http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/06/georgian-woman-cuts-web-access
Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
Georgian woman cuts off web access to whole of Armenia | Georgia | The Guardian
Babushkas can be quite mean, though mostly it's shopping bags that are their preferred tools of assault. 
From TA:
"The cable is owned by the Georgian railway network. It is heavily protected"
I don't think that's true, you can't really heavily guard every stretch of cable since it spans such a long distance. There will always be weak spots.
From TA:
"Pulling up unused copper cables for scrap is a common means of making money in the former Soviet Union."
This is common in the Netherlands too nowadays and other countries too I am sure. Because copper has gone up in price considerably. In the Netherlands especially copper lines along railroad tracks are removed, disabling alert systems with obvious dangerous results.
Regards,
Jeroen
Say now, that might be one way to force the issue of FTTH.
Mike
Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
Georgian woman cuts off web access to whole of Armenia | Georgia | The Guardian
Babushkas can be quite mean, though mostly it's shopping bags that are their preferred tools of assault.
As the recipient of a number of umbrella tips while trying to catch up to my fiancee (at the time, ex-wife now) in a meat shop in Moscow, I have to differ with you here. They seem quite adept at the use of an umbrella rather than a shopping bag as an effective weapon.
Once we finally got out of the shop (I was a full 10 minutes delayed behind my fiancee), we figured out that her effort to move efficiently through the crowd (which virtually parted before her) combined with my effort to keep up (or catch up as rapidly became the case) had been interpreted by the babushkas as her trying to get away from my unwanted attentions. I must say, they were impressively effective and well coordinated in impeding my progress while expediting hers considering it was a random crowd of seemingly unconnected people.
Owen
That won't prevent outages due to cable cuts. I've heard of people cutting spans of fiber, thinking it was copper, and then throwing by the wayside once they realized there was nothing in there that a recycler would pay for.
jms
We had someone come into a cell site and strip out all the outside ground leads. Oddly enough they left the ground bars themselves, which would have been much more worthwhile. Maybe they came unprepared and only had clippers.
Also, several years ago a building in our area was being renovated, and someone snuck in during the night and stripped the wires from the main service panel. I wouldn't think the amount of copper there would be worth the time, but some people aren't too bright.
We also had a 180' monopole that we replaced, and the crew laid the old monopole down on the ground with all the equipment still in place. We didn't get to it to remove our antennas for a few weeks, and when we did, we found that someone had stripped out 3 runs of 1 5/8" coax from inside the tower.
Needless to say, all of our copper reels are locked up to keep them from walking off during the night.
I'd think that unless someone could get access to a LOT of copper all at one place, and fairly easy to get to, that it wouldn't be worth the time and effort.
Jason
I guess we have another gem for DeLongFacts.com (in the vein of SchneierFacts.com): He is one of the few natural enemies of the Babushka.
Jima
Every once in awhile there is also a story about either a disgruntled (former) employee or an outsider managing to get into a CO or other technical space and electrocuting themselves when they try to cut out live power cables. One group does it for salvage value - the other (presumably) does it to make some kind of statement or cause their (former) employer headaches. Neither is particularly bright....
jms
A nearby city that also serves as the local electric often has to go to the local metal recycler to buy their own cable back.
I guess we have another gem for DeLongFacts.com (in the vein of
SchneierFacts.com): He is one of the few natural enemies of the
Babushka.
Did anyone else suddenly have flashbacks to the VMS Wombat?