- Seems most of the commentors on this piece don’t understand the concept of the straw that broke the camel’s back.
- A reminder of how fragile the infrastructure of modern communications can be. (And here’s some analysis with links to some conspiracy theorizing.)
- The sad irony in Boris Nemtsov’s murder.
- “Dark Leviathan.” A darkly cynical look at Ross Ulbricht, Silk Road, the Darknet, and what the author believes is the inevitable fate of libertarian ideals. Someone needs to give this article a great fisking.
- F*c*b**k blocks a fundraiser to help a father reunite with his son. (Hint: the reason is G-U-N-S.)
- Kevin D. Williamson has one of the best takes on the death of Leonard Nimoy. But I like the one Ellendra found even better.
Yes indeed… lots of deluded people here in Wyoming. And a great many others are simply too busy trying to make a living to do much thinking about it. Something about finding early calves in a March snowstorm, or rough work in the oil patch and coal mines… doesn’t lead them to much interest in things that don’t directly concern them. Unfortunately, far too many don’t understand how and why such things do concern them and their ability to earn a living – even as their ranches and industries are being systematically destroyed by the government they have trusted for much too long. Brad is doing his best to set the record straight.
Bradley Harrington is a personal friend and regular contributor to The Price of Liberty.
I added a comment below that Wyoming News article. The pro-liberty folks are holding their own there…
On that cable cutting incident, I wonder how the saboteurs knew where the cable was? But yeah, it is scary. Wifi and satellite starts to look good…
I added a comment on that “Dark Leviathan” article too. Here for your amusement:
——-
Caveat emptor has always been with us and always will. Oh, well! If people don’t understand it, they will soon enough.
It’s a bit much to expect emergent technologies and societies to have things perfectly worked out in version 1.0. It’s not necessary that any human invention be perfect, and not possible anyway, given that humans are imperfect beings. All that’s needed is that it be better than the alternative – and the state alternative is a very low standard to surpass. Voluntary markets will improve in time.
By the way, anarchy does not mean “no rules”, but only “no rulers”. There is no contradiction in the fact that these markets had some rules and institutions. Roberts was not much of a ruler, was he? Given that people could take their business elsewhere? One might as well call a hardware store owner on Main Street a tyrant…
I note that the author is, “an associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University”. In other words, a paid shill of the current ruling class. Thanks for your concern and help, Henry. We’ll all take your advice to heart.
——-
Yes, I am aware the last bit is an ad hominem. I’m not perfect either.
Cutting a buried cable is vandalism? Hogwash. To be out in remote desert and dig up a cable, then cut it with a power tool is not vandalism. This was a sabotage test – to see how widespread the damage would be, how long it would take to locate the problem and how long to repair it. The next one will be bigger, but they now know how to shut down all of Chicago or NYC.
The cable-cutting thing was part of something bigger. I’m not buying into any of the conspiracy theories and I hate to feed them like this, but it was not as isolated an incident as it was made to seem. Over the course of that same week, several cities, schools, and assorted government agencies had their telecommunications systems sabotaged in some way.
How do I know? Because I’m working as a QA specialist at a telecommunications company. (You’ll understand if I don’t specify which one.) I monitored panicked calls from people who’s offices suddenly had no phones, no internet, no alarm lines. For that matter, the girl who sits kitty-corner to me was scrambling like mad trying to get 911 services back up for city after city after city.
One city worker actually saw it happen. Two men wearing the uniform of the telecommunications company came in claiming to be technicians. They removed the PRI cards, without which the phone system could not function, and then they just left. That easily, an entire city lost their 911 system. And the usual delivery time for a new PRI card is about a week. (I left for the day before finding out if my coworker was able to shorten that.)
I don’t pretend to know what was really going on, but that was what I observed from my corner.
Another point of view:
————-
Nemtsov was a widely disliked self-serving opportunist. The Times ludicrously called him a “standard-bearer of Western liberalism.”
Putin bashing followed…
At the time of his death, Nemtsov was a political nobody. Polls showed his RPR-PARNAS party had less than 5% support. His personal popularity was around 1%.
————
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/03/stephen-lendman/another-anti-putin-false-flag/
A CIA false flag? Cui bono?
fragile infrastructure
Several years back I read a story in our local Texas newspaper about a warehouse in Tennessee whose roof had collapsed under snow. The story was in our paper because the Tennessee warehouse contained the backup computer that ran our Texas ATMs. It snowed a lot in Tennessee, and in Texas I couldn’t get cash over the weekend.
Sometimes I wonder where that computer is now. Is it even in the U.S. of A?
I wonder how the saboteurs knew where the cable was?
Because the cable companies publish maps and put up signs saying HERE’S WHERE THE CABLES RUN! CALL XXX-XXXX BEFORE YOU START DIGGING! That saves saboteurs the trouble of checking public property records to locate the utility easements cables and such run through.
And Wi-Fi and satellite have their own vulnerabilities.
Back in college a buddy of mine had to do an urban disaster planning study. While roughing out his first idea he calculated that if you shut down a city’s sewer system you have about a week to reduce the population in the area by 90%. Otherwise disease will do it for you.
Scared him so bad that he changed the focus of his study to something more useful.
Paul — That article is a perfect example of why I no longer make LewRockwell.com a daily (or even weekly) stop. To assume that because Putin opposes U.S. policies he is automatically a “peacemaker” is deluded, if not delusional. (Can anyone say, “Ukraine”?) The very tone of the article is more religious tract than think-piece.
Oh, sure, you have to take that stuff with a grain of salt like any place else. I was merely suggesting that your original article also had some questionable points. The world is 90% bullshit…
Putin is a member of the ruling class, with all that implies.
Anyway, I still think Washington has more to gain from this minor politician’s death, than Moscow does.
I don’t personally think the telecommunications thing is all that concerning. If you’re a terrorist in Arizona you go after water supplies, not communications. These little incidents are probably part of some political maneuvering. In some state’s senate somewhere I imagine there is a bill called something like “The Communication’s Security Act”, and this is exactly what it needs to make it out of committee. Or perhaps somewhere a local mayor is needing a platform to run on, and “opposing communications terrorists” is just the ticket. Just like Ebola, this will probably go away after the next election. Of course, I’m just speculating.
What we should really be concerned about is the fact that the fiber optics were encased in metal pipes. So much for that infrastructure being EMP-resistant.
Also (and this is just me wondering), I am a proud Christian and plan on staying that way. I am also curious about the “darknet”. Any suggestions from those that have experience? Is it worth my time to connect?
“Because the cable companies publish maps and put up signs saying HERE’S WHERE THE CABLES RUN! CALL XXX-XXXX BEFORE YOU START DIGGING!”
🙂 (Larry, you’re a hoot.)
Now the DHS will have to start a nationwide campaign of hiding cable locations so thousands of people will cut cables accidentally to avoid a handful cutting them deliberately.
The cable was cut in Arizona. It is in the realm of quite possible it was done out of some odd sense of boredom, or to spite Century-Link. No deeper, darker motive need be found. I grew up with and know plenty of Zoner’s that would do something like that on a dare, or just to see what happens. We are weird folk in the desert. Something happened several years ago in southern AZ, this time by a contractor digging in the wrong spot. Cut the cable running along I10 and droped service south of Tucson for a couple of hours. At many points “cell” service drops to land-line if more efficient.
Hmmmm…..the taxes thing shows how the sheeple are just so darn clueless its hopeless.Glad I wont see it all,our children are heading into a hell prison.
The Arizona thing,that it wasnt on MSM speaks volumes,1st we heard of it was here.My thought?Ham radio and sure enough it came up.Ham IS the way to communicate,doesnt need an infrastructure of gov and industry to function making it very reliable.
As for the Russian guy…I would be more inclined to think its a western murder than eastern.With the cease fire working had just remarked to wife,mighty quiet on the Ukraine front when this hit the news.They need to keep it stirred up,and the West is doing the stirring.Nem was just a spoke in that wheel.They are stealing Ukraine’s farmland,resources and doing it on the cheap while putting a Bankers net over them with debt.
Of course Putin is one of ‘them’,however I believe this is Western warmongering,not Eastern.
Hi Claire:
Thank you for posting that link… I agree, we are definitely on a slippery slope and people’s reactions to what is being experienced in the United States today regarding our rapidly-diminishing freedoms will, I suspect, follow a Bell curve. Which implies, of course, that the harder they push us, the more people are going to react in a more aggressive fashion – until, at some point, the rebellion will assume general proportions. At that point – what I call the “flash point” – anything could happen, from the feds declaring martial law to civil war to… ??? We live in interesting times…
And, thanks to Paul as well for your reply on the WTE’s website to the local-numbskull drivel present in the comments section. It’s always great to have someone at my back!!
With Regards,
Brad
Ukraine. We wouldnt put up with Russia toppling Mexico or Canada on our borders would we?
Turn it around its us doing that to them.
Makes sense since we are the worlds warrior country.Its all we have left,a mighty military and Empire.Our only growth area left.
I waited before weighing in on the cut AZ cable. I spent decades in telecom and have a sneaking suspicion what’s going on.
Forget terrorism test runs (terrorists want blatant terror-inflicting acts that no one misunderstands). Forget vandalism-out-of-boredom (merely bored folks don’t bring out an earthmover to uncover a steel pipe, hack through the pipe to get to the cable inside, cut the cable, then erase their tracks).
Try “labor dispute.” CenturyLink and the CWA have a long history of trouble, with the company supposedly trying to get the union decertified. Having seen a few nasty labor actions over the years, I would find it easy to believe that employees — with inside foreknowedge of the precise cable location and its protective measures — might have gone out with the requisite gear to make trouble for the company (fines for the 911 failure alone could go pretty high).
(Disclosure: I once almost went out to work for CL’s predecessor Qwest as an unknowing scab. I was hired for something else completely, but the reality was that they meant to use me as an OSP tech during a strike. They were going to extremes to lie, because union goons were threatening the lives of potential scabs. Nonbody was the good guy in that. Not the strikers threatening people and smashing cars. Not the company that lied to put people in the position of being attacked without knowing it.)
I’ll second Bear’s suggestion. We had our (rural) telephone service cut once, when someone cut the buried phone line that went down our road. This was during a Bell Canada labor dispute when supervisors were handling trouble calls…and yes, it took a few days before it got fixed; they were swamped with calls. Nothing as serious as what happened in Arizona.
Re. Leonard Nimoy, I quite liked Robert Tracinski’s take: http://thefederalist.com/2015/02/27/leonard-nimoy-icon/
Bear’s theory sounds most plausible to me.
[Ukraine. We wouldnt put up with Russia toppling Mexico or Canada on our borders would we?]
This is such an obvious take on this thing, that I have to wonder. Is “walk a mile in another man’s shoes” simply out of the reach of most people? Does the Golden Rule have no adherents at all, but just a lot of lip service? I’m starting to think so…
Yeah, the fiber cut smells a bit too much like an inside job. “Labor dispute” is one plausible theory. But whoever did it not only knew where they _could_ cut, but where they _should_ cut in order to cause maximum disruption to the network. The latter fact is not something one can derive from MISS-DIG maps.
A really, REALLY sophisticated terrorist group might try something like this, if they were in a position to do a whole bunch of them at once, and then follow up with actual violence. But a single incident, however disruptive, and no lead flying or buildings blowing up a couple of weeks later? No point in that. Terrorists want terror (hence the name). Massive inconvenience doesn’t qualify.
Just for the record, though:
1. Fiber optic cables are not vulnerable to EMP, whether they’re buried in metal pipes or not.
2. The switches, however (not to mention the power infrastructure that keeps it all running) _ARE_ vulnerable, and will remain so. So the fact that, in the event of an EMP attack, the fiber optic cables are unaffected is likely to avail us very little, in terms of recovery.
3. The metal pipes are there to protect against backhoe fade and other _accidental_ breaks. They do very little (indeed, effectively nothing) against somebody who’s cutting the lines on purpose.
[So the fact that, in the event of an EMP attack, the fiber optic cables are unaffected is likely to avail us very little, in terms of recovery.]
This assumes the switches are not in a hardened facility, which seems reckless these days, now that we know about EMP. I agree EMP has no effect on fiber optic cables, and even ordinary copper in steel conduit should also be OK, right?
I actually did some engineering work with Fiberchannel devices back in the day. I can’t recall how long the cables could get before the signals needed a switch or repeater; do you happen to know? I assume these probably use a different protocol than Fiberchannel, but I think the underlying hardware is the same.