`..Vandalism in AZ Shuts Down Internet, Cellphones, Telephones Across State`

[LongTermGuy]

http://s4.freebeacon.com/up/2015/02/fiber-optics.jpg
`Cellphone, Internet, and telephone services across half of Arizona went dark on Wednesday after vandals sliced a sensitive fiber optic cable, according to those familiar with the situation. The incident is raising concerns about the safety of U.S. infrastructure.`
http://anmblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c565553ef0168ea6b041e970c-800wi



http://freebeacon.com/national-secur...-across-state/ (http://freebeacon.com/national-security/vandalism-in-arizona-shut-down-internet-cellphone-telephone-service-across-state/)

[Kathianne]

I don't have "Century Link" at home. I was off Wednesday and not feeling great. Friday a customer asked if Safeway was effected by the outtage, they were. It was a total mess. So glad I wasn't working.

Obviously none of the registers worked, thus customers had to write the prices on everything and calculators had to be used. While that's fine for 30 or less items, IF the "Price per lb." items are put together, doesn't work so well when someone has $400-600 worth of groceries, the apples, oranges, etc., tend to scatter. Since using basic calculator, pretty difficult to keep a running total, then try to figure out 2.63lb@3.99lb.

On top of that, Sedona is inundated this week with tourists for the Sedona International Film Festival (http://www.sedonafilmfestival.org/), not to mention the (http://www.gatewaytosedona.com/weddings) wedding (http://www.heartofsedonaweddings.com/) season (http://www.finestweddingsites.com/reception/sedona.php) has begun here already! Friday someone bought 48 bottles of champagne for wedding rehersal.

[Kathianne]

Shoot while talking about what I thankfully missed, I forgot my main point. This cable was actually very difficult to be vandalized: It was encased in pipe and the cable itself was thick. It was buried. The article I read said they would have had to use power equipment to get at the pipe, then get through the pipe. The cable appeared to have been cut with a hacksaw.

The damaged cable was located outside of Phoenix, well into the desert. This doesn't sound like 'vandalism' in the traditional sense to me. This sounds more like testing infrastructure.

I'm reminded of the 'vandalism' done to Chicago airports after a 'nut' set fires out in Aurora air traffic control:

http://www.usnews.com/news/newsgram/articles/2014/09/29/chicago-area-air-traffic-center-out-of-commission-for-two-weeks-says-faa

When we think of 'infrastructure' we tend to think of bridges, streets, etc. Included in the term are water sources-(which contain large amounts of chlorine and other chemicals), electrical and utility grids and cables, sewage treatment plants, etc.

Many of those had upped security measures after 9/11, I do wonder how faithfully they have kept it up?

[LongTermGuy]

Shoot while talking about what I thankfully missed, I forgot my main point. This cable was actually very difficult to be vandalized: It was encased in pipe and the cable itself was thick. It was buried. The article I read said they would have had to use power equipment to get at the pipe, then get through the pipe. The cable appeared to have been cut with a hacksaw.

The damaged cable was located outside of Phoenix, well into the desert. This doesn't sound like 'vandalism' in the traditional sense to me. This sounds more like testing infrastructure.

I'm reminded of the 'vandalism' done to Chicago airports after a 'nut' set fires out in Aurora air traffic control:

http://www.usnews.com/news/newsgram/articles/2014/09/29/chicago-area-air-traffic-center-out-of-commission-for-two-weeks-says-faa

When we think of 'infrastructure' we tend to think of bridges, streets, etc. Included in the term are water sources-(which contain large amounts of chlorine and other chemicals), electrical and utility grids and cables, sewage treatment plants, etc.

Many of those had upped security measures after 9/11, I do wonder how faithfully they have kept it up?


:clap::clap::clap:

[fj1200]

I must have missed something, why the picture of BO? Has he been implicated somehow?

[LongTermGuy]

I must have missed something, why the picture of BO? Has he been implicated somehow?


*You would expect the guy you voted for to be upset and concerned...don't get your panties in a wad...take a deep breath and relax.`

[fj1200]

*You would expect the guy you voted for to be upset and concerned...don't get your panties in a wad...take a deep breath and relax.`

I might expect McCain to be concerned as it is his state. I think Romney would shrug it off though.

You're not very good at this are you?

[LongTermGuy]

I might expect McCain to be concerned as it is his state. I think Romney would shrug it off though.

You're not very good at this are you?

`Pay attention now Lefty ....You can do it...Romney and McCain are old news and dont matter...Focus on the fool you voted for and still in power `potus` (since you mentioned him)... *who should show concern....I know...your embarrassed....and would rather talk about other things....Why are regressives so stupid?

[fj1200]

`Pay attention now Lefty and....You can do it...Romney and McCain are old news and dont matter...Focus on the fool you voted for and still in power... *who should show concern....I know...your embarrassed....and would rather talk about other things....Why are regressives so stupid?

You're being led around by an idiot. You brought up who I voted for and only McCain and Romney fit that bill.

[LongTermGuy]

You're being led around by an idiot. You brought up who I voted for and only McCain and Romney fit that bill.

`Your a fool and wanting to argue again...like you do with everyone else....enough with the twist...deceit and spin loser...everyone here knows who you are and see`s through you...go start a thread about arguing and wait. `

[NightTrain]

Century Link screwed up bigtime, and got caught being cheap.

Fiber should always be in a "ring" format - it should go in a giant circle so that if one leg is broken (and that happens alot, btw, from homeowners digging or construction crews), the traffic flows the other way and data outage is confined to a very small area immediately around where the fiber got hit.

I see in that story that it was encased in a metal pipe.... I didn't see that from the pictures at all. On a rural run like what happened here, it's placed in plastic orange or yellow 'Innerduct' which looks like this :

http://www.debatepolicy.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=7041&stc=1

This stuff isn't very strong, but it allows you to pull out and/or replace or add another fiber after after it's been buried.

The fiber itself is armored, and very strong - but won't hold up to any kind of deliberate abuse.

I suspect Century is fudging quite a bit here to cover the poor planning that resulted in not having a ring. I imagine they're in a full fledged panic right now to get everything back up.

When you sign up your Telecom company for the Emergency 911 System for that government money, and they all do, you're required to have redundancy. Also, any other carriers that leased bandwidth have extremely expensive clauses for what's called an "unplanned outage", and they can quickly add up to millions of dollars in only a few hours.

The "metal casing" story sounds phony - it's very expensive and not necessary, unless it just happened to be casing where it crossed under that river bed, which is possible.

Anyway, I guarantee that there's a few Engineers that are getting fired over this, even though I know it was discussed and debated. It wasn't just the Engineers that knew the weakness of how they built that. But right now they'll need to give the government and their customers a few scapegoats and hope they'll be lenient in the massive financial penalties.

The sabotage angle will alleviate some of the penalties, but everyone involved knows that they should have had the fiber ring built properly.

[fj1200]

`Your a fool and wanting to argue again...like you do with everyone else....enough with the twist...deceit and spin loser...everyone here knows who you are and see`s through you...go start a thread about arguing and wait. `

:laugh: And you can point out all of my posts supporting BO and all of my posts supporting big government? :laugh: You should stop letting yourself be led around by an idiot.

FWIW, I don't want to argue. I'd like to discuss the issues of the day with intelligent people who don't bleat, "Aack, leftie!" when they have nothing else to say.

[Kathianne]

Century Link screwed up bigtime, and got caught being cheap.

Fiber should always be in a "ring" format - it should go in a giant circle so that if one leg is broken (and that happens alot, btw, from homeowners digging or construction crews), the traffic flows the other way and data outage is confined to a very small area immediately around where the fiber got hit.

I see in that story that it was encased in a metal pipe.... I didn't see that from the pictures at all. On a rural run like what happened here, it's placed in plastic orange or yellow 'Innerduct' which looks like this :

http://www.debatepolicy.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=7041&stc=1

This stuff isn't very strong, but it allows you to pull out and/or replace or add another fiber after after it's been buried.

The fiber itself is armored, and very strong - but won't hold up to any kind of deliberate abuse.

I suspect Century is fudging quite a bit here to cover the poor planning that resulted in not having a ring. I imagine they're in a full fledged panic right now to get everything back up.

When you sign up your Telecom company for the Emergency 911 System for that government money, and they all do, you're required to have redundancy. Also, any other carriers that leased bandwidth have extremely expensive clauses for what's called an "unplanned outage", and they can quickly add up to millions of dollars in only a few hours.

The "metal casing" story sounds phony - it's very expensive and not necessary, unless it just happened to be casing where it crossed under that river bed, which is possible.

Anyway, I guarantee that there's a few Engineers that are getting fired over this, even though I know it was discussed and debated. It wasn't just the Engineers that knew the weakness of how they built that. But right now they'll need to give the government and their customers a few scapegoats and hope they'll be lenient in the massive financial penalties.

The sabotage angle will alleviate some of the penalties, but everyone involved knows that they should have had the fiber ring built properly.

Rick, they got the connection made again early morning after it was cut. My understanding that service was down less than 15 hours. I do believe a river bed was mentioned, unlike IL I don't know the topography of the state that well.

What I know of desert around Phoenix, (I can't recall how many miles outside of city it was. Just remember it was 'well into desert, not where folks would normally go.) That was why it didn't sound like regular 'vandalism' to me.

[NightTrain]

Rick, they got the connection made again early morning after it was cut. My understanding that service was down less than 15 hours. I do believe a river bed was mentioned, unlike IL I don't know the topography of the state that well.

What I know of desert around Phoenix, (I can't recall how many miles outside of city it was. Just remember it was 'well into desert, not where folks would normally go.) That was why it didn't sound like regular 'vandalism' to me.


The good news is that the Government and all the customers know that Century Link is not redundant in AZ, as it's supposed to be.

Watch for a follow-up story telling you they made it redundant via another fiber or even Microwave to provide their customers with reliable service.

Because they care. Not because they got penalized millions! :laugh:

Another hazard they're exposed to right now is if someone died because they couldn't dial 911 on their cell phone during that outage. A lawyer would have a field day with that.

[Kathianne]

Just noticed this thread again. Awhile ago I read something very frightening that reminded me of this 'act of vandalism':

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/inside-cunning-unprecedented-hack-ukraines-power-grid/




AUTHOR: KIM ZETTER.KIM ZETTER (http://www.wired.com/author/kimzetter/) SECURITY
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 03.03.16.<time aria-hidden="true" role="presentation" pubdate="March 3, 2016" style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.08em; display: block; transition: color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1);">03.03.16</time>
TIME OF PUBLICATION: 7:00 AM.<time aria-hidden="true" role="presentation" style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.08em; display: block; transition: color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1);">7:00 AM</time>

INSIDE THE CUNNING, UNPRECEDENTED HACK OF UKRAINE’S POWER GRID
IT WAS 3:30 p.m. last December 23, and residents of the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Western Ukraine were preparing to end their workday and head home through the cold winter streets. Inside the Prykarpattyaoblenergo control center, which distributes power to the region’s residents, operators too were nearing the end of their shift. But just as one worker was organizing papers at his desk that day, the cursor on his computer suddenly skittered across the screen of its own accord.


He watched as it navigated purposefully toward buttons controlling the circuit breakers at a substation in the region and then clicked on a box to open the breakers and take the substation offline. A dialogue window popped up on screen asking to confirm the action, and the operator stared dumbfounded as the cursor glided to the box and clicked to affirm. Somewhere in a region outside the city he knew that thousands of residents had just lost their lights and heaters.

The operator grabbed his mouse and tried desperately to seize control of the cursor, but it was unresponsive. Then as the cursor moved in the direction of another breaker, the machine suddenly logged him out of the control panel. Although he tried frantically to log back in, the attackers had changed his password preventing him from gaining re-entry. All he could do was stare helplessly at his screen while the ghosts in the machine clicked open one breaker after another, eventually taking about 30 substations offline. The attackers didn’t stop there, however. They also struck two other power distribution centers at the same time, nearly doubling the number of substations taken offline and leaving more than 230,000 residents in the dark. And as if that weren’t enough, they also disabled backup power supplies to two of the three distribution centers, leaving operators themselves stumbling in the dark.
...

[NightTrain]

Those trojans are terrible things.

Vlad is going to find those hackers and there'll be hell to pay!

[Kathianne]

Those trojans are terrible things.

Vlad is going to find those hackers and there'll be hell to pay!

See if the feds weren't so concerned with working at denying due process for males or looking for hate crimes or shutting down water supplies to protect a 'rare species' of tadpoles, they might find time to actually prevent and protect attacks on us.

Arguing for smaller federal government that actually does what it's intended to do isn't just philosophical, it's practical. The government by nature is not:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/03/07/cyberattack-cybersecurity-ted-koppel-power-grid-ukraine-column/81406674/


<section id="module-position-O3cfQ0nladQ" class="storytopbar-bucket story-headline-module story-story-headline-module" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 17.92px;">Glenn Reynolds: We aren't ready for the lights to go out</section><section id="module-position-O3cfQ0neojs" class="storytopbar-bucket story-byline-module story-story-byline-module" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 17.92px;">Glenn Harlan Reynolds4:24 p.m. EST March 7, 2016
</section>The preppers aren't the only ones worried anymore about a debilitating attack on the U.S. power grid.

Could it be lights out for America? That’s something that people are starting to worry about, and these worries aren’t coming solely from the usual crowd of survivalists and preppers. Shut down the computers that run the power plants and distribution systems and you shut down America. That’s looking more possible, lately.


One of those worrying is former ABC News anchor Ted Koppel (http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/News/story?id=128629), whose new book,Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath (http://www.amazon.com/Lights-Out-Cyberattack-Unprepared-Surviving/dp/055341996X), looks at the danger of losing electrical power due to a cyberattack. The picture Koppel paints isn’t a pretty one: Cities, unpowered for weeks and months, could become largely uninhabitable.


But, says Koppel, nobody is thinking about this very clearly: “It would be comforting (https://books.google.com/books?id=-_1eBwAAQBAJ&pg=PT14&dq=It+would+be+comforting+to+report+that+those+age ncies+charged+with+responding+to+disaster+are+adeq uately+prepared+to+deal+with+the+consequences+of+a +cyberattack+on+the+grid.+They+are+not&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwja3oe5-6zLAhWHGx4KHdj4BY8Q6AEIHzAA#v=onepage&q=It%20would%20be%20comforting%20to%20report%20tha t%20those%20agencies%20charged%20with%20responding %20to%20disaster%20are%20adequately%20prepared%20t o%20deal%20with%20the%20consequences%20of%20a%20cy berattack%20on%20the%20grid.%20They%20are%20not&f=false)to report that those agencies charged with responding to disaster are adequately prepared to deal with the consequences of a cyberattack on the grid. They are not.”
...

[Abbey Marie]

Century Link screwed up bigtime, and got caught being cheap.

Fiber should always be in a "ring" format - it should go in a giant circle so that if one leg is broken (and that happens alot, btw, from homeowners digging or construction crews), the traffic flows the other way and data outage is confined to a very small area immediately around where the fiber got hit.

I see in that story that it was encased in a metal pipe.... I didn't see that from the pictures at all. On a rural run like what happened here, it's placed in plastic orange or yellow 'Innerduct' which looks like this :

http://www.debatepolicy.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=7041&stc=1

This stuff isn't very strong, but it allows you to pull out and/or replace or add another fiber after after it's been buried.

The fiber itself is armored, and very strong - but won't hold up to any kind of deliberate abuse.

I suspect Century is fudging quite a bit here to cover the poor planning that resulted in not having a ring. I imagine they're in a full fledged panic right now to get everything back up.

When you sign up your Telecom company for the Emergency 911 System for that government money, and they all do, you're required to have redundancy. Also, any other carriers that leased bandwidth have extremely expensive clauses for what's called an "unplanned outage", and they can quickly add up to millions of dollars in only a few hours.

The "metal casing" story sounds phony - it's very expensive and not necessary, unless it just happened to be casing where it crossed under that river bed, which is possible.

Anyway, I guarantee that there's a few Engineers that are getting fired over this, even though I know it was discussed and debated. It wasn't just the Engineers that knew the weakness of how they built that. But right now they'll need to give the government and their customers a few scapegoats and hope they'll be lenient in the massive financial penalties.

The sabotage angle will alleviate some of the penalties, but everyone involved knows that they should have had the fiber ring built properly.

Construction short cuts/shoddy work? No way! :rolleyes:

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://s4.freebeacon.com/up/2015/02/fiber-optics.jpg
`Cellphone, Internet, and telephone services across half of Arizona went dark on Wednesday after vandals sliced a sensitive fiber optic cable, according to those familiar with the situation. The incident is raising concerns about the safety of U.S. infrastructure.`
http://anmblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c565553ef0168ea6b041e970c-800wi



http://freebeacon.com/national-secur...-across-state/ (http://freebeacon.com/national-security/vandalism-in-arizona-shut-down-internet-cellphone-telephone-service-across-state/)

The obama's favorite brothers (hint- muzzy bastards) testing how to disable entire cities for some future co-ordinated and wide spread massive attack methinks.. And do not think the muslim-in-hiding is not in on it with his great pals CAIR!!
WOULD BE PERFECT TO DO ACROSS THE NATION TO ABOUT 30 BIG CITIES AND HAVE CO-ORDINATED SUICIDE BOMB ATTACKS--THE BAMBASTARD COULD DECLARE MARTIAL LAW AND IF HE DID ONLY HE CAN UN-DECLARE IT.
Gaffer and I both thought we'd likely see this before bambastard left office--now if dems lose election day, bamo-- operation chaos-- bamtraitor declares martial law and we lose the Republic.

Great plan, especially if the government is in on it..

Allied forces had the French Underground do similar just prior to the D-day invasion.-Tyr

[Drummond]

:laugh: And you can point out all of my posts supporting BO and all of my posts supporting big government? :laugh: You should stop letting yourself be led around by an idiot.

FWIW, I don't want to argue. I'd like to discuss the issues of the day with intelligent people who don't bleat, "Aack, leftie!" when they have nothing else to say.

-- At it again, I see ? How does your post address the subject-matter of this thread ??

I'm inviting you, AGAIN, to redirect this troll stuff where it belongs. Specifically --

http://www.debatepolicy.com/showthread.php?53947-Trolling-Outlet-for-FJ1200&p=799090#post799090

You might start your contribution there by showing us what post of yours ever advocated draconian action directed against Obama.

And / or, you might explain the comparatively Leftie-friendly stuff in your signature ! I refer to:



"when socialism fails, blame capitalism and demand more socialism." - A friend. "You know the difference between libs and right-wingers? Libs STFU when evidence refutes their false beliefs." - Another friend


Since when did Lefties ever cease their propaganda, even when their 'beliefs' are provably false ?? You have some curious friends ....



Now take your rot to the Cage.

[Kathianne]

-- At it again, I see ? How does your post address the subject-matter of this thread ??

I'm inviting you, AGAIN, to redirect this troll stuff where it belongs. Specifically --

http://www.debatepolicy.com/showthread.php?53947-Trolling-Outlet-for-FJ1200&p=799090#post799090

You might start your contribution there by showing us what post of yours ever advocated draconian action directed against Obama.

And / or, you might explain the comparatively Leftie-friendly stuff in your signature ! I refer to:



Since when did Lefties ever cease their propaganda, even when their 'beliefs' are provably false ?? You have some curious friends ....



Now take your rot to the Cage.

HE'S at it again? You quoted a post over a year old.

[Drummond]

HE'S at it again? You quoted a post over a year old.

My error, then. I did not check the date of the post before responding to it .. I just took it that FJ was trolling yet again.

Nonetheless, it's still a pity that FJ won't pledge to commit future such posting to the Cage, where it belongs, and as I've tried to arrange. Would you be willing to support me in that ?

If not ... why not ?

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

My error, then. I did not check the date of the post before responding to it .. I just took it that FJ was trolling yet again.

Nonetheless, it's still a pity that FJ won't pledge to commit future such posting to the Cage, where it belongs, and as I've tried to arrange. Would you be willing to support me in that ?

If not ... why not ?

Happens, nobody is perfect. I may get a recent thanks on a comment on a very old thread.
I click on that thread from the link given in recent thanks, and reply --not noticing the old date.
Has happened to me a lot, since some members enjoy reading older threads and then find a comment made, thanking it.
If its a continuous thread I don't mind at all but if its a thread that has been dead and forgotten for many years I feel dumb for not noticing the date.
Who has never made a simple mistake?-Tyr

[Drummond]

Happens, nobody is perfect. I may get a recent thanks on a comment on a very old thread.
I click on that thread and reply --not noticing the old date.
Has happened to me a lot, since some members enjoy reading older threads and then find a comment made, thanking it.
If its a continuous thread I don't mind at all but if its a thread that has been dead and forgotten for many years I feel dumb for not noticing the date.
Who has never made a simple mistake?-Tyr

Thanks, Tyr. And most of us have better things to do than scrupulously check out dates of posts, anyway ...

Besides, my own post did contain valid points. And .. I see no reason for FJ to resist going to the Cage and arguing his troll stuff exclusively THERE, where it belongs. Thus far, he's refused to. He could pledge to, this finally stopping, for good, thread hijacks and the like.

[indago]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMsgAtaSuxQ&list=PLVkiXxh4Rg_PFyOLPujUGYobvglXNuThL