The Backhoe: A Real Cyberthreat?

Thu Jan 19 19:10:14 UTC 2006

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <sgorman1 at gmu.edu>
Cc: <nanog at nanog.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 12:00 PM
Subject: Re: The Backhoe: A Real Cyberthreat?

>
>
> While it is always fun to call the government stupid, or anyone else for 
> that matter, there is a little more to the story.
>
> - For one you do not need a backhoe to cut fiber
> - Two, fiber carries a lot more than Internet traffic - cell phone, 911, 
> financial tranactions, etc. etc.
> - Three, while it is very unlikely terrorists would only attack telecom 
> infrastructure, a case can be made for a telecom attack that amplifies a 
> primary conventional attack.  The loss of communications would complicate 
> things quite a bit.
>
> I'll agree it is very far fethced you could hatch an attack plan from FCC 
> outage reports, but I would not call worrying about attacks on 
> telecommunications infrastructure stupid.  Enough sobriety though, please 
> return to the flaming.

I would tend to disagree on that depending on how detailed those reports 
are. For example, if they indicate that junction X will hinder / disable 
communications to sector/grid Y, then yes, it could be a serious threat if 
you have police, fire, hospitals, etc on that section of the grid.

Mike P.