The Backhoe: A Real Cyberthreat?

Jerry Pasker jerry at jerry.org
Thu Jan 19 20:29:35 UTC 2006


>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 agree with you on all points except the one you didn't make.  :-)

The point is:  What's more damaging?  Being open with the maps to 
EVERYONE can see where the problem areas are so they can design 
around them? (or chose not to) or pulling the maps, and reports, and 
sticking our heads in the sand, and hoping that security through 
obscurity works.




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