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USA Today reports that the FBI is investigating at least 11 physical attacks on high-capacity Internet cables in California's San Francisco Bay Area dating back to at least July 6, 2014, including one early this week. "When it affects multiple companies and cities, it does become disturbing," says Special Agent Greg Wuthrich. "We definitely need the public's assistance." The pattern of attacks raises serious questions about the glaring vulnerability of critical Internet infrastructure, says JJ Thompson. "When it's situations that are scattered all in one geography, that raises the possibility that they are testing our capabilities, response times and impact," says Thompson. "That is a security person's nightmare."
Mark Peterson, a spokesman for Internet provider Wave Broadband, says an unspecified number of Sacramento-area customers were knocked offline by the latest attack. Peterson characterized the Tuesday attack as "coordinated" and said the company was working with Level 3 and Zayo to restore service. It's possible the vandals were dressed as telecommunications workers to avoid arousing suspicion, say FBI officials. Backup systems help cushion consumers from the worst of the attacks, meaning people may notice slower email or videos not playing, but may not have service completely disrupted. But repairs are costly and penalties are not stiff enough to deter would-be vandals. "There are flags and signs indicating to somebody who wants to do damage: This is where it is folks," says Richard Doherty. "It's a terrible social crime that affects thousands and millions of people."
Original Submission
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @09:52AM
That's a totally implausible theory. Even assuming the NSA would need to physically tap the cables, they would certainly be smart enough not to create a detectable pattern that proves coordination.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VortexCortex on Thursday July 02 2015, @01:27PM
Even assuming the NSA would need to physically tap the cables, they would certainly be smart enough not to create a detectable pattern that proves coordination.
You mean like the physical splices they have had in telcos since long before 9/11, such as Room 641A? [wikipedia.org] Or before that, Omnivore / Carnivore [wikipedia.org], ECHELON [wikipedia.org], and etc. warrantless wiretaps everyone who searched for knew about for decades? You know, all that stuff the PATRIOT Act granted retroactive immunity to telcos for cooperation with? Surely, if the NSA were as smart as you think they were then a room full of their fractional splitters wouldn't have been discoverable by some nosy telco worker. In your fictional uber sleek spycraft wielding idealized version of the NSA they would have disguised the taps right along with all the other hardware, maybe the switches would be "hacked", and secret agents would maintain the systems in the open with no one being the wiser... but, nope, they left a "detectable pattern" that "proves coordination" with AT&T (among other telcos) in the form of big dedicated rooms full of suspicious fiber taps.
Not that I believe the NSA would want to cut fiber for no good reason (they don't want wired seen as bad/evil so that we're pushed closer to using exclusively wireless mesh -- much harder to tap every air wave everywhere than a few trunk lines); However, I'm afraid we can't rule out the NSA or some other covert operations based on grandiose assumptions of unlimited coolness. They've already got physical taps in most places, but say you wanted to upgrade your splices and needed some down time? They do indeed physically tap undersea fiber cables [theatlantic.com], so why wouldn't they tap easier to access wires? Some businesses (like Google) had private fiber lines they sent unencrypted data over figuring that no one could see the data anyway -- Google started encrypting such traffic after leaks showed the NSA would tap such lines so the company didn't have to collude with the NSA for them to get your data. The cuts Are in the San Fran area, eh? While we're dispelling illusions: When the NSA wants to hack your stuff, they don't send in a team of elite hackers to target you with super secret zero-day vulns, they use something similar to the skiddie Metasploit tool to deploy exploits purchased on the black market, [theatlantic.com] just like any other thug would.
One of my "crazier" theories is that it's the Unabomber, or someone like him. You should read that manifesto; Interesting stuff about becoming slaves to technology and the elites that own it -- That is: It's not necessarily "troglodytes" who would have the motive to cut cables. I'm pretty sure they didn't get the right guy for those bombings though.
(Score: 2) by BananaPhone on Thursday July 02 2015, @02:49PM
You are right. it is too "public"
Makes for a great diversion though...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 03 2015, @01:26AM
I'm pretty sure they didn't get the right guy for those bombings though.
On what basis? For counterevidence we have stuff like this story [cbsnews.com]:
CBS station KPIX-TV in San Francisco aired a report Tuesday about the evidence. A source close to the case gave the station photographs of the items, which included his typewriter, a handmade gun of wood and metal, writings, and the hooded sweat shirt and sunglasses featured in his FBI wanted photos.
"He wrote about everything. He wrote about what he had for lunch on May 5 of 1979, where he got the food, how he prepared it and what did it taste like," said retired FBI agent Max Noel, who helped lead the investigation.
Investigators also found an unexploded bomb inside a silver box with the name of another intended victim, the station reported.
Kaczynski described in his writings how he placed two human hairs he found in a bus station into a bomb "to deceive the policemen, who will think that the hair belongs to whoever made the device," KPIX reported.
Kaczynski also made a homemade gun — part wood, part metal — that was untraceable. About the gun, he wrote, "I want to use the gun as a homicide weapon," KPIX reported.