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AT&T Offers $250k Reward To Find the California Fiber-Optic Ripper

Posted by samzenpus on from the crime-stoppers dept.

An anonymous reader writes: AT&T have offered a $250,000 reward to anyone providing information leading to the arrest and conviction of what appears to be a serial disruptor of fiber-optic connections in California. The latest incident has taken place in Livermore in the San Francisco Bay Area, where an individual thought by the FBI to possess expert knowledge and specialist tools severed a critical AT&T cable, gaining access to the enclosure via a manhole. The attack precedes 11 previous ones in California in the preceding twelve months.

15 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. OMG, he's messing with my netflix by known_coward_69 · · Score: 5, Funny

    death penalty

  2. No real harm done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Since AT&T was obviously not using those fiber lines properly to begin with.

  3. Anonymous Grammar Nerd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No, "The attack is preceded by 11 previous ones", not precedes them!

  4. I know who did it by Coren22 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just take a look through the list of people laid off by AT&T in the past year.

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    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  5. missed opportunity by mschaffer · · Score: 5, Funny

    Personally, I am a bit disappointed that the reward wasn't 256k.

  6. Expert knowledge, specialist tools and TIME TRAVEL by gweilo8888 · · Score: 5, Funny

    My god, he has access to time travel as well!

  7. I know I know! by Krishnoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's these guys! Can I have my money now?

  8. Critical Cable? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There shouldn't be critical cables. There should be redundant paths to make the network tolerant to any individual cut.

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    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    1. Re:Critical Cable? by Harlequin80 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Redundancy does not preclude criticality. In the end no network is infinite so if you keep cutting cables eventually it will do down, but irrespective with every cut connection performance will degrade.

    2. Re:Critical Cable? by Shatrat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think that's the point. This guy knows the fiber paths and goes around cutting both sides of the ring. Even if all traffic is protected it costs tens of thousands of dollars to do emergency repair work on a fiber cable.

      Also, diversity is typically only used from office to office. From the office out to the environmental cabinets and pedestals and so forth servicing individual customers there's typically a single fiber path.

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      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    3. Re:Critical Cable? by Harlequin80 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm not in the US so I don't know what your fibre service failure levels are like.....

      But what level of redundancy is required and is reasonable? Major backhaul sub-surface cables are rarely cut but when they are it is usually because someone hit them with a digger. In this case you need geographic redundancy to avoid having your redundant cable cut. So you run a second back haul cable in the opposite direction giving you 100% redundancy should either cable get cut. The odds that both cables get severed at the same time is vanishingly small, so is a third cable reasonable to build?

      You get way more major failures due to software or in data centres where someone kicks out the wrong plug then you do from the physical fibre in the ground.

      Also I would be surprised if any executive bonuses came close to the cost of a fibre run. The monopoly thing is a whole different story and I don't believe it should exist.

  9. what a reward. by nimbius · · Score: 4, Funny

    As a californian, 250k might not seem like a lot, but with that kind of cash you could afford to water the lawn AND take a shower after!

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    Good people go to bed earlier.
  10. Re:I know where he is. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    And, he's probably gay. From the summary:

    * The latest incident has taken place in the San Francisco Bay Area
    * Gained access to the enclosure via a manhole

    I mean, comeon. Right?

  11. Expert knowledge and specialist tools? by pla · · Score: 4, Informative

    Seriously? Find a pole marked in orange (or in this case, manhole). Take the bolt-cutters to the only armored cable on the pole / in the hole. Make sure to repeat at least a few feet away to make it virtually impossible to splice cleanly.

    This doesn't take "expert knowledge and specialist tools", any moron could do it.

    Now, doing it without blinding yourself with a 40W IR laser beam...

  12. Re:Dangerous Act Of Terror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Can we maybe stop referring to every fucking criminal act out there as a "terror attack?" It's childish and stupid. It's the same mentality that got the front page story of the day on practically every website, a non-white kid in a US school builds a clock and brings it to school to show to his teachers. They arrest him and attempt to have him charged. People like you are DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for this. Your irrational fear of "terrorists" has gotten the better of you, mentally and as a society as a whole.

    "Let's home this is not the scheme of some foreign enemy," fuck's sake...grow the fuck up you racist cocksucker.