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Get the shovels ready
If you ever felt like invading the Republic of Georgia–this is something that several Russians have contemplated over the years–I may have stumbled upon a way to knock out most of the whole country’s Internet service.
My ruse might also work in several other countries of the world. You see, all you have to do is send out one elderly woman and tell her to look for scrap metal with gay abandon.
The AFP is reporting that a 75-year-old lady in Ksani, somewhat north of the fine capital of Tbilisi, was, indeed, in search of scrap metal when she accidentally (or not) put most of Georgia’s (and Armenia’s) Internet into complete non-function.
Georgian interior ministry spokesman Zura Gvenetadze told the AFP: “She found the cable while collecting scrap metal and cut it with a view to stealing it.”
It must be very fine cable.
Most Georgians and Armenians apparently lost their Internet for up to 12 hours and Giorgi Ionatamishvili, the head of Georgian Railway Telecom’s marketing department–Georgian Railway Telecom being the cable’s owners–seemed bemused by the woman’s power, audacity and sheer sleuthiness.
What was she using to dig, a trowel? GRT must really protect that cable well.
A shovel. You have an elderly woman short on the resources needed to stay alive digging in the earth for abandoned copper cable.
How much did she get for the scrap?
Interesting #1. When the same happens here in the States they’re called crooks and are arrested.
A reminder of how delicate is much of the internet’s infrastructure.
The city I live in is downhill from a deep mountain valley that contains many communication cables. Twenty years ago, a construction worker with a backhoe cut a phone cable in that valley that connected lines in the southwestern US to the southern US. AT&T was not amused, and it took awhile to repair the cable.
Underground-rated fiber is armored. You can’t cut that shit easily with a shovel. Possible, maybe, just not easy. Best way is with a hacksaw.
#6. thanks for the tip
Old story. Read about it several days ago.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/04/07/0234214/Elderly-Georgian-Woman-Cuts-Armenian-Internet
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Several years ago, most of Minnesota and part of Wisconsin was cut off from the internet when a homeless man sleeping under the Washington Ave bridge in Minneapolis built a fire to keep warm. The fire got out of control, and burned communications cables that ran under the bridge. Including the ones connecting Minnesota to the internet backbone
They actually had multiple, redundant communications links. But the phone companies happened to have run them all in the same physical location on this bridge across the Mississippi river. (After that, they made sure that their communications links actually were on completely separate physical paths.)
Once again, common sense in the face of the “gestapo-state” loses. When are we the “common citizens” going to stand up once-again for our rights as outlined in the our beloved constitution? The only way this document will live through eons of history is through the hearts, minds, and blood of those who believe in freedom of the individual. It is through our individual convictions in the face of oppression that the ideals that Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Locke shall survive in our day and age. We must be forever vigilant in our day because the forces against individualistic ideals are more subversive than ever. This subversive behaviour manifests no more strongly than in our own Congress by the collective constituents that propose to protect such rights they overtly eradicate every moment that we sleep.
Sorry, I meant John Locke! I got all excited too much for a moment there and mixed-up my historical figures (heroes).
I suppose that the majority of human differences and arguments boils down to simply the individual versus collectivism. I argue that each has it’s own place in our modern society. This is all quite fascinating since such a concept parallels (in a multitude ways) with the principles of evolution itself. Human society is undergoing a phase-change right now, and it has been for the last 400 years at least. Nothing is written in stone, and it never has been; nor should it ever be. The human-condition is a subject of fascinating study right now. We are witnessing in our day and age changes that are presently uncertain, but may change the way we live for hundreds or even thousands of years. It is all quite humbling.
In other words: the bastards should have had their goll-dang fiber labeled. I always see sings while hiking that a cable is buried underneath. The infrastructure-laying entities are at fault in the absence of more enlightening information. How on the other hand: why was this woman blindly digging around with a shovel? Was she still legally within her own property when the fateful blow was administered? The court must investigate her motive. Was it blind selfish personal gain? In such a judgement it may be argued that the defendant was ignorant of her peer’s individual rights. I love court proceedings. That is what makes this country great! It’s too bad that in our own Gitmo-nation a single individual (Bradley Manning) who tries to bring to a reality something that our own president failed to deliver-as-promised (transparency)is locked up without a fair trial. Our own country is not black-and-white. We are just as guilty of indignant persecution as any other country of the world. We are not the human-rights police academy of the world, even though we wish it to be the case. Really all it does is make us out to be total and complete asses. This war (let’s call it what it really is) in Libya is another pawn in a game the US has been involved in since after WWI, maybe even before. It truly makes me sick that what I learned about US history in school is so far from the truth that I almost got Mark Zuckered (suckered) into believing it.
OMG, um I re-read my drunken rant and it is clear to me now that I should not post to blogs whilst under the influence. BTW, I am still under the influence and I already know what an idiot I came across as in my previous post. LOLZ! Please ignore this post until I become sober…HE, HE!
Someone dug up a fiber optic last year in Tysons Corner, VA. and the men in black showed up. I guess they were concerned about all that bit spillage.
Something similar happened Saturday April 2, 2011 — a farmer accidentally cut a cable (possibly a fiber optic cable, according to local gossip), leading to a widespread cable TV/broadband internet/telephone service outage for about a half-dozen counties in southwestern Indiana on the day of the NCAA semi-final games. Service was out for about 9 hours. Probably every store, restaurant and bar in the area had its best day in months. Certainly all the video rental places did. I saw a crowd of dozens mobbing a RedBox machine.
The weird thing about it is I can’t find ANY mention of it in any of the local media. Perhaps it was only mentioned in the print editions of the local papers…