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Vandals Keep Snipping Fiber Optic Cables in California With Impunity

posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday July 21 2015, @07:01AM   
from the where'd-I-put-my-sidecutters dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

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.

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Original Submission

• Re:Conspiracy theory time! (Score: 2) by zocalo on Tuesday July 21 2015, @05:32PM

  by zocalo (302) on Tuesday July 21 2015, @05:32PM (#212006)

  As you say, very little reason for a US government agency to be doing this - they'd have just gone to the telco directly, ideally with an NSL in hand. I was actually thinking more of industrial espionage or a foreign government, but it does require that they know when the initial fault finding and location detection tests have been done to make the second cut or tap (hence the inside man) and the technical capability to tap the fibre without leaving an obvious telltale on an OTDR or other diagnostic trace. The latter is technically possible, but does kind of limit the potential number of actors who could pull it off, and even there there's always the risk of someone inadverantly stumbling across the tap while doing other work along the fibre route.
  
  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? :)

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  UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!

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