[88062] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: The Backhoe: A Real Cyberthreat?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Micheal Patterson)
Thu Jan 19 14:13:07 2006
From: "Micheal Patterson" <micheal@tsgincorporated.com>
To: <sgorman1@gmu.edu>
Cc: <nanog@nanog.org>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 13:10:14 -0600
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: <sgorman1@gmu.edu>
Cc: <nanog@nanog.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 12:00 PM
Subject: Re: The Backhoe: A Real Cyberthreat?
>
>
> While it is always fun to call the government stupid, or anyone else for
> that matter, there is a little more to the story.
>
> - For one you do not need a backhoe to cut fiber
> - Two, fiber carries a lot more than Internet traffic - cell phone, 911,
> financial tranactions, etc. etc.
> - Three, while it is very unlikely terrorists would only attack telecom
> infrastructure, a case can be made for a telecom attack that amplifies a
> primary conventional attack. The loss of communications would complicate
> things quite a bit.
>
> I'll agree it is very far fethced you could hatch an attack plan from FCC
> outage reports, but I would not call worrying about attacks on
> telecommunications infrastructure stupid. Enough sobriety though, please
> return to the flaming.
I would tend to disagree on that depending on how detailed those reports
are. For example, if they indicate that junction X will hinder / disable
communications to sector/grid Y, then yes, it could be a serious threat if
you have police, fire, hospitals, etc on that section of the grid.
Mike P.
