When Your Backhoe Cuts "Black" Fiber 385
bernieS writes "The Washington Post describes what happens when a construction backhoe accidentally cuts buried fiber so secret that it doesn't appear on public maps — and what happens when the Men in Black SUVs appear out of nowhere. Apparently, the numerous secret fiber and utility lines used by government intelligence agencies are being dug up with increasing frequency with all the increased construction projects in the DC area. It's amazing how quickly they get repaired!"
Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are reasons why it's important that public records are kept.
If they wanted to keep people from knowing where or what exactly it was, they could simply have marked it as something it wasn't.. and beyond that, they could encrypt what goes on that fiber.
They aren't without options; and ultimately they're currently fighting the system, and putting our tax dollars to work in ways that could be prevented.
It's understandable that they want to keep secrets secret, but isn't covering it up going to draw more attention than fudging the paperwork?
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, and I have to wonder a little: there's very little infrastructure terrorism, instead there's much more information terrorism at work. (i.e. the Pentagon hack that lost us the plans to the next air superiority fighter).
The government does a half-assed job securing its own computers, but they'll lock down what's between the computers... that's like having a convoy that's well protected, then having that same convoy deliver without any security detail.
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:4, Insightful)
That wasn't terrorism. That was good old fashioned espionage. Spies and saboteurs are related to terrorists, in that they're all tools of "total warfare" doctrine, but it's not the same thing.
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really, these computer systems are no where near the internet. They are secured by strict access restrictions (physical security) and the lack of interconnection to places without that.
In short, and to keep with your military convoy scenario, you can't really think of this convoy as a regular supply convoy behind the lines. Think of it as the one the president is in when touring the camps and the others are just running supplies to relatively safe camps. These systems serviced by the secrete fiber are something completely different then the main systems you keep hearing about with the breaches. Those systems use publicly accessible and most likely publicly documented lines.
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:4, Funny)
that's like having a convoy that's well protected, then having that same convoy deliver without any security detail.
Repeat after me, "The internet is not a big truck, it is a series of tubes [youtube.com]"
I can't believe it's 5 hours and no one has yet made this joke...
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Funny, I can't believe we made it five hours without someone making that joke.
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF does stealing plans have to do with scaring people?
The government can use plans being stolen [wikipedia.org] as an excuse to scare their people with the threat of scaring people [wikipedia.org]? :)
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Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:4, Informative)
To be completely fair, Vader did not blow up Alderaan, Tarkin was responsible for that little example of state terrorism...
Vader did not voice any objection to the plan, though
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Funny)
Wait... So whose the terrorist here again?
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:4, Insightful)
The US Government doesn't like it.
What did you think think terrorism meant?
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Word is, half of North Korea is starving so that the government could develop a Hiroshima-class nuke that didn't work alongside a delivery system that also failed. Considering the tech they're trying to develop (and failing miserably at) is 65 years old, I'm really not too worried about
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Interesting)
Really! Just mark it as a 4" natural gas line. Any backhoe operator worth his salt knows that cooked backhoe guy isn't a pretty sight.
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Funny)
Sewage line then, it's probably full of shit anyway.
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are lots of natural gas pipelines under the ground besides the low-pressure ones that end users tap into to run domestic appliances. The higher-pressure transportation pipelines aren't something you touch unless you want to die a spectacular death, so they'd be guaranteed to be left alone by everyone save the gas company. And if you wanted to protect against that, you could create some sort of paper company that owned it and was responsible for maintenance: I've never met a utility company that would touch something once they got an inkling of a way in which it could be made somebody else's problem.
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:4, Funny)
I've never met a utility company that would touch something once they got an inkling of a way in which it could be made somebody else's problem.
That's nothing. I've never met a utility company at all.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Or run your data line through a gas line. Where you /also/ use the gas.
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hell, just put the fiber in a 4" gas line! Valves become a little problem, but you could have some cast with a bypass for the fiber to pass through.
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Informative)
Many gas pipeline companies bury communications links right alongside their pipelines that communicate with flow meters and pressure gauges, send instructions to compressor stations along the pipeline to throttle up or down, or shut and open valves remotely to keep up with demand. They wouldn't run the cable inside the pipelines, though, because they occasionally send devices called "pigs" through the pipes to check for corrosion on the inside of the pipeline. The pigs would simply shred any cables inside the pipeline.
Now it's conceivable that a secret agency could slip in their communications link alongside the pipeline company's link as it's being built; of course they would lie and tell the pipeline constructors that they're such-and-such communications company looking for a protected right-of-way for their cable. Then when someone dials the call-before-you-dig hotline, they're told there's two communications links and a 36 inch gas pipeline buried there. Guaranteed the contractor will be more concerned about hitting the pipeline than any cables buried right next to it, and stay far away from it.
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Then when someone dials the call-before-you-dig hotline, they're told there's two communications links and a 36 inch gas pipeline buried there. Guaranteed the contractor will be more concerned about hitting the pipeline than any cables buried right next to it, and stay far away from it.
I blame the contractor on this one. Just because a utility was not listed on whatever plans he/she was reading, doesn't excuse making no real effort to detect that utility in the first place. In truth, many Private Locating Companies use Ground Penetrating Radar [global-gpr.com] which is fully capable of finding just about anything underground. These aren't your usual "ULOCO" guys, and yes, they're more expensive. However, if the alternative is accidentally hitting an expensive/secret/critical comm. line, I'd rath
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Absolutely been done, though compressed air is far more likely than natural gas. Divide the pipe into compartments, pressurize each compartment, and install a pressure transducer in each segment. If one of the segments gets breached it loses pressure and you can tell exactly where the damage happened.
I think this stuff is outlined in the old TEMPEST specs. It's not just about EM leakage, but damage detection and mitigation and airgapping of different levels of classification. I bet there's plenty of tri
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Interesting)
Part of the problem is they are moving lines. In this case half of the job was digging for construction and the other half was digging up and moving known utilities out of the way of the construction. So if you show them where your "gas lines" are at, they are likely to try to move some of them to get them out of their way. And then they are statistically a lot more likely to be discovered for what they are than if they just don't tell you and hope you don't try to move a line on top of one of theirs or dig a tunnel through it.
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's actually worse. Because now they are KNOWN to be super-secret government lines.
I mean, think about it: You dig up a cable that shouldn't be there and rip it apart. You hop off your 'dozer and still stare at the wire, wondering wtf it's doing here, while a suspiciously unmarked car screeches to halt next to you, out come a few suits and tell you you didn't see anything (sneaky-stealthy as our secret policemen are). They could just as well guard it with a similar tape they use for high voltage wires here (they put in yellow-red plastic tape about half a foot above high power wires and gas lines, so when you dig it up you KNOW you shouldn't dig any deeper) and mark it "secret government wire, do not dig deeper".
Mark it as a gas line, mark it as high voltage lines, hell, mark it as sewage pipes, but not marking it at all is asking for trouble.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In effect, you are somewhat right. those pipes are hermetically sealed and under pressure, and have the fiber cable inside.
when a break occurs, they can detect it by the loss of pressure
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Interesting)
The reality is more likely laziness and ego, of believing they are above the law. They just couldn't be bothered doing the appropriate paper work and now as a result are spending tens of thousands of dollars repairing no longer secret cables, which have now been identified as bring emphatically secret by the cables being hidden and subject to high risk of being accidentally dug up. Of course as a contractor you could sue the government for any delays caused by the government delaying access while they repair the undeclared cable.
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Insightful)
ego, of believing they are above the law
Where have YOU been lately? They are above the law.
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Most likely you/the contractor couldn't sue the government for anything in this case. This is Washington DC and congress has the final say in everything that goes on in Washington. If Congress ok'd the lines in the first place, then congress would have to grant the ability to suit over them in order to allow you to sue. This is part of the sovereign immunity that all US governments enjoy.
More then likely, the lines were placed in back during the cold war and possibly upgraded since then. Intercepting commun
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Informative)
This is part of the sovereign immunity that all US governments enjoy.
How many US governments are there?
51 (Fifty States, plus the federal.)
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Funny)
Two. The one you know about, and the one you... don't.
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Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Informative)
This is the first things I thought of - mark it as something else.
"Fibre cable x21-45. Carries: CCT footage of parking lots A-F in Sector 7."
Make two physically separate redundant feeds. The other one is marked with something like "Library Interconnect".
Then if either line gets cut at some point, have a couple of guys in a van show up, act like a regular repair crew, and fix the line quickly. Trust me, I've worked as a Civil Engineering Assistant, and they don't care what's in the line, just that there's a line. If you hit something that isn't on the map, they are going to find it and trace it no matter how long it takes. It'll be in a pipe. You can run a 60Hz powerline into the pipe and read the path from the surface. Maybe it's fibre this time -- maybe it's the water main or black water, or WCS -- both at the same time. The point is if you don't file your plans the town will send a poor fucking co-op student out there to mark the fucking thing on the map.
Then - bam - your secret line is on the maps in the Town Hall marked as "unknown line".
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are reasons why it's important that public records are kept.
And there are reasons secret records are kept... It's not a perfect either-or.
If they wanted to keep people from knowing where or what exactly it was, they could simply have marked it as something it wasn't.. and beyond that, they could encrypt what goes on that fiber.
Take map. Place ruler and draw the lines. Oh, it's something important connecting building A to building B, you can't hide that unless you run markers so wide it's meaningless and you know it's not their super secret sewage system. You can bet it's all well encrypted, but there's more to it than wiretapping, there are these little things called reconnaissance and chain of command. Imagine a real state of war, unlikely as it might seem right now. Cut the right wires, jam anything wireless and you got generals looking at blank screens with no information of what's going on and no way to command their troops. Now I'm no military expert but that sounds to me like a rather serious threat to national security. Don't you think so too?
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Informative)
Many cities in the USA have the same thing, a single number you can call, but it usually results in someone coming out to the land with a flag planter. They use different colors for various services - blue for water, yellow for gas, red for electric, and white for other things such as phone, cable tv, and fiber, so even if they came out and marked their secret line with the rest, you'd have no way of distinguishing it from say a buried telephone trunk without actually digging it up.
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Re:Our tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok... (Score:5, Insightful)
And who do you make the check out to when you do cut it? Or would a 'Hey, how the hell can we know when we cut a top secret fiber? How we supposed to know it's there if it's top secret and we don't have clearance???' defense work in court when the other guy's lawyers come at you for damages?
Re:Ok... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm going to guess that they don't come at you for damages, as that would only make their little "secret" more public.
and on an unrelated side note, ianal.
Re:Ok... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm going to guess that they don't come at you for damages, as that would only make their little "secret" more public.
If you bothered to read the article, you would see they tried to bill one contractor for $300,000.
and on an unrelated side note, ianal.
Well, I AM anal. I read the article before posting.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually this is pretty plausible. Best guess-
AT&T built and operates the cable. A branch of the federal government pays AT&T to operate it.
Cable is cut, AT&T fixes it at great expense. AT&T asks customer(feds) to pay for it and they say "no it's your line, you pay for it". AT&T asks construction company to pay and feds quickly pick up the tab to make the matter disappear.
I've never worked in telecom, but I have worked in construction and this is a pretty common scenario when accidents o
Re:Ok... (Score:5, Funny)
Given that his bro-in-law posts his responses on Slashdot, that's probably pretty wise.
Re:Ok... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, all you have to do is read the cable. It says "Top Secret Cable. Do Not Cut" right on it.
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Its much easier than dialing 1100 [dialbeforeyoudig.com.au] from a mobile phone in the air conditioned comfort of your digging machine.
And yes, I used to work in a job where we put a lot of cables in the ground around road construction sites, and had a lot of them dug up.
Re:Ok... (Score:5, Funny)
If the fiber is secret, nobody's going to tell you where it's at, and nobody's going to 'fess up about the ownership of said fiber. Correct, that's why the serious men who pull up to the site and get busy fixing it don't tell you who they are.
And who do you make the check out to when you do cut it? The serious men will not ask for payment
Or would a 'Hey, how the hell can we know when we cut a top secret fiber? Rule #1 of accidentally cutting "black" fiber: Do not talk smack to the serious men.
How we supposed to know it's there if it's top secret and we don't have clearance??? See Rule #1.
defense work in court when the other guy's lawyers come at you for damages?There will be nothing to go to court about.
Re:Ok... (Score:4, Interesting)
You call the USA, literally.
USA= Underground Service Alert
The number is 811 and you have to call 2 days prior to when you begin your work to cover your ass in court in case you hit any power/gas lines.
I am thinking that they didn't trench this line but use a pressurized piston to push the line/pipe through the ground soil, that is the cheap way to do it these days and it is like sideways drilling. They don't always go perfectly straight at the same elevation, most likely they tried to push this line under a building and came too close to the foundation working area where they are most likely to dig.
4 feet down is gas lines, about 6 feet you start hitting electrical/sewer to put it into perspective.
They send out gas line crews and electric company officals to paint mark where all the lines are located so you do not him them.
Now I work with a Civil Engineer and our main business is road construction, we have hit everything you can think of from Native American graves to fiber lines that run to ammo depot bunkers for security. You would think something this top secret fiber lines would be buried deeper or it would be encased in red cement around the top or sand to give warning you are about to hit it. They usually pour red colored cement(electrical) or sand on top(gas lines), so that when you are digging and start to hit the red stuff it will give you a warning.
My favorite was the mile long tunnel at Fort McCarthur in San Pedros, CA that ran under the hill there. Some of the oldest IBM machines I have ever seen were there collecting dust and huge generators.
Re:Ok... (Score:5, Interesting)
For the important stuff they also do a lot more to protect it.
For example, fiber backbones around here are quite the setup. They bury the cable itself at least 4 ft down. It's an armored cable that is designed to be completely undamaged by being run over by a caterpillar on asphalt and nearly impossible to break by stretching. (kevlar cord backbone, PVC spar with six fiber tubes, corrugated steel armor, antivarmint/self-sealing resin, and 1/8" very tough PVC jacket). One foot above that they bury a wide red streamer that's very elastic and hard to cut. If your backhoe gets to that first it's really hard to miss because you'll stretch it out of the ground like a rubber band. And all the dirt they use to fill in the trench is stained red. I don't know how effective the red stain ends up being, but it may be something that a backhoe operator would be much more likely to notice during his work than you or I.
Re:Ok... (Score:5, Interesting)
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That's the point. Read his post a bit more carefully.
They call the "white" utilities, who come and mark their shit. You've covered your ass. If any of the "black" utilities' stuff gets damaged, it's not your problem.
Two Ends of the Cable (Score:2)
I see that ONE end of the cable is the NSA's, but I wonder where the other one goes....
Re:Two Ends of the Cable (Score:5, Insightful)
At&t
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Two Ends of the Cable (Score:5, Funny)
But what IEEE spec covers that? It's IEEE1984, isn't it?
fixed that for you.
Under pressure... (Score:5, Insightful)
Having seen lines ran in pressurized pipes (pressure drop... alarms) and break location by reflection it doesn't shock me at all to see this; being spooks you would think they would use easements or dig deeper than usual
to secure such things, but like most work I bet it was contracted out to the cheapest labor they could trust.
I will say though, not listing the location suggests much; if they are afraid that someone could tap into fiber without detection it most likely means they are already doing so, sometimes the thing you fear the most reveals much about your current state.
Re:Under pressure... (Score:5, Informative)
I hate to say it, but no, not really. My podunk base in podunk, minnesota applies the same security and cryptography. For example one of our systems that contains NO secret information, NO C&C abilities, and NO administrative rights requires an *18 character* password that must be changed monthly. One each: letter, upper case letter, number, special character, no words, nothing similar to your last 6 passwords etc. And this is behind our secure two-factor login system and on a secure network. And yet, when the base upgraded to fiber, it was done by 3 guys working out of a rented U-Haul truck. Watched it with my own eyes.
This is just the gov't doing what it does best.
-b
Re:Under pressure... (Score:5, Interesting)
During the cold war, we regularly taped into Russia's fiber and copper lines. They did the same to us or so we expected then to have because we could do it to them. The Russians weren't exactly stupid.
We even have/had subs who's entire job was to find under sea cables coming off the coast of Russia and place bell taps on them. [wikipedia.org]
Fiber can be tapped in much the same way except you need to get around or near the actual fiber lines. This means a cut in the sheath surrounding the bundle. I can't find a reference but I do remember a positive pressurized device that would encapsulate a undersea cable allowing the sheathing to be removed and patched without the sea water penetrating. This same device could probably be used to defeat a pressurized line buried in the ground too. Just stick a regulator on the end of a stout hypodermic needle and penetrate the line, wait for the pressure to equalize and then work with relative impunity.
My Dad (Score:5, Interesting)
My dad cut through a cell phone line about a month ago with his bulldozer (he lives on a farm) when we was clearing some soil for his rhubarb. About 30 minutes later a helicopter was circling overhead. Soon there after he met with a FBI agent who showed up on scene. The Verizon workers showed up after that and about 12 hours later the line was patched. This wasnt a fiber line, just a normal cell line, but they took it pretty seriously. We havent gotten a bill in the mail yet, but we are expecting one any day.
Re:My Dad (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:My Dad (Score:5, Interesting)
A buddy of mine cut a copper phone cable a few years back running some drain tile to the drainage ditch along the road. They didn't get the helocopters of FBI but a couple of verizon trucks kept running up and down the road. Finally one of them pulls in the drive and asked is anyone was doing any construction around there. They said no but then remembered putting the drain tile in and offered that.
They ended up using the backhoe to dig up access to the line, the guy used a signal wand to find it. The guy and someone else worked for about 6 hours patching 500 some copper lines back together. His total bill was around $6,000 but he ended up getting it cut in half because they were about a foot outside of the right of way. Unfortunately, they placed the drain tile into the right of way so it would have been cut either way so they split the difference. I guess the bill would have been a little more if Verizon would have had to send it's own backhoe out.
They told a story of a fiber line being cut on the other side of the road (fiber on one side and the older copper on the other) that cost the guy 1 million per day that it was down. I guess whoever cuts the line pays for the lost service too. Hope that give you an idea of how much the bill will be.
Re:My Dad (Score:5, Informative)
A back haul line that runs from the tower to a CLEC. You didn't think they operated on a mesh configuration, did you? They are essentially big access points.
T-1s used to be common, as are bonded T-1s for rural areas. DS-3s and OC-3 fiber beyond that.
I can imagine the conversation (Score:5, Funny)
Not a new problem (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked with a civil engineer who was on the Washington Metro construction for a while. One day the unearthed a concrete ductbank that wasn't on any maps, etc. SOP was that, if it's not accounted for, cut it, so they did.
Within 5 minutes the Secret Service was down in the hole, had stopped work and kicked everybody out of the tunnel - apparently, the ductbank housed the "nuclear hotline" and losing contact with the other side could have been interpreted as a prelude to an attack.
Puckered assholes all around, that day.
Re:Not a new problem (Score:5, Insightful)
If that is really what the line was for, then nobody would have told you that's what it was for.
Re:Not a new problem (Score:5, Insightful)
With all this, wouldn't Washington have some sort of department that all construction plans have to be submitted to, and the lone guy with security clearance compares the construction zones with secret lines/locations? I would think this would save a lot of time and hassle and, considering how the government likes to create useless jobs, am surprised that it doesn't seem to exist (but not surprised if it does exist and they just don't do their job right).
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Well, as you can surmise by this obvious urban legend, it did not actually happen. (Ft).
Doesn't surprise me (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a lot of cable in the ground even for civil use that isn't really on the plans. But the government and it's agencies really have a thing for not documenting anything for whatever reason.
I work in a building that was commissioned by the Atomic Energy Commission for the Manhattan Project. It should've been torn down a long time ago but it was more expensive to do that than to renovate it. Right now we're inheriting the 2nd floor of the building where they have been empty since the end of the Cold War (I recently found a stash of unopened era software) but nobody has any plans to the original layout (they went missing somewhere in the 50's) so the DoE did a (nuclear and structural) survey of the site and mapped it out. However the contractors started working and found a room with a lead door, 15" concrete walls, a chair and a small observation window. Needed to do a whole new nuclear survey and remap the whole thing by an internal team. The architect recreated his plans with the new data and found out that there is a bunch of space missing on the (currently empty) 3rd floor. We're not yet renovating there but for some or another reason the decision was made from higher up to leave the 3rd floor untouched until we really need that space.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
However the contractors started working and found a room with a lead door, 15" concrete walls, a chair and a small observation window.
Ignoring for the moment the fear of radioactive spiders, arbitrarily green physicists or other subcultural agents, I presume someone poked a radiation-measuring instrument in the general direction of the inside of that room?
Re:Doesn't surprise me (Score:5, Funny)
Ignoring for the moment the fear of radioactive spiders, arbitrarily green physicists or other subcultural agents, I presume someone poked a radiation-measuring instrument in the general direction of the inside of that room?
Or maybe one should poke a radiation-measuring instrument around the outside of that room?
*tightens tinfoil hat*
This project involves dusting the second floor of our disused research building with radionuclides of a quantity typical of the levels generated by large-scale atomic weaponry at close range. Subsequent to this dusting, the floor will then be populated with monkeys that are trained to perform menial, repetitive tasks for as long as possible. An observer will be positioned in the shielded room (originally used for research) on this floor and will be able to record the ability of the monkeys to perform their tasks, as well as the subsequent rapid death of the monkeys. Due to high levels of radioactivity and the long life of decay products, it is recommended that this building no longer be used after this project.
In addition to the previous research, the long term effect of radioactive compounds on humans to be studied at the facility until the background radiation drops to ambient levels. As such, this building is to be leased to the general public and local cancer and leukemia rates monitored until further notice.
::END BRIEF::
Happens in business also (Score:3, Interesting)
Way back when I graduated college and started work for a major USA oil company.
The IT department had a neat graphics printer. Oil companies generally have a lot of money resulting in great toys. One of the experienced IT developers said; "Watch, this graphics printer prints the coolest maps!". That map had printed just an interesting six inches on its way to 30". Then security showed up. Confiscated the map. Shut down the terminal and printer. And wrote everyone up. Security said about ten words. Then left. We looked at each other mystified and shrugged.
Oh yes, the oil company could and did hire all sorts of experts. Those security folks likely had serious experience.
Thanks,
The J
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Nothing so exotic. And this was Dallas TX. We were guys. Guys don't and never did use maps. Just keep on driving.
It was no doubt extremely valuable. A geographical seismic map. Probably of some area they were thinking of leasing. Oil drilling is serious money. Money to drill but much more money comes out of the ground.
Thanks
Are we sure they're secret cables? (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were trying to keep a cable secret, I'd make sure the real cable was clearly recorded on the maps as something totally innocuous and not connected to anything secret at all. If it got cut, it'd get repaired per normal procedure for the kind of cable it's marked as (and I'll have sufficient backups that I don't need to make the repair an attention-grabbing rush job). Then I'd lay a few completely unused but highly suspicious-looking decoy cables, making sure they occasionally got cut and that there was a suitably public trying-to-look-not-public scramble to repair them. That way anybody trying to find my cables was likely to glom onto the ones I was trying to keep hidden, and probably wouldn't even bother looking at "backup equipment monitoring line, sewage pumping station 37, Department of Public Works".
The solution is obvious... (Score:4, Funny)
So does "Black" Fiber ... (Score:3, Funny)
Been There- Done That (Score:4, Interesting)
I worked installing street lights and traffic lights as well as all the underground material that connects them right on top of some government lines. In one case I was on top of coral, limestone and sandstone covered by side walks and under the over hangs of numerous businesses. We had little short shovels and picks and had to dig 4x4ft. holes nine feet deep through that rock every hundred feet or so for many miles. Striking the buried cable, even with a hand tool, would have resulted in financial disaster. Little things like the US Air Force depended on those lines. It is also a big issue near the Florida Keys as boat anchors tend disrupt cables that relate to national defence.
Completely fallacious and sensationalized nonsense (Score:5, Interesting)
This fallacious story is featured all over the the local news today here in DC
The problem is not that the lines aren't mapped--they ARE mapped just like any other utility.
The real problem is that the maps aren't perfect.
Here's the real scoop:
There have been nearly 40 cable cuts in Tysons since the Metro line to Dulles started construction.
There is a government-owned antenna tower on the highest hill in Tysons, too.
The ACTUAL problem is that Tysons Corner is the center of the Eastern USA internet capacity. Sure, MAE-East was here, but it's moved to Ashburn, and those lines still cross through Tysons Corner.
Naturally, government lines are part of the rats nest that the Metro must tunnel through.
Bottom line is: all the lines are mapped but the maps aren't perfect.
The agencies do not bury secret cables. To do so would not only be dangerous, it would be silly.
They're just cables like any other.
In other news, that big hill on Rte. 123 had been restricted to heavy trucks after test cores indicated faulty soil but that restriction has been lifted.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Completely fallacious and sensationalized nonse (Score:4, Insightful)
The guys in the SUV aren't there to fix the line. They're there to make sure you accidentally broke the line. As in you're not deliberately cutting their communications, or made a huge mistake while installing a tap.
As such, they need to arrive quickly and start asking questions quickly.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is not that the lines aren't mapped--they ARE mapped just like any other utility. The real problem is that the maps aren't perfect.
Irrelevant. As I explained here [slashdot.org], there are very effective methods of locating utilities (quite accurately I might add) that are either missing from a map, or are incorrectly drawn on the map. I do agree that this story seems to be quite sensationalized, and still maintain that the contractor did not do his/her due diligence prior to digging.
Re:Completely fallacious and sensationalized nonse (Score:4, Interesting)
The GPR isn't as effective in our very rocky clay soil as you believe.
Hogwash. I've experienced it firsthand. I know exactly how effective it is, even in rocky clay soil (North Carolina soil to be exact). I have witnessed this technology be able to locate empty plastic conduit (even verifying that the conduit is empty after hand digging it up). Not only were there no tracing wires, but there were no wires at all, and we could still find it.
I do grasp that there is a lot of buried cable/utilities in this and other metropolitan areas, I work in the industry. My point is, this type of work does not have to result in an issue like this, nor is it an excuse that something "wasn't on the drawings". That is an amateur excuse, and not one that is acceptable in most critical environments.
Your response is silly.
Ah, the dreaded.... (Score:3, Interesting)
...as my old boss, a radio engineer, termed it: "backhoe fade."
Happened to one of our transmitter sites. We switched to a microwave STL, which just had to be retired (only about 4 years later), because of a new skyscraper going in. :-/
So, back to the telco lines.....
As for the CLAN cut, I'm guessing this is probably a protocol violation somewhere. In many installations I've seen, even in secured areas, this stuff is encased in concrete.
Always carry a length of fiber (Score:5, Funny)
That way if you're ever lost in a desert, you can just lay it in the ground and wait.
When the backhoe operator cuts it, ask him to rescue you.
Efficient Government (Score:3, Insightful)
Provides a handy counter-example to anyone who wants to point to government as inherently inefficient. Clearly it can be efficient when it wants to be.
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Funny)
That's what they want you to believe, the original posters have all been deleted.
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dark black fiber? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Dark black fiber? (Score:5, Funny)
So black dark fiber belongs to The Gooblement?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
fiber optic bundles have a copper core so they can be found by magnetic detectors (and the "blue stake people") to avoid being hit by a backhoe strike. It's more unlikely that the contractor failed to check for the cable than the Federal Government has special backhoe-attracting cable.
Then again, if they were trying to keep it secret, odds are they would have laid fiber without the copper core so it couldn't be found by magnetic detectors.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your comment is a contradiction. On one hand, you say by not acknowledging the cable's existence, the cable is insecure. The better solution, is to acknowledge the cable (that apparently no one knows about) because then no one will know about it because its existence as a 'secret' cable will be.....wait for it.....obscured by the fact that there are other cables! Ta da! You've invented a new form of 'security' by 'obscuring' the cables existence. Bully for you.
"Security through obscurity" is a catchphrase t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
All security measures rely on obscurity to ensure that security.
You don't believe me? Give me all your private encryption keys and see how long your cryptographic solution resists attack.
Don't want to? That defeats the point? Bingo, that's obscurity right there.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How is it not obscurity? All security relies on hiding something. It doesn't have to be the object to be secured; it can be a key to the object that you are attempting to secure, but the security is reliant on the object you are trying to hide not being discovered.
Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security (Score:4, Insightful)
You've created a defense that would defeat an unsophisticated attacker.
You can stop right there. I've created *a* defense. Obscurity is a *level* of defense, that's all it is. No, it's not going to hide the machine from someone who's adding -p 1-65535 to the end of their nmap scans. It's not going to magically protect me from someone trying to crack my particular server if I haven't patched a known exploit. It will protect me from the most basic attack, worms, that are looking for basic configs. How many SQL worms are out there banging away on port 1414? If I'm running a vulnerable server on port 1415, is that machine going to get infected by one of those ancient worms? No. Is it still vulnerable to a dedicated attacker, yes. But I've got a massive subset of attacks that I've mitigated with a very simple config change.
It bears repeating: The problem comes from making obscurity your only defense. Obscurity should always be a part of your defense.
We do not design security to defeat unsophisticated attacks.
Then why do you lock your server room doors? Or encrypt hard drives? Or install a fire suppression system in the building? Don't kid yourself, it's the unsophisticated attack that you need to worry about first and fucking foremost.
So, yes, 5 locks are more secure than 4 locks. Anyone who can break 4 will break 5, so it's not significant. Similarly hiding the port number is more secure than not hiding the port number. However, it doesn't change a one-hour break into more than a one hour one minute break.
Obscurity isn't about 5 locks instead of 4. Obscurity is the first lock. If obscurity doesn't work, why do we change passwords? All we're doing is 'obscuring' the password.
I can cat back through years of auth.log's and not see one. single. solitary. unauthorized login attempt on one of my boxes. Not one. Why? The SSH server sits on an unregistered port. Do I trust bragging about that statement enough to post the IP and port number here? Fuck no. But by obscuring the number, that machine is, at the very least, not a target of opportunity. That has to count for something in anybody's book. In several years, people haven't even *tried* to break in. But every day, there are attempts to open cmd.exe in the apache logs.
Obscurity is not a panacea, it's a step. It's a step in the overall security process that has gotten diminished by people spouting off a catchphrase.
Re:Security Through Obscurity is not security (Score:4, Interesting)
This is total nonsense. They're telecommunications cables just like the others. They are mapped. They were accidentally cut. There is so much telecom in Tysons Corner it's expected to happen.
The only thing I have to say about your "security through obscurity" comment is that you are wrong. Even with physical access to such fiber, and if you could conceivably receive the optical signal therein with your MWM fiber receiver (that you took 3 days to splice into the data stream), the encryption on the line stops you dead cold.
The real story is that the construction rojects, in particular Metro rail to Dulles, is causing all kinds of logisticaly headaches and accidental fiber cuts.
There is no real security concern here, even with regards to denial-of-service.
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