Personally...
I suspect a disgruntled (ex-)employee. It sounds like they really knew what they were doing.
Although I admit it would be more exciting to think there was some kind of anti-technology terrorist on the loose.
Verizon to prosecute anons for communications sabotage
Verizon's mad as hell, and it just doesn't know who to take it out on. Yet. The US's largest mobile telco has reportedly filed a lawsuit against vandals who plunged large chunks of Silicon Valley into communications darkness by sabotaging a fiber-optic cable. The catch? US authorities investigating the incident have yet to …
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That's US$250,000.00
"AT&T has offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the perpetrators."
That's been upped to $250,000.00 as reported here on El Reg over a week ago.
"Normally, a network outage can be attributed to Steve the builder inadvertently putting his JCB digger or Kango drill through some cable."
I believe the universal unit of measurement is "backhoe" for these events.
"In this case, though, there was clear intent."
Indeed.
"Authorities reported the vandals had to lift up some heavy manhole covers"
~100 pounds isn't heavy.
"using a special tool"
Crowbars are special? I've never seen a manhole cover that needed more than a crowbar.
"climb down a shaft"
Read: 'support own weight until feet hit bottom of 4 foot pit'.
"and then chop through heavy cables."
Not chop, rather saw, with a hacksaw, according to what I saw on the news. The marks are unmistakable. Except the San Carlos fiber ... That looked like it had been cut with a PVC cutter. In my mind there is more than one perp, and one is a copy-cat.
"The four AT&T cables were encased in tough plastic sheath, with one cable containing 360 fibers and the other three holding 48 fibers each."
552 bits of glass total? Bringing down a total of 100,000 customers? Either there is a hell of a lot of dark fiber involved (likely), or a couple of those customers use a lot of bandwidth (considering Verizon had issues, even more likely ...).
Perhaps this was.....
a trial run for a much larger co-ordinated attack ?. Imagine if next time they have tens of people do this at same time and put emergency services out of action. I hope the authorities catch these people if only to see who they are.
Your healdine: prosecute != sue
The state prosecutes crimes. If defendants are convicted they may pay a fine.
Individuals or companies sue (by bringing a lawsuit). If the defendants are found liable (ie lose) then they pay damages.
AT&T Boosted reward to $250K US
It looks like an inside job; as most people on the street would have no idea where to begin to go to cut off this kind of service. This nearly always happens during contract negotiations in some part of the country. AT&T made billions in spite of the economy and is currently playing whack-a-mole with the union negotiators for all the different unions they deal with in different parts of the country.
Me, personally....I hope they catch these scum and throw the book at them.
Obviously
This was a disgruntled (probably ex) employee. It sounds like they did not pick a random "thing" in a tunnel to wack, but knew where to go and what they were doing. Ergo the most likely culprits are people who have that knowledge through formal channels, which means they had that knowledge due to their present or former profession. Probably not a long list, especially with the "who got fired recently" filter applied.
I am surprised this doesn't happen more often.
I have really been expecting something like this to happen. It usually takes a lot of effort to get to at the lines, but there is also usually zero security.
Since no group has taken credit it was probably someone pulling a prank. A prank that affect 911 calls, medical/police/fire communications ..... can easily cost lives. Not to mention the actual losses both financial and personal caused by this.
Hopefully such sites are going to suddenly sprout motion detectors, infra red IP cameras .... then they just need a guy at a PC to get the alert, check the most recent footage and call the police. Maybe turn on some flood lights for a better picture, have a nice chat.
You shouldn't say 'anons'
I saw the title and shat bricks for a second, wondering if it was some kind of raid gone bad.
Special tool and chopper
A long prybar for lifting a manhole cover, and a big cable cutter? Neither exotic nor expensive. Come on, El Reg!
Ahh now i know
Now thats where they shipped hat guy from london who was driveing that tunnel boring machine..
A wake-up call
My first thought was "single point of failure", but on reflection that's not the message here. If the attack really was intentional, it wouldn't be hard for a small organisation to cut two lines, or three. So how much disruption can one cause by cutting a few cables? Was this someone trying out a movie plot scenario for Bruce Schneier?
What's the betting...
... the twelve-year-olds who did this then went home and couldn't understand why their torrents and World Of Warcraft weren't working?
Paris, because she'll never be cut off.
Pissed off contractor
Sounds like Cable Guy got a bit pissed off for some reason. They obviously knew where to strike which suggests first hand knowledge of the cable route. Which means they will probably get caught as cablers aren't the sharpest tools.
PS Why is there an apostrophe in aren't?
ATT Workers
With ATT line workers about to go out on strike - I would guess that one (or more) got it in his (her?) head that this was the thing to do.
Helicopter for the obvious reason.
Another note
Not only was a special tool required to open the manhole covers, but one news story I read about this noted that there was a labor dispute brewing at the time this happened. This would supply an obvious motive for someone with access to the appropriate tool.
Ground Squirrel retaliation
I think word has spread through the animal community and this is the first wave of assaults against humankind, being lead by the critters of the world. Since we, as people, have redirected our military technology efforts to the cleansing of certain types of undesirable creatures, I believe they’re hitting us in our Achilles heel, by depriving us of communications, internet connectivity, email, face book, and porn.
You’d figure that since we have opposable thumbs, we’d have the upper hand. However, if the crackberry dies or someone is unable to send 300 million emails regarding free erectile dysfunction aid, everything grounds to a screeching halt.
I think each and every one of us should quietly reflect on what’s ahead of us, as it’s a sobering reminder of how bad things could get. Before you know it, we could be forced to listen to poor quality analog wireless radio, what do you think that kind of impact would have on our children?
LOL
Just think of all the saddos who couldn't get onto Facebook, etc!
Plus all the deviates who couldn't look at teh pr0N!!
LOL
Police are looking for...
...anyone selling cheap fibre optic Christmas trees out of season.
Be a pet and wake someone up will you?
I think all someone need do is send a detective out to interview some unhappy bunnies who used to work for AT and T.
Can we have a Bush avatar for oh wait. Paris because it's springtime.
Give It Time
Maybe in a year or two we'll see pics of the perps on Google Streetview, blurred faces and all. You have to wonder though, if these fiber optic links were so important why did they only secure them with a manhole cover needing a special tool instead of a proper lock? Weather concerns?
insane
i know yanks are sue happy, but isn't it at least standard practice to find a target *before* starting the court proceedings against them?
sounds like...
The Robert DeNiro character in 'Brazil'.
In the light of this, how secure are data centres these days?
Apostrophes
There's an apostrophe in aren't because there's a letter (o) missing.
Apostrophes have two jobs:
1. They indicate possession (John's hat, the dog's b*ll*cks, assorted ladies' underwear)
2 They indicate missing letters (aren't, haven't, pick'n'mix)
The poor things are seriously misunderstood, even more seriously misused, and find themselves in some really unpleasant places (the plural of tomato is not tomato's, or even tomatoe's).
Signed: One who knows.
Re: Apostrophes
Your case 1 (possession) is actually an archaic form of case 2 (missing letters) because Old English appended "es" in the genitive case (not unlike modern German, which draws from a similar linguistic ancestry).
Not useful, I know, but if you're the sort of person who cares about apostophes then you might find it interesting.
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