AT&T Offers $250k Reward For Information On Fiber Vandalism

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AT&T is offering a serious chunk of change for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for all the fiber vandalism taking place in Northern California.

AT&T said on Wednesday that the company is offering up to $250,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for "fiber vandalism across Alameda County." Most recently, AT&T spokesman Jim Greer said that vandals cut fiber in two different manholes about 10:30 p.m. Monday at Altamont Pass and Carroll Road in Livermore, causing Internet service to go out.
 
AT&T is offering a serious chunk of change for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for all the fiber vandalism taking place in Northern California.

AT&T said on Wednesday that the company is offering up to $250,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for "fiber vandalism across Alameda County." Most recently, AT&T spokesman Jim Greer said that vandals cut fiber in two different manholes about 10:30 p.m. Monday at Altamont Pass and Carroll Road in Livermore, causing Internet service to go out.

Probably thought it was copper
 
I'm not so sure it is copper thieves because it keeps happening over and over again in that area.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041861035 said:
Not sure I understand the gun nut comment.

Ammo addicts using copper to buy more ammo? :p

Telecommunications companies have reported shot up fiber lines account for as much as 10% of total vandalism to fiber lines. What accounts for the most vandalism? Squirrels
 
Shoot, for 250k I'd camp out in the area and wait for the culprits to show up.
 
Telecommunications companies have reported shot up fiber lines account for as much as 10% of total vandalism to fiber lines. What accounts for the most vandalism? Squirrels

Strike that .... idiot workers severing lines is first ... squirrels are second.
 
Strike that .... idiot workers severing lines is first ... squirrels are second.

Around a year or so ago we had no power for about half a day because squirrels chewed some wires which caused a transformer to fry. It was epic as it took down a pretty large area.
 
Telecommunications companies have reported shot up fiber lines account for as much as 10% of total vandalism to fiber lines. What accounts for the most vandalism? Squirrels

What are these, paranoid conspiracy theorists trying to take out "government spy wires"?

:p
 
Telecommunications companies have reported shot up fiber lines account for as much as 10% of total vandalism to fiber lines. What accounts for the most vandalism? Squirrels
These were underground.
Melting down copper to cast bullets.
Why in the world would I do that, when I can just cast lead bullets? If I want jacketed bullets, I'll just buy them. There is an order of magnitude in the difference required to melt and cast lead, than there is to do the same with copper. Yeah, there are also copper solids, but those are turned on a lathe(or other similar equipment like a screw machine), not cast. You'd need to melt the copper down into ingots, extrude those into a billet, turn it on a lathe with a massive amount of chips to be melted down again... that's just a waste of effort on a small scale.
 
Why in the world would I do that, when I can just cast lead bullets? If I want jacketed bullets, I'll just buy them. There is an order of magnitude in the difference required to melt and cast lead, than there is to do the same with copper. Yeah, there are also copper solids, but those are turned on a lathe(or other similar equipment like a screw machine), not cast. You'd need to melt the copper down into ingots, extrude those into a billet, turn it on a lathe with a massive amount of chips to be melted down again... that's just a waste of effort on a small scale.

Alright chief, just giving a viable answer, don't have to go all sperglord, never said _you_ or anyone else here would go through that process.

The people that do that shit anyhow are the people that don't want to "just buy them", and most of the material (IE: the copper) is free, it is not like they are out anything other than time.
 
Maybe it is "undocumented" "workers" not understanding the difference between fiber and fiber.. and they are just looking for some food to help keep them more regular. :D
 
I'm going to go with "Eco Terrorists" or some like minded group that wants us to "disconnect from the machine" or something.
 
These were underground.

We had a badger take one out around us. Took out quite a bit of Eastern Oregon at the time. That was a decade or more ago. Now, we're much better off when it comes to bandwidth and redundancy (couldn't tell by what we're offered by ISPs, though!).
 
I'm going to go with "Eco Terrorists" or some like minded group that wants us to "disconnect from the machine" or something.

Luddites. Eco Terrorists like technology. They just hate the way power is made to power technology.
 
These were underground.

Why in the world would I do that, when I can just cast lead bullets? If I want jacketed bullets, I'll just buy them. There is an order of magnitude in the difference required to melt and cast lead, than there is to do the same with copper. Yeah, there are also copper solids, but those are turned on a lathe(or other similar equipment like a screw machine), not cast. You'd need to melt the copper down into ingots, extrude those into a billet, turn it on a lathe with a massive amount of chips to be melted down again... that's just a waste of effort on a small scale.
Bump bump....
Shit if they have to tools to make ammo then I doubt they would need to dig up copper lines to make it ...
If one is hard up to make bullets it's easier to just hit the bait and tackle shop up and buy lead sinkers... one can just grab round pinch shots of varying sizes and use the for buck shot and bird shot.. :D


This was most likely inside job ... Either current disgruntled Field Techs / Manager or ex fiber or POTS techs , AT&T has a lot of them.
 
Maybe it is "undocumented" "workers" not understanding the difference between fiber and fiber.. and they are just looking for some food to help keep them more regular. :D

You're forgetting about the fibre rofl :rolleyes:

Those censoreding French censoreds!
 
Bump bump....
Shit if they have to tools to make ammo then I doubt they would need to dig up copper lines to make it ...
If one is hard up to make bullets it's easier to just hit the bait and tackle shop up and buy lead sinkers... one can just grab round pinch shots of varying sizes and use the for buck shot and bird shot.. :D
Exactly.


This was most likely inside job ... Either current disgruntled Field Techs / Manager or ex fiber or POTS techs , AT&T has a lot of them.[/QUOTE]

Alright chief, just giving a viable answer, don't have to go all sperglord, never said _you_ or anyone else here would go through that process.

The people that do that shit anyhow are the people that don't want to "just buy them", and most of the material (IE: the copper) is free, it is not like they are out anything other than time.
You completely missed the point. No one with the equipment to properly smelt, forge, and then turn copper solids is going to be stealing copper. At the very least if they already had the equipment to pull that off, they'd know the difference between copper and fiberoptic cables and wouldn't want to attract extra attention to themselves. That equipment is not free, nor was your answer "viable". At best it was a bunch of ignorant nonsense.
 
Damn lack of edit. Meant to cut out the last part of pavementeater's post when I quoted it since I wasn't responding to that.
 
It was me, can I have my 250k before I go to jail so I can toss it in a high yield account while I'm in?:D
 
Anyone deal with a scrap yard? They are dumb enough to buy this off the meth head and not bother checking if coppers inside.
 
squirrels? I hate those tree rats.

I've trapped and killed over 50 in the past 2.5 years.

Other than that, I think ATT deserves to have their shit cut so they can fix their slow ass connections.
Maybe you cut it enough, they will replace it with better hardware that can support faster speeds. /wishful thinking
 
squirrels? I hate those tree rats.

I've trapped and killed over 50 in the past 2.5 years.

Other than that, I think ATT deserves to have their shit cut so they can fix their slow ass connections.
Maybe you cut it enough, they will replace it with better hardware that can support faster speeds. /wishful thinking

Would you care to explain what "better hardware" exists over SMF? Magic?

The question is if any material was taken and if any co-located cables were also damaged. Also, if they were clean cut or pulled.
 
Maybe you cut it enough, they will replace it with better hardware that can support faster speeds. /wishful thinking

What?- Are they going to replace the fiber with something that can transport the signal faster than light? Perhaps they will send your data back in time? :D
 
You completely missed the point. No one with the equipment to properly smelt, forge, and then turn copper solids is going to be stealing copper. At the very least if they already had the equipment to pull that off, they'd know the difference between copper and fiberoptic cables and wouldn't want to attract extra attention to themselves. That equipment is not free, nor was your answer "viable". At best it was a bunch of ignorant nonsense.

Did I say the equipment was free anywhere in my statement, pretty sure I said most of the material (IE: the copper) is free?
My point is that there are extremely crude way of melting copper without "proper equipment" in someones back yard if they wanted to do so, whether it is efficient or not is another story.
 
Did I say the equipment was free anywhere in my statement, pretty sure I said most of the material (IE: the copper) is free?
My point is that there are extremely crude way of melting copper without "proper equipment" in someones back yard if they wanted to do so, whether it is efficient or not is another story.

It's not simply about melting the copper to end up with usable bullets, as you'd end up with a better cast lead projectile than trying to use a copper casting without turning it. There's also the issue of a copper solid needing to be longer while maintaining the same weight(if you don't understand why bullet length and weight are an issue...), and if you're concerned about terminal ballistics then much like an FMJ projectile, a plain copper solid isn't going to be any good for that either.

Seriously, it would be an order of magnitude easier to just cast a lead projectile rather than end up with a crappy solid copper projectile. Even going so far as to mine your own lead would be easier than trying to make a decent copper projectile in your garage without a hell of a lot of equipment... that again would make zero sense for someone to have and be cutting up communication lines in manholes if they wanted to keep a low profile.

At least you were able to reply without an insult this time, but it's quite obvious you're still ignorant on the subject, so just stop already or go do some reading and learn.
 
It's not simply about melting the copper to end up with usable bullets, as you'd end up with a better cast lead projectile than trying to use a copper casting without turning it. There's also the issue of a copper solid needing to be longer while maintaining the same weight(if you don't understand why bullet length and weight are an issue...), and if you're concerned about terminal ballistics then much like an FMJ projectile, a plain copper solid isn't going to be any good for that either.

Seriously, it would be an order of magnitude easier to just cast a lead projectile rather than end up with a crappy solid copper projectile. Even going so far as to mine your own lead would be easier than trying to make a decent copper projectile in your garage without a hell of a lot of equipment... that again would make zero sense for someone to have and be cutting up communication lines in manholes if they wanted to keep a low profile.

At least you were able to reply without an insult this time, but it's quite obvious you're still ignorant on the subject, so just stop already or go do some reading and learn.

Never made any insults, you appear to have read too much into something, if I had it would have been overly obvious that I was insulting you, that being said since this is getting way off the original topic I am going to go ahead and stop responding, not that it matters much anyhow as I am ignorant to the whole thing anyhow right?
 
Never made any insults, you appear to have read too much into something, if I had it would have been overly obvious that I was insulting you, that being said since this is getting way off the original topic I am going to go ahead and stop responding, not that it matters much anyhow as I am ignorant to the whole thing anyhow right?

Right, calling someone a "sperglord" simply because they called out your lack of knowledge about a particular topic, and explained enough of something that you can go do further research on your own isn't an insult.

But yes, you could go read up on machining, external and terminal ballistics, casting, melting points of metals and what it takes to do it, and so on or... just drop it.
 
squirrels? I hate those tree rats.

I've trapped and killed over 50 in the past 2.5 years.

Other than that, I think ATT deserves to have their shit cut so they can fix their slow ass connections.
Maybe you cut it enough, they will replace it with better hardware that can support faster speeds. /wishful thinking
AT&T's slowness isn't due to their wires and fiber it's due to the Equipment in their CO's and lack of support for outer area's ... They are running really old DSL hardware in a lot of their CO's and when they have new hardware it's maxed out and then the lines are throttled.
AT&T knows this was an inside job and or ex employee.The thing is how do they catch them and keep everything on the down low... The other side of the coin is do they really want to catch them... because if it is discovered as an ex or current employee they will have a lot of explaining to do with the Feds and other local and state groups. bla bla bla .
It's easier to sabotage your company on the out side than in the inside .
 
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