Georgian woman cuts off web access to whole of Armenia

[Ian David]

Georgian woman cuts off web access to whole of Armenia
Entire country loses internet for five hours after woman, 75, slices through cable while scavenging for copper
Tom Parfitt in Moscow
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 April 2011 20.12 BST

The woman damaged a fibre-optic cable with her spade. Photograph: [e-mail]

An elderly Georgian woman was scavenging for copper to sell as scrap when she accidentally sliced through an underground cable and cut off internet services to all of neighbouring Armenia, it emerged on Wednesday.

The woman, 75, had been digging for the metal not far from the capital Tbilisi when her spade damaged the fibre-optic cable on 28 March.

As Georgia provides 90% of Armenia's internet, the woman's unwitting sabotage had catastrophic consequences. Web users in the nation of 3.2 million people were left twiddling their thumbs for up to five hours as the country's main internet providers - ArmenTel, FiberNet Communication and GNC-Alfa – were prevented from supplying their normal service. Television pictures showed reporters at a news agency in the capital Yerevan staring glumly at blank screens.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/06/georgian-woman-cuts-web-access

[derby378]

1. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket

He who controls the tubes, controls the Internets!

[Initech]

5. OMG!!! Ted Stevens was right all along - the Internet really is a series of tubes!!

:wow: :rofl:

[Liberal_in_LA]

9. +5

[bluedigger]

2. We were just talking about that sort of thing at work today.

My coworker and I were planning some work and discussing One Call. He was working over in the Florida panhandle a couple years ago, and was in the project area when One Call marked out the utilities, so he had a chance to talk to the technician. The guy told him that one of the lines was a fiber optic trunk line, and if he hit it he would knock out most of the Southeast and Midatlantic!:cry:

I guess my point is that we aren't all that much more advanced when it comes to the robustness of our infrastructure here in the US. ALWAYS Call Before You Dig! (It's free!):thumbsup:

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Our entire town was knocked out for a whole day

when construction workers backhoed thru the main phone/computer line.
And it was a Friday, payday.

One reason to keep a wad of small bills handy, I found.

[mike_c]

10. several california north coast counties, including mine, are served by ONE...

...fiber optic line. It has been cut several times in recent years, leading to day-long outages in a massive chunk of norcal. There is currently a push in the works to bring a second fiber optic line in via a different route-- the current line was buried by a landslide last week that closed highway 101 but miraculously hasn't cut the cable (so far). Getting that second line depends on a BIG federal grant, however.

[JHB]

3. Kind of ironic for a network invented to survive destruction of critical nodes...

The whole point of ARPANet was so the network would keep functioning even if parts were destroyed (they were thinking "destroyed by nuclear bombs" in this).

So it turns out massive nuclear attack isn't needed, just an old lady with a shovel. Do we need a better reason to make sure old people don't have to salvage scrap to make a living?

[Shagbark Hickory]

4. Only one ISP? sounds like a thuglican dream come true.

[RC]

7. Never mind

[Urban Prairie]

8. Wow...and "some" people want to see the ancient, snail-like USPS be eliminated or broken up .

Yeah...lets go right ahead and put all of our communication "eggs" in one electronically-dependent basket, heck, there will NEVER be a historical and unprecedentedly huge solar flare erupting from "Sol", or a supernova explosion by a star that is "relatively nearby" our solar system, sending out sufficiently strong and powerful gamma ray bursts, that unfortunately fries many, if not most of the world's orbiting communications satellites, or disrupts transmissions through landline phone wires, or cellphone towers' transmitter signals or utterly destroys our electronically charged gadgets.

How soon people forget the blackout of August '03 that affected much of the Northeastern US and parts of the Midwest that lasted several days. Even a blackout affecting only some large parts if not much of the continental US and lasting several weeks, but less than one month would be likely be sufficient to bring this country down to its collective knees...or worse.