Fwd: [Clips] Re: The Backhoe: A Real Cyberthreat?

[coderman]

there are other easy ways to obtain outage information, especially
when the fiber affected handles significant amounts of traffic.  they
have stemmed the tide of outage information but more than enough gets
by to be useful for this type of analysis.  (although it was much
easier to just hit up the FCC for history when they kept track of it.
the telcos are just as glad to keep this data secret - they pushed as
hard as uncle sam to hide this data)

and as mentioned below, it doesn't take a backhoe either.  highly
capable portable power tools, post hole diggers, a myriad of other
construction equipment, could wreak havoc just as easily.  (Milwaukee
V28 portable saws are a good example - some disgruntled telco
employee(s?) in canada used a portable saw to cut two long distance
cables into the US causing over 280,000 circuits to go dead)

the tricky part is identifying redundant paths/rings as both must
usually be interrupted to create significant outage. (graph theory
applied to directed high degree node/link attacks)

there is a reason they are pursuing security through obscurity so
heavily.  sometimes it's all you've got... :)


--- begin forwarded text

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: R. A. Hettinga <rah at shipwright.com>
Date: Jan 19, 2006 10:06 AM
Subject: [Clips] Re: The Backhoe: A Real Cyberthreat?
To: Philodox Clips List <clips at philodox.com>

--- begin forwarded text

  Delivered-To: nanog-outgoing at trapdoor.merit.edu
  Delivered-To: nanog at trapdoor.merit.edu
  Delivered-To: nanog at segue.merit.edu
  Delivered-To: nanog at nanog.org
  Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 13:00:43 -0500
  From: sgorman1 at gmu.edu
  Subject: Re: The Backhoe: A Real Cyberthreat?
  Cc: nanog at nanog.org
  Sender: owner-nanog at merit.edu



  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.


  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Joe Maimon <jmaimon at ttec.com>
  Date: Thursday, January 19, 2006 12:01 pm
  Subject: Re: The Backhoe: A Real Cyberthreat?

  >
  >
  >
  > Dennis Dayman wrote:
  >
  > > "In 2004, Department of Homeland Security officials became
  > fearful that
  > > terrorists might start using accidental dig-ups as a road map
  > for deliberate
  > > attacks, and convinced the FCC to begin locking up previously
  > public data on
  > > outages. In a commission filing, DHS argued successfully that
  > revealing the
  > > details..."
  > >
  > > --MORE--
  > >
  > > http://wired.com/news/technology/0,70040-0.html?tw=wn_tophead_1
  > >
  > > -Dennis
  > >
  > >
  > >
  >
  > This is really stupid. Assuming the terrorist actually have the
  > dozens
  > of backhoes needed to completely erase meaningfull internet
  > connectivity
  > in north america, they would probably prefer to use them to smash
  > cars
  > and kill people on the interstate highways or something.
  >
  > Terrorist inflict terror by killing people, not by forcing
  > internet
  > explorer to display "page cannot be displayed".
  >
  > Let us not assume that murderous terrorist are as dumb as people
  > in DHS.
  >

--- end forwarded text


--
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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