Computer signals tapped by others [Telecom]

It's all a matter of perception.

It *is* notable that 'awareness' of the matter is now being reported in the popular press, not just the trade press.

The popular press didn't do its job this time: the story is an obvious "fluff" piece, with lots of fright words, and many "experts" cited, but few details and fewer hard facts.

AFAICT, this "story" was written by the some Mega-ISP's PR flack, because they want to scare their customers out of any idea of sharing their "dangerous" WiFi connecitons with anyone who isn't paying a monthly fee.

This is not a surprise to me: MIT researchers proved the viability of "mesh" peer-to-peer networks by experiments in Cambridge, Massachusetts a couple of years ago. Not only that, but the One Laptop Per Child project is already producing a $200 machine which includes wireless capability that AUTOMATICALLY shares its connectivity with other nearby OLPC laptops, thus forming a mesh network that doesn't depend on paying an ISP. Needless to say, the largest ISP's don't like that, and their collective marketing muscle is being pumped up in preparation for a campaign of fearmongering and shaming that will (they hope) nip in the bud any notion of ordinary people sharing their collective works, common wisdom, and dangerous communistic fluridation without paying for the privilege.

The Internet, by its nature, concentrates power at the edges of the network. Traditional telecommunicaitons companies, such as the PSTN providers, are fighting a rear-guard action to retain as much of their power and profit as they can, but their transition to "pipe and ping" providers is already underway and unstoppable.

The Mega-ISPs, having found that the average luser is an abundant cash cow who is easily manipulated, are trying to replace the old-line PSTN companies as collectors of a never-ending monthly tribute to the church of do-it-our-way-or-go-without. The very idea of those users having the efrontery to bypass the all-wise, all-knowing, endlessly greedy moguls who run those ISPs is anathema to them and to their (powerful) friends in the entertainment industry.

Pay up, suckers: only [place megacorp name here] can protect you from the deviant, drug crazed, communist sympathiser sexual predators who want to [insert what you're most afraid of here].

FWIW. YMMV.

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

The 4 (or n) cables were all in the oil-producing areas of the middle east. Someone is sending a not-so-subtle message to the government's involved: with some sheikdoms looking to the future and working to establish their nations as international banking centers or to position their people as the next software hotspot, parties as yet unknown have delivered a warning about the difference between trade and defense.

Or, it might have been oil tankers dragging their anchors. Works either way.

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

(Please put [Telecom] in the subject line of your post, or I may never see it. Thanks!)

This is because they were in places without much redundancy. What is news is that some places have poor network redundancy.

I remember when HAW-1 failed and GTE was routing calls from the mainland through Japan.... that was BIG NEWS at the time. If the same cable failed today, it wouldn't be news because it would fail over.

--scott

My understanding is that rapid advances in fiber technology have given newer fiber optic cables so much more bandwidth and channel capacity and made them so much more efficient to operate, that multiple parallel cables are no longer needed for many links, to the extent that older (but still comparatively "new") fiber cables are simply being abandoned in place on the ocean floor.

The problem is, of course, greatly increased risk from single-point vulnerability.

I suspect many lay individuals who have set up mini networks in their homes or small businesses aren't aware of the problem. Perhaps the article over-sensationalized the problem a bit, but that lay people are open to poaching and not aware of it is important to publicize.

Let's remember that technical people often take for granted their overall technical skills and don't realize that lay people may know very little about their computer or the world behind it.

To operate my car, I need to know basically the ignition, gas, and brake. I don't need to know how the catalytic converter works. Likewise, to play a CD or DVD, I don't need to know how the material is encoded or how it is read and interepreted. Not knowing these things won't hurt me.

But computers are very different. Unlike a car, in which I need to take it for periodic servicing, my computer has few moving parts and needs no servicing.

At night, my car is parked and [normally] no one is tampering with the engine. But stuff is coming down the line to alter my computer all the time automatically. I get auto updates from the virsus scanner and Windows. I can go on the Internet and knowingly or unknowingly run other programs on my computer, including those that can read and write to my disk and change settings and the like.

I'll be curious as to what the reporter says in reply to your email.

Exactly! It's not a MOSSAD or CIA conspiracy. No one is conducting cyber terrorism. It was just a normal sequence of events that got publicity because of the lack of redundancy.

The tin-foil hat crowd hates out when you point out things like this. :-)

But it's a cover-up, you see.

The less evidence there is, the more proof that the MOSSAD / CIA / black helicopterists have covered up their conspiracy!

(Of course, I'd love to see the underwater black helicopters that cut the cables...)

Thanks --

David

(Remove "xx" to reply.)

Mossad never did anything to me. The CIA never did anything to me. But the PHONE COMPANY.... well, it's pretty clear they're out to get you. Just try and talk to their customer service folks and you'll know precisely what I mean.

I am sure it's a conspiracy, but I suspect it's a Verizon-Deutche Telekom- Cable and Wireless conspiracy. And those guys are a lot scarier than the Mossad or CIA.

--scott

snipped-for-privacy@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote in news:fotf5h$k23$ snipped-for-privacy@panix2.panix.com:

Reminds me of the movie "The President's Analyst."

Beware of TPC.