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 --- Andy Dills Xecunet, Inc. www.xecu.net 301-682-9972 ---
On Tue, 4 May 2004, Andy Dills wrote:
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
Andy
--- Andy Dills
Xecunet, Inc. www.xecu.net 301-682-9972 ---
On Tue, 4 May 2004, Andy Dills wrote:
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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Lewis *jlewis@lewis.org*| I route Senior Network Engineer | therefore you are Atlantic Net | _________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________
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. _____________________________________________________________________________ Tony Rowley | "To confine our attention to terrestrial Lansdowne PA USA | matters would be to limit the human spirit." rowley@netaxs.com | -- Professor Stephen Hawking
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
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
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
-- Jeff Shultz A railfan pulls up to a grade crossing hoping that there will be a train.
On Tue, 4 May 2004, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
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".
blame is bad, hype is good!
On Tue, 4 May 2004, Christopher L. Morrow wrote:
On Tue, 4 May 2004, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
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".
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 --- Andy Dills Xecunet, Inc. www.xecu.net 301-682-9972 ---
On Tue, 4 May 2004, Andy Dills wrote:
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
Andy
--- Andy Dills Xecunet, Inc. www.xecu.net 301-682-9972 ---
On Tue, 4 May 2004, Charles Sprickman wrote:
On Tue, 4 May 2004, Andy Dills wrote:
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...
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. -- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Administration - jay@west.net WestNet: Connecting you to the planet. 805 884-6323 WB6RDV NetLojix Communications, Inc. - http://www.netlojix.com/
On Tue, 4 May 2004, Jay Hennigan wrote:
Subject: Re: "Network Card Theft Causes Internet Outage" 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. -- Bruce Campbell. Sysadmin/Etc.
participants (9)
-
Andy Dills -
Bruce Campbell -
Charles Sprickman -
Christopher L. Morrow -
Jay Hennigan -
Jeff Shultz -
jlewis＠lewis.org -
Stephen Sprunk -
Tony Rowley