Feeling vulnerable? Maybe you should. Apparently, taking down the Internet, ATMs, and landline and wireless phone services is as easy as crawling down a few strategically located manholes and hacking through some fiber optic cables. Police in California suspect exactly that after "vandals" cut a total of 10 fiber optic cables (each containing between 48 and 360 fibers) at 4 locations on Thursday morning. The AT&T and Sprint cables knocked "tens of thousands" of San Francisco, Bay Area residents off the grid including an additional 52,000 Verizon landline and wireless customers. San Jose spokesman, Sgt. Ronnie Lopez, says that Vandals somehow managed to thwart the safeguards securing this important element of the US infrastructure. "The manhole covers are heavy," he said, "and would take quite an effort to lift, perhaps even requiring a tool." Amazing. There's been plenty of speculation that disgruntled members of the Communication Workers of America union are to blame after its contract with AT&T expired amid "strike-threatened contract negotiations" over the weekend -- something CWA officials adamantly deny. And they should... everyone knows that
kidnapping corporate bosses is the hot new trend for curing the gruntles. AT&T is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the vandals.
[Via
SFGate]
Update: Seems that reward is now
up to $250,000. Tempting, no?
posted April 10th 2009 3:10AM
it was the damn Chinese. the sames ones who infiltrated our power grid and stole the secrets to the us power grid..hold the phone while i go call john mclain to come in kick their arses..damn...no service..what am i gonna do now?
Jack Bauer.
McCarthy called. He wants his paranoia back.
"and would take quite an effort to lift, perhaps even requiring a tool."
A tool, yes, definitely the right description for whoever did this.
I just turned my mother in. She had nothing to do with it but i need the cash.
It's a good thing they don't get earthquakes or anything in California. Those cables would need better protection!
Golly!
years ago, when I was working at UNSW when only universities had internet access - the fibre link between sydney + melbourne was cut by a bulldozer, all internet connections in sydney to the outside world went; as at the time the link to the USA and then the world was via melbourne.
The link took 2 days to fix. and then the next week the same construction company drover the bulldozer through the link again.
With the new fibre #nbn ease at which the connection can be cut - securing these cable needs to be thought.
Also there was the time a disgruntled employee in the early 1990s took a chainsaw to a series of cable an cut comms for the city for a day or so.
Cable shielding business anyone?
I'd call them saboteurs...vandals is too cute....and terrorist is a bit alarmist.....
I hope it doesn't hit the other states.
I bet it's the same renegade octopus from the Middle Earth ocean floor fiber incident. He's in our sewers!
Oh, shit. Best typographical error ever.
It may be simple vandalism, or sabotage, or a form of terror, it's hard to know at the moment without knowing the motives or the actors. For all I know this could be the result of kids and or vandals. However, let's not rag on the workers if they were involved, they likely had damn good reason if they were involved.
http://paulitics.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/what-capitalism-does-to-workers-when-it-thinks-it-can-get-away-with-it/
People / Labor has had to protest in many forms on many ocassions in history. It's easy with the luxuries available today to claim that these people are douchebags, but you must remember that the freedoms and resources we have today were all won in a battle waged against capitalists. You know, the weekend is near, but there wasn't always an end to the work week, or an end to the work day. People used to work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, from a very young age up to death. We're headed back in that direction in case you haven't noticed. Organized rebellion won us the 8 hour day and 5 day week. So before you bitch at people that they're out of line, it might be prudent to realize it's possibly actions like this that got you to that laz-y-boy chair you find yourself in.
http://books.google.com/books?id=txUEAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=history+of+labor++stone
http://www.lrp-cofi.org/TWU100/socialism.html
I'm just offering an alternative to the "they suck" response. I'm not advocating soclailsim, that article just has a good criticism of capitalist exploitation of labor and discussed labor unrest.
good one.
you claim you're not advocating socialism, yet do a remarkable job of trying. Perhaps you have a future in politics, or comedy?
Id tell them who did, hell id email all the information, but my inet is down :(
Alex,
It's not easy being green... I mean, it's very hard to find a non communist or non socialist critique of capitalism because I haven't run into any critiques of capitalism from within. If you have som, I'd love to hear em... closest I know is what people like John Bogel have said, which is we've manufactured an economy of takers and very few makers, and the takers are taking a much larger share than is healthy. He suggested a 10% cap, and even less. Some of the takers (business and finance not involved in direct production of goods) are taking 30% and more.
I could advocate socialism more expressively, but my point above was not to advocate it as much as use their criticisms to cricitize capitalist agendas. I'm not sure I hate everything about capitalism or that I admire everything about socialism, so the point was, people have had to fight very hard for the privileges we have now. It's not a battle that's over. Anyone paying attention to how labor has been doing in the battle against capital over the past 30 years will realize labor is losing and capital is winning handily.
The thing I'm trying to say is that in the past, labor had to engage in some pretty drastic tactics for capital or the country to pay attention. I suspect we are fast approaching such a time again.
That's why I'm not in politics or comedy. :)
Wait...heavy manholes were removed in California?
Sounds like Arnold's pulling an inside job.
That's pretty sick, I hope they get caught.
Forget hacking into the system and causing disruption, where ultimately it will be traced back to you (unless your really good of course) take it back old school disruption. Its easy to record electronic movements, but not physical.
Hey russia and china, if you want to come disrupt the electrical grid, just bring some shears and start cutting lines :)
"San Jose spokesman, Sgt. Ronnie Lopez, says that Vandals somehow managed to thwart the safeguards securing this important element of the US infrastructure."
Vandals. Damn. First they put the beat down on Carthage in 439, then they kick the snot out of Rome in 455, and now they're screwing with fiber optics in San Jose!
IS THERE NO END TO THEIR WANTON DESTRUCTION?!
Well, if a Navy with Jets, helicopters, advanced radars, and a fleet of surface ships cannot take down a dozen rag-clothed bums in a 12 foot bass boat off the Somali coast, what do you expect?
Got me! Had no internet yesterday. I cried!
There's always the chance it was folks looking for copper to sell too. That has happened in the past.
Yeah - apparently they didn't leave a single scrap of copper from the fiber optic cables behind!
I thought man hole covers were called maxi-pads....
Seriously though, we had FUD over hackers on the grid this week and Obama's cyber security plans recently. We need some foil hats, cuz it's a conspiracy I tell ya.
I love your use (invention?) of the phrase 'curing the gruntles'.
Damn - they made thousands of people go back to MAGAZINES for their portraits of pudenda. Truly Terrifying!
Looking for copper in a live wire? If they had found it they would likely be dead.
And as far as removing a cover... My friend used to do it with one finger, albeit he lived right in front of it for most of his life.
Using a crowbar in the middle of the night to wack at a little pipe full of wires isn't that huge a deal, but yes, americans and all... hmmm. A bunch of wrokers pissed off at the company and trying to get even isnt a case of national security, but I can see you all making a big deal of this. Hacking?? what a joke. Trashing? Now I get it. Now run out there and make a big deal out of it, brandish some laws and make it harder for sewer cleaners to do their jobs by giving them ID badges, guns and fancy licenses and tazers.... yeah - that should fix em. what a laugh I'm gonna have!! I can see it all happening right now... and then I change the channel.
Did no one else see that 60 Minutes piece about the student who wrote the dissertation on how easy it would be to take out the US's infrastructure by striking in a few key spots? The feds damn near arrested him and barred him from ever publishing it. Meanwhile, all the sources he got his information from are all open to the public. I think Wired did a piece on him as well.
In other news, the Dept of Homeland Security suddenly lost tens of thousands of people worth of snooping data and decided to add them all to the No Fly list.
Hitler Bad. Vandals Good.
nay