Sabotage attacks knock out phone service

[CreekDog]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Sabotage attacks knock out phone service
Henry K. Lee,Ryan Kim, Chronicle Staff Writers

(04-09) 12:20 PDT SAN JOSE -- Vandals cut fiber-optic cable lines belonging to AT&T and Sprint at two locations early today, knocking out landline and cellular phone service to thousands of residential customers and businesses in southern Santa Clara County, in Santa Cruz and San Benito counties and along the Peninsula, authorities said.

Four AT&T fiber-optic cables were severed shortly before 1:30 a.m. along Monterey Highway north of Blossom Hill Road in south San Jose, police Sgt. Ronnie Lopez said. Sprint's cable in San Carlos was cut about two hours later, a company official said. The exact location was not immediately known.

...

"We're treating this as a crime scene," Lopez said.

...

The AT&T outage also affected customers of Verizon and Sprint wireless, which rely on AT&T to carry their phone traffic back to their networks. Customers who are without service are receiving only a fast busy signal or a recorded message saying the network is unavailable when they try to make a call.
...

Verizon spokesman Jon Davies said the outage was first reported to the company at 1:25 a.m. He said about 52,000 of the company's landline customers were affected in the Gilroy and Morgan Hill areas.

...

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/09/BAP816VTE6.DTL&tsp=1

[Ian David]

1. My guess is someone plans on selling the cable for scrap. n/t

[Lance_Boyle]

4. 2 problems with that guess

first - lines severed, not stolen. second - fiber, not copper

[PatrynXX]

12. takes alot of fiber optic cable to melt down to glass

Picked up a melted down glass ball made from used fiber optic cable once. Nice blue color. But other than for tinsel , not sure what kind of scrap you can make from it unless your aiming a laser at it. and even then whats the point :P

[uppityperson]

2. That's a bummer. "The outage knocked out 911 service, meaning people who have an emergency will have

"The outage knocked out 911 service, meaning people who have an emergency will have to get to a police or fire station or hospital on their own if they need help."

I don't know if Edward Abbey would have recommended this

[PBS Poll-435]

5. Tragic

If anyone was hurt or denied help because of this...

[scrinmaster]

22. That kinda puts a damper on the folks who say

that a phone to dial 911 is more important than a gun when someone is breaking into your home.

[uppityperson]

30. Yeah, we all need guns just in case some idiot does something like this again!

I mean, it happened once, it could happen again, right? Better be prepared, just in case.

:sarcasm: try again

[tomm2thumbs]

3. sounds like someone was building a do-it-yourself fiberoptic table lamp

I'm sure it will look pretty, but how can I call to invite people over to look at it? the phones won't work

[Blue_Tires]

6. wow....what would you need to cut it in the first place?

a chainsaw or something??

[Tempest]

8. A hacksaw to get through the conduit and simple wire cutters

Fiber optic cables are not that big. You only need to cut a couple of fibers to take the whole thing down.

[Xithras]

19. Not even that. A bolt cutter or even a bypass lopper could do it.

One smooth cut.

Of course, cutting the cable isn't actually a requirement either. A solid smack with a sledge can crush the fibers inside and shut the cable down just as effectively as a cut. The problem would be harder to locate too.

[PatrynXX]

13. Revenge?

Don't suppose there are competing cable uh. oh AT&T vs Verizon. See in Cedar Falls IA there was this story that went around that (can't remember who did it first)
CFU accidentally cut Mediacom's fiber optic cable, then when that was repaired, Mediacom did it. One always assumes it was a revenge thing. The explanation I was given was there wasn't an actual map as per where the fiber optic cable was in that area. Do'h. Yeah lets lay the wire down without telling anyone.

[PBS Poll-435]

7. The West's most advanced Meth Lab evah.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

9. I'm betting it's a protest against illegal wiretapping.

Just a guess, but it makes a kind of warped sense. :shrug:

[Michigan-Arizona]

10. My first thought as well n/t

[TXRAT2]

11. Disgruntled employee?

They knew right where to cut!

[JDPriestly]

16. I don't know about electronics but disgruntled employee was my first thought.

[McCamy Taylor]

14. Could be.

[LanternWaste]

15. I'm betting a teen prank... n/t

I'm betting a teen prank...

[Xithras]

20. Very improbable

A teen might cut the line near their home as a poorly thought out prank, but there was a cut in South San Jose and another in San Carlos, and those two areas are some distance apart. Someone was trying to take the network down over a wide area and knew where to hit.

[brentspeak]

24. Panther Moderns (n/t)

[LanternWaste]

29. Maybe. Maybe not...

Maybe. Maybe not... teen pranks have been more in-depth than this before in the past with greater consequences.

I'm still betting on drunken teens or college kids.

[Kip Humphrey]

17. Seems more likely that its a result of a cyber attack and the Telcos are covering it

up, probably at the government's behest and with government collusion so as to keep the threat hidden in order to prevent or control panic. Interesting that Conflicker.B awoke and started sending out encrypted packets on this very same day. Guess it must, of coarse, be a physical sabotage of physical cables at 2 different physical locations. I wonder if we will experience more sabotage of our infrastructure in the near future?

[christx30]

27. Don't forget

the reports that came out yesterday of the cyber attacks hitting the nation's electrical grid, with possible backdoor software being uploaded.
I wonder what China is planning.

[Kip Humphrey]

28. ...or Cheney.

[antimatter98]

18. A sign of the times in corporate run America. n/t

[TXRAT2]

21. The last 5 paragraphs in the link may have something to do with it.

[rocktivity]

25. My gut reaction was, "Are there labor negotiations going on?"

The vandalism comes as AT&T is in talks with the Communications Workers of America for a contract covering more than 80,000 employees, who have been working under their old deal since it expired at 11:59 p.m. Saturday. Union members voted in late March to authorize a strike but have not scheduled one.

Hooray for me.

:(
rocktivity

[ConcernedCanuk]

23. Practice - someone is estimating how long it takes to discover and repair such lines

.
.
.

sorta like North Korea's launch - they now know their missile can go over 3,000 kilometers

practice - that's what methinks this was . .

[Xithras]

26. Scary thought, especially in light of the recent shootings and the Mumbai thing.

Whether domestic or foreign originating, think about the kind of damage a few nuts bent on mass murder could pull off if they shut down the landlines, cellphones, and 911 system first. The only way to get police help would be to physically drive to the police station.

[AndyTiedye]

31. If You are Concerned About This Sort of Thing, GET YOUR HAM LICENSE

They were using ham radio to fill in for some of the damaged communications infrastructure.