Internet and phone connections across Britain could go into meltdown as BT workers threaten their first national strike for 23 years...
‘Many business and residential phonelines could go out of action, and if broadband crashes then thousands and thousands of people will find their internet goes down.’
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/828021-threat-of-bt-strike-could-affect-internet-and-phone-connections
Internet and phone connections across Britain could go into meltdown
as BT workers threaten their first national strike for 23 years...‘Many business and residential phonelines could go out of action, and
if broadband crashes then thousands and thousands of people will find
their internet goes down.’http://www.metro.co.uk/news/828021-threat-of-bt-strike-could-affect-internet-and-phone-connections
I get a lovely vision from that of a real old-style manual switchboard
operator, frantically plugging internet connections together with patch
cords as each SYN packet rings a little bell.
Clearly BT engineers being on strike will stop broken things from
being fixed[0]. I'm very unclear how it will cause things that are
working today to suddenly "go into meltdown"...
Regards,
Tim.
[0] As a residential customer, it's arguable how much of a change this is.
Internet and phone connections across Britain could go into meltdown
as BT workers threaten their first national strike for 23 years...‘Many business and residential phonelines could go out of action, and
if broadband crashes then thousands and thousands of people will find
their internet goes down.’http://www.metro.co.uk/news/828021-threat-of-bt-strike-could-affect-internet-and-phone-connections
I get a lovely vision from that of a real old-style manual switchboard
operator, frantically plugging internet connections together with patch
cords as each SYN packet rings a little bell.Clearly BT engineers being on strike will stop broken things from
being fixed[0]. I'm very unclear how it will cause things that are
working today to suddenly "go into meltdown"...
In between the cord board and today, then the switchmen or repeatermen
went on strike, they pulled down all the patch cords and make-busy plugs
to put all the broken equipment back into service.
For the first few hours all we did was reshoot troubles that should have
been repaired long before but were "too hard".
One of the engineers discovered that a lot of stuff in the Master Test
Frame was broken, mis-wired, etc, with lots of workarounds in use.
We made it all right, including ensuring that the workarounds wouldn't
work any more. (Since we left the place with nothing broken, we figured
the "managers" would have enough time to train and enforce procedures
before customers noticed. Much.)
[0] As a residential customer, it's arguable how much of a change this is.
One small step will take out our residential telephone, TV cable, and
Internet Access in one swell foop.
[I wonder if we had a dry run last night....everything (including the
provider's telephone when called from a cell phone) were out for about a
1/2 hour last evening. Eggs and baskets.]
Look at it from an attackers point of view. If you're thinking about carrying out an electronic jihad of some kind when is the best time? A normal working day or during an engineers strike that only happens once every 23 years?
Quite, and.. it's not unheard-of for reliability of services to
actually improve when no-one's mucking about with them!
d.
however during a strike, the strikers will be destroying their companies
network. Think about a firebomb down a man hole and no one to fix it, bullet
holes through switch gear and the like. Unions fight dirty.
A co-worker of mine was asked by somebody high in the US government in late
1999 if he was worried about attackers trying to pull something on New Year's.
Randy thought for a moment, and said "Hell no. There's going to be 3 zillion
engineers and programmers watching for any minor hiccup that day. The time to
pull something would be late January, when everybody's relaxed and stopped
worrying".
The room got very quiet... 
Are you *still* using the same threat models as you were 11 years ago?
No, it's just in the late 90's our threat models and protocols were already
advanced to where everybody else is just getting to now. You won't be able
to comprehend our *current* threat models till 2021 or so. 
Look at it from an attackers point of view. If you're thinking about
carrying out an electronic jihad of some kind when is the best time?
A normal working day or during an engineers strike that only happens
once every 23 years?
Not to put to fine a point on it, a normal working day is the best time to strike if you want to maximize the value of your attack.
The point I'm getting at is this strike of this nature is a threat to national security and the internet is supposed to be classed as critical infrastructure, so shouldn't it be against the law for them to strike?
Or has the law in the UK not got as far as the United States has on deeming what's critical infrastructure yet?
We are far behind the United States and its about time we played catch-up.
Sounds to me like the best defense the UK could implement would be fostering competition with BT. BT goes on strike, customers move elsewhere, life goes on.
Look at it from an attackers point of view. If you're thinking
about carrying out an electronic jihad of some kind when is the
best time? A normal working day or during an engineers strike
that only happens once every 23 years?Not to put to fine a point on it, a normal working day is the best
time to strike if you want to maximize the value of your attack.The point I'm getting at is this strike of this nature is a threat to
national security and the internet is supposed to be classed as
critical infrastructure, so shouldn't it be against the law for them
to strike?
The phone system has been critical infrastructure for 120 years...
Or has the law in the UK not got as far as the United States has on
deeming what's critical infrastructure yet?We are far behind the United States and its about time we played
catch-up.
I don't think a CWA strike has been declared illegal in recent history...
In general, strikes by telco, power company employees, etc., are legal in the US. Under certain circumstances involving the national interest, the president can order workers back to their jobs for 80 days, after which they're free to walk out again. The only people who can never strikes are public employees.
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
I know we've left the realm of NANOG, but come again?
Oakland teacher strike of 2010.
various teacher strikes in the Chicago area over the years
air traffic controllers in 1981
postal workers in 1978
1968 Memphis garbagemen
1974 Baltimore police strike
1969 Cicero, Illinois police strike
1919 Boston police strike
1980 Chicago firefighters strike
sam
The only people who can never strikes are public employees.
I know we've left the realm of NANOG, but come again?
I should have added the word "legally", and then for most jurisdictions.
Oakland teacher strike of 2010.
various teacher strikes in the Chicago area over the years
air traffic controllers in 1981
postal workers in 1978
1968 Memphis garbagemen
1974 Baltimore police strike
1969 Cicero, Illinois police strike
1919 Boston police strike
1980 Chicago firefighters strikesam
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
Internet and phone connections across Britain could go into meltdown
as BT workers threaten their first national strike for 23 years...I get a lovely vision from that of a real old-style manual switchboard
operator, frantically plugging internet connections together with patch
cords as each SYN packet rings a little bell.
So off-topic it hurts, but... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgqEIp2YmtE
Andy