Ugh

[reboot_kid]

Someone decided to go down and cut fiber cables.
http://www.mercurynews.com/topstories/ci_12106300?nclick_check=1&forced=true

No wonder some of our facilities are offline in that area.

Comments

[kalistrya]

Jerks.

[schpydurx]

Was this a corporate war? Some punk kid who thinks he's a l33t h@x0r? An act of terror? Whatever the case, I want to catch the bastard and pistol whip him even though I'm not directly affected. Physically cutting data cables is NOT cool!

[reboot_kid]

Well, the mass media wants to blame a member from the CWA Union, which AT&T is currently at talks with under a threat of a stike. Last time the CWA and AT&T negotiated, a large set of land lines were cut, so the conjecture is not without merit.

What a friend of mine said is that whoever did this is going to get hit with terrorism charges, and I think thats completely wrong. Vandalism? Sure. Impacting commerce and emergency services? Definitely. Terrorism? Not so much.

[schpydurx]

I think that if this was an order from either AT&T or the CWA, then I agree with you that the charges and punishments should be severe but not "terrorism". However, if it turns out that this is a random act against the "state" (any level of government) then I think terrorism charges apply. That migh sound like a double standard, but I'm differentiating intent and causation, giving the benefit of the doubt to a citizen.

[reboot_kid]

What if it was just some kid out to see how much chaos he can cause?

The reason I have a hard time with it being an anarchist or CWA is because of the fact that different tools would have been used.

If it was the CWA, they'd have used bolt cutters, not a hack-saw. It's faster, and easier to cut out a chunk. Small slices are relatively easy to splice back together. A missing chunk requires a cable re-run, which would be difficult for a non-CWA person to do. Additionally, the CWA guys are still working, just without a contract. Why would they sabotage themselves just when they get AT&T to the negotiating table proper?

If it was someone targeting the government sector, etc, then they'd do something much different. It would be really easy to use something like a road flare or blow torch. That would melt all the fibers together. Then, dump a bunch of cement powder down the hole, and leave the cover open in the rain. That'll make it nearly impossible for things to repaired in the short term.