Vandals snipped another fiber optic cable line in the San Francisco Bay area this week, the 12th incident of its kind in the region over the past year.
The latest attack occurred in the San Joaquin Valley town of Stockton, disrupting Internet, mobile phone, and 911 service for tens of thousands of AT&T and Verizon customers in three counties east of San Francisco. Service was restored about a day after the Tuesday incident.
The FBI, which is investigating the attacks, has not stated a motive, but it said the attacks usually occur in remote areas where there are no surveillance cameras. The initial attacks on California telecommunications lines began in July 2014. Whoever is responsible appears, for the moment, to be operating with impunity.
It would be funny and appropriate if they kept snipping the cables running to the Wall Street high frequency traders that keep front-running everyone's trades. Also, potentially lucrative if you go long in Depends adult diapers first.
(Score: 1) by btendrich on Tuesday July 21 2015, @04:24PM
I thought this might be possible too for a while, but if they are testing from both directions (as they should) during an outage, the two sides wouldn't be able to agree on the location of the cut, since each side would be seeing a different cut. Also, the tap should be visible on an otdr trace. In any case, this may be practiced in other countries where we can't exert pressure on the telco, inside the U.S. I'll bet it's easier to exert pressure on th company and just tap it at the endpoint.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Tuesday July 21 2015, @05:32PM
Personally, I think it's far more likely to turn out to be someone(s) upset at the effects the tech industry is having on local house prices, employment prospects and other social issues, or some similar form of axe to grind against the telcos or their customers, but what use is a tech web forum without some tinfoil headwear? :)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!