[113331] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Outside plant protection, fiber cuts, interwebz down oh noes!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rod Beck)
Thu Apr 9 20:55:30 2009
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:55:27 +0100
From: "Rod Beck" <Rod.Beck@hiberniaatlantic.com>
To: "Charles Wyble" <charles@thewybles.com>,
<nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
Hold on. Who says this sabotage?=20
These incidents happen all the time without sabotage being involved. A =
ship sank off the coast of Pakistan and took out both international =
cables serving the country ...
We had the undersea earthquake that seven seven cables in the Taiwan =
straits.=20
The truth is that physical diversity is an ideal, not a reality.=20
I have seen lots of accidents that took multiple operators and seriously =
disrupted in a given locality.=20
The only difference here is that in the Heart of Geek Territory. Hence =
the Natives are restless ...
Roderick S. Beck
Director of European Sales
Hibernia Atlantic
-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Wyble [mailto:charles@thewybles.com]
Sent: Thu 4/9/2009 11:04 PM
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Outside plant protection, fiber cuts, interwebz down oh noes!=20
=20
Seriously though I want to start some discussion around outside plant=20
protection. This isn't the middle of the ocean or desert after all.
There were multiple fiber cuts in a major metropolitan area, resulting=20
in the loss of critical infrastructure necessary to many peoples daily=20
lives (though twitter stayed up so it's all good). :) It would appear=20
that this was a deliberate act by one or more individuals, who seemed to =
have a very good idea of where to strike which resulted in a low cost,=20
low effort attack that yielded significant results.
So allow me to think out loud for a minute....
1) Why wasn't the fiber protected by some sort of hardened/locked=20
conduit? Is this possible? Does it add extensive cost or hamper normal=20
operation?
2) Why didn't an alarm go off that someone had entered the area? It was=20
after business hours, presumably not in response to a trouble ticket,=20
and as such a highly suspicious action. Does it make sense for these=20
access portals to have some sort of alarm? I mean there is fiber running =
through and as such it could carry the signaling. Would this be a=20
massive cost addition during construction?
3) From what I understand it's not trivial to raise a manhole cover.=20
Most likely can't be done by one person. Can they be locked? Or were the =
carriers simply relying on obscurity/barrier to entry?
