Network Card Theft Causes Internet Outage

[Argo]

"A handful of corporate customers were left without e-mail and Internet access Monday after the theft of networking equipment from a New York City office late Sunday."

"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."

Read More at eWeek...

[Piru]

A friend had a network outage some time ago. It wasn't found until morning what was the cause.

Bloody idiots...

[weirdami]

Someone unplugged just the one cable?

[gizz72]

Maybe those terrorist got tired of writing virus codes and decided to steal hardware instead. Much easier to do. Next thing you know, they'll be selling it on e-bay 10x more expensive.

Good day to all Amigans! :-D

[elendil]

I'd like to know what I'm missing, so don't take this the wrong way, but...four ethernet cards have been stolen from a new york office... what does that have to do with anything, and why is it even remotely interesting?

Sincerely,

-Kenneth Straarup.

[StevenJGore]

I'd like to know what I'm missing, so don't take this the wrong way, but...four ethernet cards have been stolen from a new york office... what does that have to do with anything, and why is it even remotely interesting?

I was wondering that too :-?

[sTix]

News?

I don't understand the relevance of this...

[Acill]

Good to hear I am not the only one wondering why it was posted.

[Cryten]

I'm glad that the community seems to be as confused as I am...

[AltRN8]

I live in New York City and even I don't find this interesting.
*Pulls out relevence detector*
Nope no life signs. :-)

[SilvrDrgn]

@ weirdami,

Someone unplugged just the one cable?

If you check the bottom of the picture, the power cords are all unplugged as well.

[Cyberus]

@ thread

Yeah, I managed to ignore the news item for quite some time, but I gave in and read it - I thought there'd be a twist, lol.

For the next news item....
Cyberus eats a boiled egg, with buttered 'soldiers' and plenty of ground black pepper...

[seer]

AFAIK, DS3 cards are special network cards for DSL ISP's/telecom coorperations.

They are used in wat we call "wijkcentrales" or co-location facilities so several home users or businesses can internet.

That is, 1 DS3 card can have more then 10 connections (28 ?) all with their own IP adresses or give a home user a IP adress.... Let's just call it an overblown router/switch..

I can be wrong tho..

Don't know the relevance to Amiga's, but hell, imagine, no internet access for a few hours ?

[Ilwrath]

I'd like to know what I'm missing, so don't take this the wrong way, but...four ethernet cards have been stolen from a new york office... what does that have to do with anything, and why is it even remotely interesting?

AFAIK, DS3 cards are special network cards for DSL ISP's/telecom coorperations.
[...]
That is, 1 DS3 card can have more then 10 connections (28 ?) all with their own IP adresses or give a home user a IP adress.... Let's just call it an overblown router/switch..

Exactly.  DS-3's are big time connections.  Each can have the bandwidth of up to 28 T1 connections.  So stealing 4 DS-3 cards could knock out up to an equivalent of 114 T1 lines.  That is quite an accomplishment.  Usually, unseating one DS-3 for even just a second or two should send people scampering into the room to see what's the matter.  

My guess is that it was a company that offshored their admin duties.  ...and an ex-admin took advantage, knowing that no one left in the building knew what was in the "magic closet."  ;-)

Now, why is this being investigated as a terrorist incident???  Well, it was a crime against a corporation's profits.   I think that says a lot about our priorities.  Thanks, Bush.   :pissed:

[Floid]

Here's an example of one:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3554579085.html

It's 'just' a network card, for a very 'expensive' high-bandwidth connection, probably between telco equipment, or to a high-rise that runs its own ISP/telco or something.  (Like most telco stuff, it probably runs ATM as a protocol, and the number of IPs that can be apportioned depends entirely on the routers at each end.)

As an example -- and I have no idea of the accuracy of this -- the DS3 might terminate at a router in a RT (Remote Terminal) containing a DSLAM (DSL Access Multiplexer), and the DSLAM by nature or programming limits the bandwidth available to each user, while of course it can still be oversold (sell 50 people DSL with a T1-grade link speed, but have the bottleneck of the line that can only support 28 users concurrently without forcing the router to queue or drop, and some of that bandwidth is dedicated to providing voice service as well)....  Or the DS3 could pop straight into a megacorp's router, and it's up to the company what they do with all that bandwidth and what routing/IP block arrangements they've negotiated with the telco.

It could also be run between the local CO (Central Office) and wherever the telco found convenient to offer their colocation cage(s),* which is what seems to have happened here... someone had access to, or broke into the "colo," and managed to walk out with some expensive equipment that wasn't theirs.

(Not sure what you'd mean about home users, but in towns smaller than NYC, you'd expect the colo to be in the same building as the Central Office that provides the residential service(s) and so on.  Manhattan is huge, so they probably have a couple facilities, one at the 'CO' for the third-party ISPs to provision their DSL, and at least another just for the 'colo' customers who want to put a server near a fat pipe.)

---

*Sort of a literal cage; apparently they're usually 'secured' rooms, with jail-like bars for show, and a guard around to let you in and make sure you aren't ripping the cables out of other people's racks.  I'm sure Wayne or someone can elaborate.