Just in case any of you don't read slashdot:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1583347,00.asp
"Law enforcement officials said four DS-3 cards were reported missing from
a Manhattan co-location facility owned by Verizon Communications Inc. The
theft at 240 E. 38th St. occurred just after 10:30 p.m. on Sunday and is
being investigated by New York City Police and members of the joint
terrorism task force, according to NYPD spokesman Lt. Brian Burke. "
4 DS3 cards and the joint terrorism task force is called in?
Aren't there enough gas tanks being stolen around the country for the
joint terrorism task force to be kept busy?
Trying to fix our terrorism problem like this is like trying to fix the
spam problem using IP-based blacklists.
Anyway, late in the article a spokesman for Sprint is quoted:
"Fleckenstein said that the outage was "not major," and not large enough
to require a report to the Federal Communications Commission."
I just thought it was hilarious that a this outage is major enough to
suspect terrorist motives and involve the appropriate agency, but not
major enough to warrant reporting to the FCC. Sure, it didn't knock down
the service of 50,000 customers, but doesn't it seem sad that an entire
mid-sized city must lose service before the FCC gets to know about it?
I think every fricking trouble ticket generated at an ILEC should be
recorded at the FCC. It's not like they don't have the means and
technology. It would be near-trivial, in fact, given their capabilities
when properly motivated.
Andy
Just in case any of you don't read slashdot:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1583347,00.asp
"Law enforcement officials said four DS-3 cards were reported missing from
a Manhattan co-location facility owned by Verizon Communications Inc. The
theft at 240 E. 38th St. occurred just after 10:30 p.m. on Sunday and is
being investigated by New York City Police and members of the joint
terrorism task force, according to NYPD spokesman Lt. Brian Burke. "
4 DS3 cards and the joint terrorism task force is called in?
Especially silly considering it's not a totally uncommon thing for bad
things to happen to co-located CLEC gear/cabling in ex-Nynex territory.
Charles
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1583347,00.asp
"Law enforcement officials said four DS-3 cards were reported missing from
a Manhattan co-location facility owned by Verizon Communications Inc. The
theft at 240 E. 38th St. occurred just after 10:30 p.m. on Sunday and is
Is this part really surprising to anyone who's got gear in unsupervised
LEC colos where everyone is in open relay racks in a large open space?
being investigated by New York City Police and members of the joint
terrorism task force, according to NYPD spokesman Lt. Brian Burke. "
This seems a bit over the top. A couple years ago when we had a part
stolen out of one of our routers in a WCOM colo facility, we couldn't get
the local PD to do jack. A report was filed...but I think they filed it
in the circular file, because nobody ever investigated, despite the fact
that WCOM had just installed a card reader system to replace the simplex
door locks, so in theory, they knew who was in the room when our stuff was
stolen, but they refused to release the info to us.
I guess we should have suggested it was an act of terrorism.
Trying to fix our terrorism problem like this is like trying to fix the
spam problem using IP-based blacklists.
No...I'd say it's more like fighting the spam problem with nuclear
weapons...now there's an idea.
Thus spake "Andy Dills" <andy@xecu.net>
Just in case any of you don't read slashdot:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1583347,00.asp
"Law enforcement officials said four DS-3 cards were reported missing from
a Manhattan co-location facility owned by Verizon Communications Inc. The
theft at 240 E. 38th St. occurred just after 10:30 p.m. on Sunday and is
being investigated by New York City Police and members of the joint
terrorism task force, according to NYPD spokesman Lt. Brian Burke. "
One must wonder why the headline is "Network Card Theft Causes Internet
Outage" instead of "Carrier Sercurity Negligence Causes Internet Outage".
S
Stephen Sprunk "Stupid people surround themselves with smart
CCIE #3723 people. Smart people surround themselves with
K5SSS smart people who disagree with them." --Aaron Sorkin
The disproportionate reaction doesn't surprise me in the least.
I've been working in industrial fire/rescue within the petrochemical
sector since I left the realm of ISPs. I've seen similar responses as a
result of intoxicated subjects trying to climb facility fences or
art-school students trying to take pictures of refining vessels.
I admit, my first reaction was, "Maybe they should interview anyone
that just brought in an empty router chassis.... and now has DS3's
running..." (gotta keep a hot spare after all)
** Reply to message from "Stephen Sprunk" <stephen@sprunk.org> on Tue,
4 May 2004 09:37:10 -0500
blame is bad, hype is good!
Interestingly, the word is that Sprint is blaming this 100% on Verizon,
first claiming outright theft (publically, to customers who called asking
for an explanation), later toning that down to something like "a Verizon
union worker damaged our equipment".
So it's a fingerpointing battle, Sprint pointing fingers at Verizon,
Verizon pointing fingers at terrorists.
Andy
So it's a fingerpointing battle, Sprint pointing fingers at Verizon,
Verizon pointing fingers at terrorists.
That's just a move to help further their argument that no one should be
allowed to co-locate in COs. After all, it's a matter of national
security...
Charles
Of course, it's just as likely that a Verizon employee lifted them as
a colocation customer, and either is far more likely than terrorists.
So, say that your equipment, sitting in a shared facility, suffered
'tampering' of some description. What would you do to prevent that
happening in the first place, or failing that, to have a positive
description to hand to the local authorities?
To start off, what we've done with our gear thats located in a shared
facility is to change the locks on our racks so the facility rack key
(which everyone has a copy of) doesn't work. The administrators of the
facility have a copy of our rack key in order to do any remote hands work
that we need though.
What has been suggested (but not implemented) for our gear is to have a
network camera on the inside of each rack activated by the racks being
opened (for some vague definition of 'opened'). Easily defeated by
lifting the floor tiles and disconnecting the uplink cable of course, but
reasonable peace of mind against the casual equipment lifter.