IP: Infowarfare with a set of cutters

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

From: hannigan@xcom.net (Martin Hannigan) 
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 19:37:57 GMT 
Organization: XCOM Technologies - Data Engineering 
Reply-To: hannigan@xcom.net


Considering I've gotten about 2 hours of sleep in the past 
24 hours, plus the flu, I can attest to the massive outage caused 
by an apparent disgruntled employee. 1200 strands, 3 OC48's and 
multiple OC10s taken out with cutters, deliberately and maliciously.
On the OC48 they took out the primary AND the protect ring 
dissolving their redundancy. And they did cut in multiple locations.
Everyone has at least one single point of failure that can cause a 
massive outage. :) Whether you've identified it or not, it's there.
Regards,
Martin Hannigan hannigan@xcom.net 
Director - Data Networks V:617.500.0108 
XCOM Technologies, INC. F:617.500.0002
------------------------
Then, this report from the newspapers Wednesday:
Excerpted from {The Boston Globe}, Nov. 12, 1997, page B3...
Vandalism disrupts phones, cable TV: 
Lines are severed in several towns
by 
Joann Muller, 
Globe Staff
About 40,000 Greater Boston homeowners lost their cable TV service 
and 350 businesses lost telephone service over parts of three days 
after an apparent rash of vandalism that began Saturday.
Media One, the region's largest cable operator, and Teleport 
Communications Group, a long-distance phone company, said their 
services were disrupted Saturday night, early Sunday, and Monday 
evening after vandals apparently climbed at least eight utility poles 
and cut the companies' one-inch-thick fiber cables.
The two companies, whose cables share a fiber optic conduit, 
offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and 
conviction of the vandals.
Media One spokesman Rick Jenkinson said he believes his company 
was the target of the sabotage, because many of the incidents 
occurred near Media One buildings or facilities.
The sabotage began at about 9:30 p.m. Saturday when someone climbed a 
pole in Woburn and cut a bundle of fiber cables, Jenkinson said. 
Customers in surrounding communities were affected, he said, but 
service was restored within an hour and 15 minutes.
About six hours later, similar incidents occurred in Needham and 
Newton, he said.
Then, at about 5:30 p.m. Monday, five more cables were cut in 
Natick, Dedham, and Needham.
About 26,000 Media One customers were affected over the weekend, he 
said, and another 18,000 on Monday evening. All cable customers 
received a one-day credit for the lost service.
Teleport's phone customers weren't affected much, said spokeswoman 
Donna Suky, because the outages occurred over the weekend or after 
hours when most of the businesses were closed. The phone lines were 
back on before most customers even knew there was a problem, she said.
Both companies said they have extensive backup systems that enabled 
them to restore service quickly.
The companies have set up a toll-free, confidential hot line 
(800-298-9790, ext. 8120) for tips about the vandalism. State and 
local police from several communities are investigating.


Copyright 1997 Globe Newspaper Company.








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"Photons have neither morals nor visas"  --  Dave Farber 1994
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