This one gives me chills

[misterx]

The city of Morgan Hill, CA, lost internet, ATM network, cell service, landline telephone service, 911 service, private networks, the hospital network, fire and burglar alarms, and critical infrastructure monitoring in a matter of moments. How? Four manholes were opened, and eight fiber cables were cut.

They don't know who did it, or why.

http://perens.com/works/articles/MorganHill/

This one gives me chills. I suspect it's a test run.

Comments

[theweary.livejournal.com]

WOW!!! that's scary stuff.. very scary.

[misterx.livejournal.com]

yeah. way to go hams though!

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

Wow. I wonder how many cities are even aware of this news?

[misterx.livejournal.com]

Given that it happened weeks ago, and nobody I know even heard about it, I'd say not many.

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

This looks to be a roundup of the relevant coverage -- dangerously under-reported, IMO.

http://news.google.com/news?um=1&ned=us&cf=all&ncl=1328166061

[misterx.livejournal.com]

well, at least it was reported some. A couple hundred articles isn't exactly nothing.

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but the coverage was brief (how cool is that graph on the right?) Probably there's some motivation to limit coverage in order to prevent copycats, but still it makes you wonder how seriously this kind of threat will be attended to by other cities. I hope it's made the rounds in state and city governments.

[gillyg.livejournal.com]

That is terrifying.

[misterx.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It's too easy.

[theldara.livejournal.com]

Our infrastructure is an absolute mess. This really is only the beginning. Nobody seems to want to throw money at fixing this huge gaping security hole that a 5 year old could understand as being a huge problem. They're too busy poking women's boobs at airports.

[misterx.livejournal.com]

True, but moreover, freakin lol.

I'd also submit the southern border is a huge problem that would seem obvious to fix, but yet noone does. How many millions of people come in that we don't know about?

[albinohognose.livejournal.com]

"They're too busy poking women's boobs at airports."


Sounds like a good job, why give it up??? :P

[misterx.livejournal.com]

I'd do all the overtime they'd give me.

[theldara.livejournal.com]

Damn it's hard to find more articles on this... it did happen, and somehow it's effectively being kept quiet.

Here's a more detailed one I found:
http://www.mercurynews.com/centralcoast/ci_12106301

[misterx.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that. I thought this sentence was interesting...

"Crews ... a few feet from a sign that said in red letters, "Warning: Buried Fiber Optic Cable in This Vicinity. Call Before You Dig."

Like a big red sign that says "screw with the infrastructure right here", eh? But what else can you do? Otherwise some fool would dig right through it.

And this is just sad...

"AT&T spokesman... said one of the company's fundamental security measures was obviously breached. "One of them is to have those big, heavy covers over the manholes and special ways to get them off," Britton said. "There's a tool you use." "

Uh, "they're heavy and require a crowbar to move" doesn't count as a security measure.

[theldara.livejournal.com]

You'd think they'd have realized that when there was that huge rash of folks stealing man hole covers to have them melted down for cash. Even a town as small as Kingsport had a huge problem with that just a year or two ago.

And yea, the big "HEY BAD GUYS, CUT HERE" signs are not particularly helpful to security. I don't know a good way to prevent that either, unfortunately... though perhaps something as simple as burying the real cable a foot or two under a dummy cable would suffice, but that'd count on the work crews keeping their mouths shut and that's not likely.

[misterx.livejournal.com]

I guess just don't mark it. Construction companies would have to contact the municipality and have to show id to view the maps that show locations. Pain in the butt though.

I can't think of a good way to lock the manholes though. Maybe alarm them. Yeah, that is easy. *rolls eyes*

[cheeze.livejournal.com]

thing is, most people are too dumb or uninformed to realize that damaging fiber optic cables is going to fuck up that much stuff. generally, the people who are informed enough to know are also resourceful enough to get around security measures that might actually be implemented.

[ruethee.livejournal.com]

That wasn't that far away from me. I heard some mumblings about disgruntled workers because it was just after some negotiations sided with the company, not the workers.
Mac, who died working for SBC on the job, talked about them doing this 6-7 years ago. I don't think it was terrorists, but it sure shows people what bad can happen if communication collapses. I'm not looking forward to this inevitable societal collapse.

[misterx.livejournal.com]

It also makes it rather obvious that we've got too many eggs in one basket.

[evilbeth.livejournal.com]

Being one of the folks in charge of communications for several of the hospitals in town, the horrifies me. And makes me damn glad I have the home number of the coordinator of the local ham radio club on speed dial at work. Of course, without phones, that wouldn't help me much.