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San Francisco Fiber Optic Cable Cutter Strikes Again
HughPickens.com writes: USA Today reports that the FBI is investigating at least 11 physical attacks on high-capacity Internet cables in California's San Francisco Bay Area dating back to at least July 6, 2014, including one early this week. "When it affects multiple companies and cities, it does become disturbing," says Special Agent Greg Wuthrich. "We definitely need the public's assistance." The pattern of attacks raises serious questions about the glaring vulnerability of critical Internet infrastructure, says JJ Thompson. "When it's situations that are scattered all in one geography, that raises the possibility that they are testing out capabilities, response times and impact," says Thompson. "That is a security person's nightmare."
Mark Peterson, a spokesman for Internet provider Wave Broadband, says an unspecified number of Sacramento-area customers were knocked offline by the latest attack. Peterson characterized the Tuesday attack as "coordinated" and said the company was working with Level 3 and Zayo to restore service. It's possible the vandals were dressed as telecommunications workers to avoid arousing suspicion, say FBI officials. Backup systems help cushion consumers from the worst of the attacks, meaning people may notice slower email or videos not playing, but may not have service completely disrupted. But repairs are costly and penalties are not stiff enough to deter would-be vandals. "There are flags and signs indicating to somebody who wants to do damage: This is where it is folks," says Richard Doherty. "It's a terrible social crime that affects thousands and millions of people."
Mark Peterson, a spokesman for Internet provider Wave Broadband, says an unspecified number of Sacramento-area customers were knocked offline by the latest attack. Peterson characterized the Tuesday attack as "coordinated" and said the company was working with Level 3 and Zayo to restore service. It's possible the vandals were dressed as telecommunications workers to avoid arousing suspicion, say FBI officials. Backup systems help cushion consumers from the worst of the attacks, meaning people may notice slower email or videos not playing, but may not have service completely disrupted. But repairs are costly and penalties are not stiff enough to deter would-be vandals. "There are flags and signs indicating to somebody who wants to do damage: This is where it is folks," says Richard Doherty. "It's a terrible social crime that affects thousands and millions of people."
Call the Cable Guy. He needs a friend anyway.
At a large scale, the internet was designed to route around individual problems such as this.
Can't this same principle be applied on a smaller scale?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Don't trust the feds one bit. Especially when they say "The pattern of attacks raises serious questions about the glaring vulnerability of critical Internet infrastructure". In other words they want more funding and more control over backbones. These saboteurs will never be caught.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
junkies might similarly claim that taking away their heroin is a dangerous social crime.
"A terrible social crime". Sounds like he's mad because his wife couldn't read Facebook.
John
You could understand the railroad companies not sabotaging pipelines because the railroads too have long equally vulnerable railroads and they did not want to trigger retaliatory sabotage from Rockefeller. But his disgruntled bankrupt oil competitors, the labor they would not be above sabotage. It was really war. Carnegie hired the Pinkertons to kill agitating workers. His henchman was shot, and survived, by one of the workers. Corrupt sheriffs would break up labor organizers and the anger and hatred was mutual and ran very deep.
Still, mile after mile of tin pipes traversing and crisscrossing Ohio, Western PA and later Indiana were left unmolested. How was that defended? How could one defend the fiber optic lines?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
the FBI might also be investigating thieves seeking copper.
Go figure.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Best guess on who it is ?
Somebody that lost their job in IT because they were too old, didn't fit the diversity quota, or just had a SOB for a boss
Someone who is sick of trying to pay rent in SF ?
Criminal extortion scheme we haven't heard the details of yet ?
We need to immediately install 10,000 fake buried cable signs at scattered locations, and remove the real ones...
It is possible they are dressed up as Telco workers, but given their knowledge of the fiber lines, they couldn't possibly BE Telco workers...
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
"thousands and millions of people."
Make up your mind.
Which is it.
Thousands or Millions?
Why not throw Hundreds and Billions into that sentence.
Might as well exaggerate all the way and confuse.
Maybe it's the MPAA and RIAA latest attempt to stop people sharing copywritten material on the internet? Didn't they say they want to cut pirates off?
Take Nobody's Word For It.
The south really misses their slaves, don't they?
A couple years ago, there were a series of fiber cuts in Humboldt County (300 mi. north of SF). They only targeted fiber owned by Suddenlink. The authorities suspected a telecom professional. A reward was offered, but they never caught the person. The cuts stopped after a couple months.
Terrorists. Because killing people is too high profile.
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
When our local fiber run was cut through here, it ended up being ignorant copper thieves.
I did it all for the penguins!
The death penalty already doesn't work as a deterrent for crimes very likely to be caught with loads of evidence elements like murder. What makes you think that it would work for one far harder to catch?
As someone who has a fiber line running in front of their house (literally, there's a "Do Not Dig Here, Fiber" post at the bottom of my driveway), but has access to only DSL, I can't say it isn't tempting.
Terrorists. Because killing people is too high profile.
It's the gays! God warned us of this! Repent or we will all lose the ability to spread his word via the internet and we'll be vanquished back to soap boxes on street corners!
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
Yes, that would be the primary indicator of trouble. *sigh*
Hell, in the South, you could let them have the bug repellent. A chain gang in mid-summer is enough punishment for any crime.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The FBI and NSA would know exactly who these people were, were they not spending all of their efforts keeping track of what I had for breakfast every morning and how many times I go to the ATM for cash.
Fuck them.
Remember, Fort Hood is "workplace violence," but a kid making a gun sign with his thumb and index finger at school is "making terroristic threats."
Our government's priority is the criminalization of everyone and capitulation to the Caliphate.
I live in what might be considered a rural area by some but I am 5 miles from my state capitol. There are underground fiber lines going down the main highway and fiber up my road to about 100 yards from me.. I actually walked down and watched them snake it under a road with a pneumatic torpedo.. cant get it.. the guys who install cable are Russian Illegals hired by a third party contractor for Verizon .. I talked with them for a while .. If our country ever gets attacked a few well placed people in these third party contractor companies that don't get checked will be able to take out our whole country in hours. They will know every weak point.
You left out Aliens. Cue the Greek guy with the Electric Hair.
Most likely a disgruntled field tech or contractor who likes making people miserable or a field crew who wants to make significant overtime.
Flamebait
Serious inquiries only.
Yep could easily see that.
penalties are not stiff enough to deter would-be vandals.
Yeah cutting cables is a bad thing, but these days I get nervous when I see that sort of talk because it's never as simple as increasing penalties for vandals, something else always gets added.
"There are flags and signs indicating to somebody who wants to do damage: This is where it is folks," says Richard Doherty. "It's a terrible social crime that affects thousands and millions of people."
I mean who talks like this? It sounds like someone that didn't rehearse their script enough.
thousands and millions of people indeed.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I am talking about the FBI : "When it affects multiple companies and cities, it does become disturbing,"
What I read is "When it happens to citizens, we don't care."
So apperently they cut of the wrong company or the wrong CEO and now they are disturbed. Before that? Meh.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Have gnu, will travel.
There was a large Time Warner outage a week or two back... it was blamed on a fiber cut in DC (that fed this area). Makes me wonder if it's just a coincidence...
Agile Artisans
If the courts hadn't moved to declare hard labor "cruel and unusual" then it would be non issue.
You are either for or against slavery.
Heck, in the South we could really amp it up just making them do chain gang duty with no bug repellant in the middle of the summer.
The South, eh? I guess we know which now.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I've always thought that the punishment should be a combination of seriousness and how many people are affected. Then I think of the shoe bomber. Now every person getting on a plane in the US has to take off their shoes. Small amount of "damage" per person but wow did it impact a lot of people. Total passengers are ~800 million a year for the US. At 15 seconds per passenger and a life expectancy of ~80 years that is roughly 5 lifetimes wasted a year due to this guy. Since travelers continue to be impacted year after year I can only conclude that they probably couldn't torture him enough to ever break even on his damage.
Shame they didn't cut this AC's cable...
I stole this Sig
Wah our rent is going up because of bad decisions by the housing commission, lets blame people that have good jobs in tech and force them out by destroying the internet connectivity in the city.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Possibly because the Pinkertons would come in and beat/shoot people? Or, weren't these pipes generally running through private land. A simple tactic would be to align interests. The landowner only gets paid for days when the oil flows. Then the landowner would keep an eye out.
sea otters...
Or maybe someone who wanted a breather:
The shift workers howled and laughed and were pelted, and broke ranks, and the jelly beans managed to work their way into the mechanism of the slidewalks after which there was a hideous scraping as the sound of a million fingernails rasped down a quarter of a million blackboards, followed by a coughing and a sputtering, and then the slidewalks all stopped and everyone was dumped thisawayandthataway in a jackstraw tumble, and still laughing and popping little jelly bean eggs of childish color into their mouths. It was a holiday, and a jollity, an absolute insanity, a giggle. But . ..
The shift was delayed seven minutes.
They did not get home for seven minutes.
The master schedule was thrown off by seven minutes.
Quotas were delayed by inoperative slidewalks for seven minutes.
From 'Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman', Harlan Ellison.
This is San Fran - surely it must be a hippie wanting all those silicon valley weenies to get back to nature.
Why do you do this? What has it ever gained you, and how is it worth making yourself a laughingstock?
Long-distance electrodes shot into the pinion pituitary glands of recent dead.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
There's no need to be racist about it.
Check response time?
I'd rather think that one crew cuts the cable at some place and during that time a second crew installs a listening/delay device in a secondary location, that will be finished before the first cut can be repaired.
The cutting process must take some time as the bundle is large and armored.
The photodetectors receiving the light on each end of the fibers should be able to detect disturbances associated with the fiber being cut AS IT IS CUT. (If you physically disturb the fiber it affects the transmission efficiency.)
With the appropriate automated analysis (time-delay reflectometry), police could be requested to deploy to the vandals' location before they have even finished cutting through the bundle.
Alternatively, DHS' secret drones could have missiles on that spot in seconds. (I'm joking... or am I.)
Just saying...
Contract telecom workers who rake in the overtime. Eventually you might see a series of evenly spaced cuts on long runs that are calculated so there is too much light loss, entire cable sections need replacement.
The NSA, who is building out a massive dark fiber intercept network to shunt traffic to Utah and is using the outages as 'cover' as they install separate, secret drop-ins.
Those who hate our freedoms. You know, those folks who keep ranting about those folks who hate our freedoms, and how you have to break eggs to make an omelet, and hey it's been a long time since we invaded another new country.
Book Publishers and People who do know how to use the Internet. I should have listed them first. We must track down these people and watch them closely.
The Amish Mafia and Inner Circle. Slowing the encroachment of microchips at home and abroad. You do not want to mess with these people.
Starbucks. What do repair crews drink the most? Slam dunk! Well... oops, wait. We're talking about the global corporate giant that has built the world's largest IT single point of failure. This is either the cleverest, most insidious plot ever, perfect cover... or the dumbest.
Lawyers and Insurance Companies. In general, and it's our own damned fault.
Until things are so bad that a mob of concerned citizens gathers on the spur of the moment to surround, interrogate and hold telecom crews until they are vetted (or) swift and lethal vigilante justice is delivered... we cannot reasonably expect the world to suck less as time goes by.
Trademarks used herein are sole property of their respective dark fantasies.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Why is that so funny? You do it all the time, you lunatic. People down-mod your posts because they have absolutely nothing to do with the discussion. I know these are important things in your head, but out here in the real world they are trivial matters people just don't care about. Please. Get some help. You are wasting your life.
We can always hope.