut up.

Re:Oh, for christ's sake

[an unsound mind]

That shock site is the specific reason why most Slashdot posters use NoScript, yes you are an idiot for clicking and why on earth would you click on a link in a gigantic thread of troll posts?

Interesting story,

[Anonymous Coward]

but I think it would have been fun to see the MIB faces if instead of a construction crew there was a ships anchor sticking out of the hole.

Re:Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty crazy. Makes me happy I don't live near there.

Why? Because you'd somehow be inconvenienced when the NSA's fiber optic cable gets accidentally severed?

Jeez... if you're going to try for a first post without being a troll, at least have something intelligent to say.

Marked Range to determine fault and payee

[__aazsst3756]

In most states the contractor is only liable if the line is marked properly and within a reasonable distance from the mark. The utility will bill the contractor for repairs if the cable/pipe/line is cut within 3 feet (in my state anyway) of the mark. The biggest problem is utilities unable to mark their buried lines within 3' (they don't know exactly were it is either).

Mysterious fibres, government conspiracy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be morgellons!

Security by obscurity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh yes, the ultimate in security by obscurity, kind of like making Google blur sensitive areas: "Attention terrorists! This here blurred area is super-secret!"

In this case? "Attention terrorists! The black fiber is here!"

If their crypto was truly secure, they should feel comfortable blasting that stuff down "white fiber"--whether dedicated, leased, or even across the Internet.

And if they must have "dark" fiber, what's the best response if it gets cut during construction? Probably to let it go and quietly repair it. Making a scene about it just makes it worse.

My home burglar alarm uses GSM, and is impervious to someone accidentally or intentionally cutting lines to my house. So don't tell me the feds rely on hard wiring for anything really crucial.

Security Through Obscurity is not security

[gavron]

It's a shame that the agencies entrusted with our country's security don't have the training in real security. Security through obscurity is not security; it's a sham. If these "black cables" were properly identified as "fiber optic conduits" they would be as much of a nontarget as any other.

On another note, fiber optic bundles have a copper core so they can be found by magnetic detectors (and the "blue stake people") to avoid being hit by a backhoe strike. It's more unlikely that the contractor failed to check for the cable than the Federal Government has special backhoe-attracting cable.

E

Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security

[Sir_Lewk]

The give-away would probably be where these "fiber optic conduits" are running. If there is a line marked going from the Whitehouse to some old "abandoned" military bases somewhere, people would probably figure out pretty quick it's not just an ordinary cable.

Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security

[The Rizz]

fiber optic bundles have a copper core so they can be found by magnetic detectors (and the "blue stake people") to avoid being hit by a backhoe strike. It's more unlikely that the contractor failed to check for the cable than the Federal Government has special backhoe-attracting cable.

Then again, if they were trying to keep it secret, odds are they would have laid fiber without the copper core so it couldn't be found by magnetic detectors.

Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security

[Darth_brooks]

Your comment is a contradiction. On one hand, you say by not acknowledging the cable's existence, the cable is insecure. The better solution, is to acknowledge the cable (that apparently no one knows about) because then no one will know about it because its existence as a 'secret' cable will be.....wait for it.....obscured by the fact that there are other cables! Ta da! You've invented a new form of 'security' by 'obscuring' the cables existence. Bully for you.

"Security through obscurity" is a catchphrase that somehow implies that obscurity is on its face an invalid tool. It's not. It never will be. Ever. If it wasn't, infantrymen would be running around in fashionable day-glo orange jumpsuits with pretty pastel helmets. "Security through obscurity" is *only* a bad thing when it's the only means used to secure something When used in conjunction with other methods and tools, it's a great benefit.

Example: Set up a public facing SSH server on port 22. Watch what happens to your log files after about 24 hours. They'll start filling up with break-in attempts. Now move the server up to a non-registered port. 99.9% of those break-in attempts disappear. Why? The bots don't see an active server, so they move on. Can the service still be found? yes. Can the bots start hammering away on the new port? yes. But, by obscuring the port that SSH listens on, have I made the machine dramatically more secure? Maybe not dramatically, but it's slightly more secure. I still need to enforce password policy. I should still install a tool like Denyhosts. But I've taken a huge step to cut down the chances that some bot will get lucky and crack a login/password in a drive-by attack.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the links getting cut have some level of redundancy. Somewhere in the planning stages, this kind of event has to have come up, and I'll put money on there being a contingency in effect.

Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security

[gavron]

You misunderstood what I said.

I didn't say failure to acknowledge the cable made it more secure. What I said is that failure to list it on the maps does not make it more secure. Nobody needs to "acknowledge" it (whatever that means). What they need to do is list it on maps just like all other F/O cables so it doesn't stand out.

Your analogy with SSH is nice, but not cryptologically meaningful. You've created a defense that would defeat an unsophisticated attacker. We do not design security to defeat unsophisticated attacks. The sophisticated attacker isn't fooled by port-renumbering or other obscurity. It doesn't "help" nor "make it harder" in any cryptologically significant manner.

So, yes, 5 locks are more secure than 4 locks. Anyone who can break 4 will break 5, so it's not significant. Similarly hiding the port number is more secure than not hiding the port number. However, it doesn't change a one-hour break into more than a one hour one minute break.

Sorry, security through obscurity isn't.

Ehud

Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security

[kriston]

This is total nonsense. They're telecommunications cables just like the others. They are mapped. They were accidentally cut. There is so much telecom in Tysons Corner it's expected to happen.

The only thing I have to say about your "security through obscurity" comment is that you are wrong. Even with physical access to such fiber, and if you could conceivably receive the optical signal therein with your MWM fiber receiver (that you took 3 days to splice into the data stream), the encryption on the line stops you dead cold.

The real story is that the construction rojects, in particular Metro rail to Dulles, is causing all kinds of logisticaly headaches and accidental fiber cuts.
There is no real security concern here, even with regards to denial-of-service.

Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security

[Atlantis-Rising]

All security measures rely on obscurity to ensure that security.

You don't believe me? Give me all your private encryption keys and see how long your cryptographic solution resists attack.

Don't want to? That defeats the point? Bingo, that's obscurity right there.

Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security

[gavron]

> All security measures rely on obscurity...

"All"? *LOL* No.

> You don't believe me? Give me all your private encryption keys...

Here you go

ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc27AAAABIwAAAQEAu+LnwWFT8mctHTehCIIOJF8R9VAcRhJ6lwVfkJLJdONebiXSeq4Z+qk6aJX03rcrcwRfqmdOffx7XRNdtOYkj6KGHDToYKz9sfvsc4IENcYN5EOAD2sGxV5xSYcEsjiBL+2LoAf0rvDDzJlEEfPNiLf4uoOZDzFKBU0T5xNBRafqdbMx6d34Gnso/3Hby7kmhSn1RDGI/qS9g5RFrwcrlAcU3F7K3Y7233eLjQcjOlSCMkP5YZ+R0PO+wihK7WBUUbMYQAAs7b9vlBaK/doQ6zfg5e/RvPSOrDq1ho4Q6kKmB86yzlyTOfh6An+IKIJ0GqJSrhBtLfcel8i6dPpHzw== gavron@homelaptop

Come back and interrupt the adults when you've got something useful from that. Yes, it is my key.

E

Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security

[Fulcrum of Evil]

I guess you're unclear on the concept of what a password is. Of course handing over the keys to the lock makes the lock pointless. It's not obscurity, though.

Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security

[Anonymous Coward]

The US did this during Operation Ivy Bells. The Navy reasoned the Russians would use an undersea cable from their base in Petropavlovsk to the mainland due to the geography of the region. A sub is sent and sure enough, on the coast is huge sign saying "Don't Anchor - Undersea Cable".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells

Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security

[Darth_brooks]

You've created a defense that would defeat an unsophisticated attacker.

You can stop right there. I've created *a* defense. Obscurity is a *level* of defense, that's all it is. No, it's not going to hide the machine from someone who's adding -p 1-65535 to the end of their nmap scans. It's not going to magically protect me from someone trying to crack my particular server if I haven't patched a known exploit. It will protect me from the most basic attack, worms, that are looking for basic configs. How many SQL worms are out there banging away on port 1414? If I'm running a vulnerable server on port 1415, is that machine going to get infected by one of those ancient worms? No. Is it still vulnerable to a dedicated attacker, yes. But I've got a massive subset of attacks that I've mitigated with a very simple config change.

It bears repeating: The problem comes from making obscurity your only defense. Obscurity should always be a part of your defense.

We do not design security to defeat unsophisticated attacks.

Then why do you lock your server room doors? Or encrypt hard drives? Or install a fire suppression system in the building? Don't kid yourself, it's the unsophisticated attack that you need to worry about first and fucking foremost.

So, yes, 5 locks are more secure than 4 locks. Anyone who can break 4 will break 5, so it's not significant. Similarly hiding the port number is more secure than not hiding the port number. However, it doesn't change a one-hour break into more than a one hour one minute break.

Obscurity isn't about 5 locks instead of 4. Obscurity is the first lock. If obscurity doesn't work, why do we change passwords? All we're doing is 'obscuring' the password.

I can cat back through years of auth.log's and not see one. single. solitary. unauthorized login attempt on one of my boxes. Not one. Why? The SSH server sits on an unregistered port. Do I trust bragging about that statement enough to post the IP and port number here? Fuck no. But by obscuring the number, that machine is, at the very least, not a target of opportunity. That has to count for something in anybody's book. In several years, people haven't even *tried* to break in. But every day, there are attempts to open cmd.exe in the apache logs.

Obscurity is not a panacea, it's a step. It's a step in the overall security process that has gotten diminished by people spouting off a catchphrase.

Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security

[Anonymous Coward]

Copper is weakly diamagnetic (i.e. repulsive) so you cannot locate it at room temperature with metal detectors.

What you can detect with a backhoe is the warning tape generally planted a foot above the cable stating: "STOP! BURIED CABLE!"

Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security

[Atlantis-Rising]

How is it not obscurity? All security relies on hiding something. It doesn't have to be the object to be secured; it can be a key to the object that you are attempting to secure, but the security is reliant on the object you are trying to hide not being discovered.

Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security

[Daychilde]

Here's a quick counter-example: Part of the security of a military base would be the guards at the entrances wielding big scary guns. They're really not obscure, and that's precisely the point.

There may *also* be guards who wish to remain unseen. But there is a significant portion of security (in nearly any application thereof) whose point is precisely to be as unobscured as possible.

Your blanket statements are ill-conceived. You may well have some valid points, but your current argument is flawed, in my opinion.

Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security

[Fulcrum of Evil]

No, all security relies on some way of authenticating people so you can keep the wrongw ones out. pass phrases are one way, and ID cards are another.

Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security

[Atlantis-Rising]

There are authentication codes which will allow you to pass by the guards of that military base. Those codes are concealed. The guards may be more intelligent intrusion detection systems; they may be more discriminating; but ultimately if you have a key, they will let you pass, and therefore the agency that employs those guards is trying to keep you from getting your hands on that key by keeping it secret.

Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security

[m50d]

But, by obscuring the port that SSH listens on, have I made the machine dramatically more secure? Maybe not dramatically, but it's slightly more secure.

No, it's less secure - now, you can no longer be sure you have no obvious vulnerabilities, and people who go after your machine specifically have a good chance of finding them. Wheras if you run it on the standard port, you can tell you have no easy open holes by the way your website hasn't been defaced yet.

Tysons Metro is a boondoggle

[schwit1]

I live on the west end of Tysons and expect the Metro will increase my property value. But the $5.2B($900M is federal) cost of this project will never come close to being financially justifiable. As with most government projects I expect that price tag to double before completion.

Re:Tysons Metro is a boondoggle

[ServerIrv]

Sometimes keeping people employed on large projects is a good enough reason for a government job, stimulating the economy and trying to keep unemployment numbers down.

origin of the mistake

[omi5cron]

someone put it there to begin with. are there stealth ninja line crews/ backhoe operators? if so, their creds need to be revoked or pulled!! maybe its like the mob-- have them install it, then make them "disappear". color me flabbergasted that the gov. screwed up!!

Talk to the hand

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked with a construction company a couple of years back and we had these guys turn up one day when we cut a cable. They started with their intimidation and he told them if you want me to sort this out give me some details and I'll give you a quote otherwise get out of my space. They wouldn't give any details so he said fine and turned his back on them and walked away. They stood there for a while and then jumped back into their cars and left.

In the end we didn't fix the cable and weren't aware that anyone else did either. We just kept on going and back filled the hole a day or two later.

Still don't know who they were, what the cable did and whether it was fixed but on that day it seems like if you ignore them they go away.

Are we sure they're secret cables?

[Todd Knarr]

If I were trying to keep a cable secret, I'd make sure the real cable was clearly recorded on the maps as something totally innocuous and not connected to anything secret at all. If it got cut, it'd get repaired per normal procedure for the kind of cable it's marked as (and I'll have sufficient backups that I don't need to make the repair an attention-grabbing rush job). Then I'd lay a few completely unused but highly suspicious-looking decoy cables, making sure they occasionally got cut and that there was a suitably public trying-to-look-not-public scramble to repair them. That way anybody trying to find my cables was likely to glom onto the ones I was trying to keep hidden, and probably wouldn't even bother looking at "backup equipment monitoring line, sewage pumping station 37, Department of Public Works".

Re:Are we sure they're secret cables?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you'd be leaving yourself open to anyone who has access to the records, the abilities of deductive reasoning, and is as smart as you are when it comes to security ideas. If someone wanted to target a specific building, then they'll look at what cables there are in that area and go from there, including guessing where all the different cables are going (and therefore what it could be), and ignoring what they've been marked as.

Re:Are we sure they're secret cables?

[Todd Knarr]

No, I wouldn't be leaving myself open. Those "innocuous" cables would have all the proper security precautions to prevent tapping, plus the traffic on them would be encrypted to keep it secure even if someone tapped the cable (defense in depth). But the decoy cables would keep the ordinary nosies occupied, depriving the people going after the real cables of cover. It's much easier to spot intruders disguised as clumps of brush on a well-mowed lawn than in a tangle of brush./p.

Re:Are we sure they're secret cables?

[jeff4747]

I'd make sure the real cable was clearly recorded on the maps as something totally innocuous and not connected to anything secret at all.

Um...how would you accurately record the location of your secret cables, yet not have them lead to a "secret" location?

If your map is accurate, the cable leads into some three-letter agency's building.

If the cable doesn't lead into such a building, your map is inaccurate.

Re:Are we sure they're secret cables?

[SlashRSlashN]

Or better yet, do all that, then throw a few unmarked "red flag" cables down and act like it's a matter of immediate national security the instant they get cut.

The public thinks you have secret cables, and they're still clueless.

Re:Are we sure they're secret cables?

[markyd123]

Maybe that's what's happening here. ...or maybe that's what they *want* us to think.. ;)

Re:Are we sure they're secret cables?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the one that was cut *was* a decoy...

Building a Map

[DrYak]

~But then some eeeevil pirate pedo-terrorist could build a map of all secrets just by submitting a big enough collection of bogus construction plans ?~

The solution is obvious...

[crimbil]

Using the TSA model (shoes, liquids, etc.) the only possible solution is to prohibit backhoe use. Remember, when backhoes are outlawed, only terrorists will have backhoes. Why, right now there could be huge numbers of terrorists in heavy equipment training classes, just planning and waiting for the opportunity to dig up phone, internet, power, water, and gas lines throughout the USA. And without any of the things supplied by those lines, just think of what would happen to the children. You may now commence with the hysteria. Alert the press.

Re:The solution is obvious...

[u38cg]

I think I just found my next entry for Schneier's movie plot contest.

So does "Black" Fiber ...

[arthurpaliden]

Use black light ??

Re:So does "Black" Fiber ...

[drizek]

Of course. It mixes red, green and blue light to produce black, so it has triple the bandwidth.

Re:So does "Black" Fiber ...

[arthurpaliden]

Ah, light does not do that...you get white, you get black with paint.

Re:Wow...

[soren202]

deleted, or "deleted"?

Maybe both.

I call shenanigans...

[Anonymous Coward]

... This doesn't sound like it really happened. Within moments someone came. Yeah, right. There is NO way to have turn-around that fast and still stay inconspicuous. They would have to be a local and very conspicuous outfit, which defeats the purpose of having a black-ops in the first place. All that withstanding, an incident usually has to go up a chain, a with human links connecting the automated ones, and there's no way in hell most outfits, let alone the government can get humans orchestrated that effeciently. This is all mostly or entirely lies, I'm pretty sure.

Re:I call shenanigans...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless they're already watching, waiting...

Been There- Done That

[b4upoo]

I worked installing street lights and traffic lights as well as all the underground material that connects them right on top of some government lines. In one case I was on top of coral, limestone and sandstone covered by side walks and under the over hangs of numerous businesses. We had little short shovels and picks and had to dig 4x4ft. holes nine feet deep through that rock every hundred feet or so for many miles. Striking the buried cable, even with a hand tool, would have resulted in financial disaster. Little things like the US Air Force depended on those lines. It is also a big issue near the Florida Keys as boat anchors tend disrupt cables that relate to national defence.

Completely fallacious and sensationalized nonsense

[kriston]

This fallacious story is featured all over the the local news today here in DC
The problem is not that the lines aren't mapped--they ARE mapped just like any other utility.
The real problem is that the maps aren't perfect.

Here's the real scoop:
There have been nearly 40 cable cuts in Tysons since the Metro line to Dulles started construction.
There is a government-owned antenna tower on the highest hill in Tysons, too.
The ACTUAL problem is that Tysons Corner is the center of the Eastern USA internet capacity. Sure, MAE-East was here, but it's moved to Ashburn, and those lines still cross through Tysons Corner.
Naturally, government lines are part of the rats nest that the Metro must tunnel through.

Bottom line is: all the lines are mapped but the maps aren't perfect.
The agencies do not bury secret cables. To do so would not only be dangerous, it would be silly.
They're just cables like any other.

In other news, that big hill on Rte. 123 had been restricted to heavy trucks after test cores indicated faulty soil but that restriction has been lifted.

Ah, the dreaded....

[idiotnot]

...as my old boss, a radio engineer, termed it: "backhoe fade."

Happened to one of our transmitter sites. We switched to a microwave STL, which just had to be retired (only about 4 years later), because of a new skyscraper going in. :-/

So, back to the telco lines.....

As for the CLAN cut, I'm guessing this is probably a protocol violation somewhere. In many installations I've seen, even in secured areas, this stuff is encased in concrete.

Operation Ivy Bells

[Anonymous Coward]

The Russians left out the "Top Secret" part, but they clearly marked their secret communications cables with "Do Not Anchor". This had an unfortunate side effect.

Re:Completely fallacious and sensationalized nonse

[drmofe]

I have to say, reading the original article, I was reminded about the story about the fully-mobilized North Korean army sitting in trucks with the engines running, ready to invade South Korea at a moment's notice. Good scare story, completely false. If a line gets cut, and it is for anything important, you have a redundant route, so no crisis. You then send a normal maintenance crew out to take care of the one that got cut. If it isn't important, no crisis, so you send out a normal looking maintenance crew. You don't send out a crew of guys in an SUV to blow cover.

Re:Wow...

[tyrione]

Ever considered a life as a Postal Worker in the Midwest? Just look at this light.

When my Backhoe...

[dreemernj]

When my backhoe gets out of line I give it a backslap to the backface.

Re:Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

both, or maybe both?

maybe.

Cut plenty of things with my backhoe.

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't cut anything majorly serious in my time because usually the really serious things scare the boss enough that he'll meet the people who're supposed to come out and detect all the stuff. Makes sure they actually check for the lines and paint where they are instead of finding point A and point B and assuming they run in a straight line.

But I've cut yard electrical lines servicing a garage because people swore it ran in a straight line, and sure enough it zigzaged around a tree, around the corner of their driveway...not enough electricity to cause any serious problems. But annoying.

One job had a major gas line running through the front yard, but they weren't sure if it ran straight with the road or ran diagonal. They also told us it was only six inches deep on first check. So call em back up, tell em to come out and check it again since we're putting in a driveway and need to cut down about 18 inches deep where it was marked. Sure enough they come out and dig and about 2 feet later...still no gas pipe. On this same job I cut through a power line powering the household.....it ran to their garage, then to their house. Was supposed to be couple feet deep and it was barely six inches under the asphalt. It ran diagonal from the pole, then made a perpendicular cross at the driveway...then diagonal again...and when going to the house it ran along the driveway for a bit then diagonal. It's like they plan on making sure you cut the hell out of their lines. When the guy came out for the repair, he was pissed talking about billing us etc etc. Until he was shown that it wasn't deep enough, and then he found out that the wire wasn't even the right gauge for that kind of install and says they need to redo the entire thing to get the house proper power. Said he thinks it would probably kill the appliances in the house (they bought it a few months prior).

Cut through underground drain pipes for people's down spouts that run to the storm sewer.......and their leech pipes to help drain their yards in the poor drainage areas. They put em in 20-30 years ago and they don't have a clue how they ran them, but they'll tell you something to try to help you out anyway. Wouldn't be surprised if they intended you to hit them so you'd have to repair em and make sure they are clear of stuff and working.

Was working at an old school, turned bus/maintenance building. Which used to be where there was something to do with trains...grain silo or something. Found some tracks, but they weren't in the way and they didn't want to pay to remove em. Then we got down deep repairing their bus parking lot which was basically mud underneath, found a bunch of unmarked stuff. Power lines, found a couple of huge underground tanks that had been capped off but never filled. So they had these two massive underground tanks breaking down with no way to access them, and they weren't filled with concrete or stone. So if they had caved in, they would have had some massive problems. Considering it was in a water sensitive area, and those tanks were within 30-50 feet of a good size creek. Give you an idea of the size of these tanks. They were deep enough we sent a guy in on a harness...about 10 feet of rope he wasn't to the bottom. But he said you could easily store a single axle dump truck inside of both of them. So 12-15 feet tall, and 15-20 feet long. And one may have been bigger than that. At this same location we pulled a concrete ball out of the ground that used to be a flag pole base. That concrete ball took two machines to lift into the back of a dump truck with it's tail gate off....and that was after it was jack hammered to make it small enough to fit. Someone went totally crazy with the concrete on that flag pole, unless it was a thousand feet or so tall.

Then you get into locations where it was residential turn commercial. And you see these places where they have sections of their parking lot that's just crumbling and sinking...and does so for years. Then you discover that the guy who was in cha

Re:Completely fallacious and sensationalized nonse

[jeff4747]

You don't send out a crew of guys in an SUV to blow cover.

The guys in the SUV aren't there to fix the line. They're there to make sure you accidentally broke the line. As in you're not deliberately cutting their communications, or made a huge mistake while installing a tap.

As such, they need to arrive quickly and start asking questions quickly.

!news

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone please tag this !news, the event the article references happened years ago. Stupid newspapers digging up old crap and passing it as new on a slow news day...

Types of fiber

[Iffie]

So you have - common fiber (no prefix, in normal conduits) - dirty fiber (fiber dug into the ground without much protection) - black fiber (fiber burried in unexpected places that nobody is supposed to know of)

Red Clay

[Anonymous Coward]

Our ground is red clay here, so everything is red colored.

Re:Red Clay

[TheLink]

Yeah, they should mark it blue instead.

Plenty of red clay. Plenty of browns and yellows. Maybe even some greens. Not so much blue soil around.

rentacops in jumpsuits

[Anonymous Coward]

While it is cute that they can afford to keep a few carfuls of rentacops on standby a block away in case the fibre is cut,

What where they gonna do really? Tell them to splice the cable again pronto?
Did the rentacops bring their own splicing equipment to fix the cable or ddi they only show up for show?

I dont belive for one second that the guys showing up were not minimum wage rentacops. If they werent, you really need to look into how your taxmone is wasted.

A hint

[SmallFurryCreature]

Don't sue the guys who can answer the question "you and what army" with "that is classified information, citizen #674572".

Always carry a length of fiber

[Slashcrap]

That way if you're ever lost in a desert, you can just lay it in the ground and wait.

When the backhoe operator cuts it, ask him to rescue you.

Re:Wow...

[True Vox]

Well, I'm sorry it wasn't clear enough for you. Simply put, I wouldn't want to live ANYWHERE where black vans could pull up within SECONDS. Just kinda creeps me out.

Re:Wow...

[leuk_he]

When the suits cannot read /. they will have to get out of their builings.

Amana Range to determine fault and payee

[Ostracus]

I'm thinking ground penetrating radar would help here.

Re:Completely fallacious and sensationalized nonse

[mindstormpt]

I don't know about the US, but in Portugal there was at least one. About 10 years ago, when digging the foundations for the Lisbon El Corte Ingles store, an unmarked NATO underground cable was cut, and work had to be suspended.

Of course there were no SUVs, no gag orders, no misteries - it was publicly discussed actually. Now, I don't recall the complete details, so it's entirely possible that it was a legacy from the cold war, and that all cables nowadays are mapped.

Efficient Government

[CokeBear]

Provides a handy counter-example to anyone who wants to point to government as inherently inefficient. Clearly it can be efficient when it wants to be.

Fishy summary

[icepick72]

Why would the government have "secret" cables buried in public sight? And why would they not instead use forms of encryption instead of the actual unsecet cables.

Seeing it first hand

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually live and work right in this area and my company has been the victim of severed fiber several times in just the past 2 years. Usually it's phone call after phone call to get someone to even move on it. Once the finally acknowledge there is an issue they can't move on it until they hit a maintenance window of 11PM because they have to take down connectivity for the FAA at Dulles International to resolve it. If anything I'm jealous at that kind of response time they have.

What.....

[hesaigo999ca]

>Mr.Presidetn....this is general McMasters....we are in deep trouble, sir..
> Go ahead, explain your situation...
>We are 1500 leagues udner the sea, with full nuclear capability, and we have intercepted a comm link from our starboard...
sir, we think this might be a pirate submarine....sir?....hellllllo?
>.............peep,peep,peep....
>dang...that's the third time this week!

You know if this is actually related to me missing out on some of my cable last month, I want a refund!

Re:Completely fallacious and sensationalized nonse

[Critical Facilities]

The problem is not that the lines aren't mapped--they ARE mapped just like any other utility. The real problem is that the maps aren't perfect.

Irrelevant. As I explained here, there are very effective methods of locating utilities (quite accurately I might add) that are either missing from a map, or are incorrectly drawn on the map. I do agree that this story seems to be quite sensationalized, and still maintain that the contractor did not do his/her due diligence prior to digging.

Hide it in plain sight?

[bradley13]

Wouldn't it make more sense to just put the darn things on the map? I mean, anyone trying to spy on the agencies is as likely to look for stuff being buried that never appears on maps. Better to just pretend it's "yet another fiber", and encrypt the contents. It would also save these needless interruptions of service...

No one sees secret cable.....

[cooperaaaron]

And, reading all of these stories about buried cables and whatnot, it seems to me that noone has seen people putting IN the cables. Do black suites get dirty diggin' or do they hire someone to bury cable? Seems to me that someone should have seen the cable going in, or do they just work at night ?

And above all that...

[Leuf]

Gophers with frikkin laser beams.

Re:Completely fallacious and sensationalized nonse

[kriston]

Most certainly NOT irrelevant.
The GPR isn't as effective in our very rocky clay soil as you believe.
You have to understand there are thousands of lines that Metro has to dig through. Lines are under pipes and faults in the soil that obscure them from GPR. Many don't have messenger lines for metal detectors to find. Still more are just too deep.
They are going to cut through some lines accidentally. The volume of underground utilities in Tysons is extremely dense.
Nobody is perfect.
Your comment is silly.

DC increased construction?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad the government can afford to build things because I sure can't. For that matter, backhoes should randomly dig holes around DC. Think of all the jobs this would create fixing broken utilities. Shovel ready! Stimulus!

Re:Completely fallacious and sensationalized nonse

[Critical Facilities]

The GPR isn't as effective in our very rocky clay soil as you believe.

Hogwash. I've experienced it firsthand. I know exactly how effective it is, even in rocky clay soil (North Carolina soil to be exact). I have witnessed this technology be able to locate empty plastic conduit (even verifying that the conduit is empty after hand digging it up). Not only were there no tracing wires, but there were no wires at all, and we could still find it.

I do grasp that there is a lot of buried cable/utilities in this and other metropolitan areas, I work in the industry. My point is, this type of work does not have to result in an issue like this, nor is it an excuse that something "wasn't on the drawings". That is an amateur excuse, and not one that is acceptable in most critical environments.

Your response is silly.

And...

[BiggoronSword]

What does this have to do with Jack Bauer?

This is not the fiber you're looking for...

[Anonymous Coward]

...move along.

*waves hand*

Re:Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

notice he said "posters" not "posts"... we're talking about than mere text

The black vans are a give-away

[Tired and Emotional]

If you have got a covert cable, surely you would have covert surveillance too. I simply can't imagine obvious spy types rolling up and saying "you just cut our super-secret cable". At the very least I would expect a fake comms company as cover.

So this sounds like an urban myth to me.

Re:Completely fallacious and sensationalized nonse

[Rich0]

What about ultra-secret cables designed not to be detected by GPR?

No idea if it were possible, but if you'd go to the trouble to run cables and not map them so that you have to run out and fix them all the time, perhaps you'd go to the trouble to make them hard to find (and therefore tap).

Re:Wow...

[KingPin27]

this isn't even the original article --- The original has since been redacted and replaced with this one. The actual owners of the dark fibre are none other than Google -- I have heard from some reliable source that the dark fibre is being used to connect DC to the google lab on the moon.

Re:Completely fallacious and sensationalized nonse

[kriston]

Thousands of cables in 1/2 acre buried up to 40 feet deep?
You're going to hit something. It's reality.
Maybe you need to punch holes in the grond in a densely wired urban metropolis like Northern VA to understand what I'm saying.
I doubt Research Triangle Park down there has this kind of density.

Re:Completely fallacious and sensationalized nonse

[Critical Facilities]

*sigh*

Dude, give it up. You're speaking in some bizarre hyperbole, and imagining as if your perception of how things are trumps the facts (buried 40 feet deep, give me a break, man). I know you'd like to believe that the area surrounding Washington DC is soooo much harder to do this type of work, but it's not. There are plenty of "densely wired" areas in RTP as well as the Charlotte Metro (you know, there are more than a few major financial services, telecom types in this area as well).

Regardless, there are also things like vacuum excavation that can be utilized even in highly sensitive, dense digging environments. You can also hand dig with shovels. My point is, stop defending this as though cutting cables is an inevitability. The real professionals can get it done without an impact, but others like to cut corners, and then cry when they screw up that it's not their fault.

Damn cephalopods

[sydbarrett74]

I bet it was a bunch of pesky cephalopods that did it again!