ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville • Hacker News Board

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#221

Post by anonymouse008 » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 4:13 AM UTC

corndoge wrote: post #186

ideophobia wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a bunch of headlines recently that said the FBI had decrypted one of the popular secure messaging apps (telegram or signal maybe?), which, bizarrely enough, fits my narrative perfectly. Though I saw other headlines stating that was incorrect reporting.

You probably saw the headlines about Cellebrite claiming to have "signal decryption" capabilities, which they did, provided they had the device in hand and unlocked https://signal.org/blog/cellebrite-and-clickbait/

Just like anyone with a private key and file — this site has tangibly shifted from ‘14 to now.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#222

Post by nr2x » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 4:14 AM UTC

elmo2you wrote: post #83

tptacek wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AT&T says that their services went down along with the gas & power in the area, as a side effect: the gas shutoff cut off their backup generators. That doesn't sound all that targeted.

While I'm only speculating, it could be quite possible that whoever may have wished to damage or destroy the AT&T building, seriously underestimated what these kind of buildings can take (essentially being disguised bunkers). This certainly wasn't a small explosion, from the looks of it. But taking out a bunker .. unless you have access to weapons specially build for that purpose, good luck. That AT&T still went down…

A guy working in this building told me they had showers to clean off radioactive fallout as the building itself could stand up to a bomb. Guy said “you’d be fucked either way” and laughed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#223

Post by philwelch » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 4:15 AM UTC

ideophobia wrote: post #148

Considering the FBI recently foiled a plot by a group who was planning to "take out" parts of the energy grid, it seems likely from my experience that this is another set of people executing a similar plan targeting telecoms. I imagine there is a high probability of more incidents like this happening between now and the inauguration, meant to target various infrastructure and "big government" components throughout th…

I think it’s premature to speculate about motive, aside from the obvious part about targeting telecoms infra rather than people. For instance, this might also potentially disable security/alarm systems for a heist, or perhaps it was motivated by some 5G conspiracy theory.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#224

Post by philwelch » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 4:18 AM UTC

zw123456 wrote: post #179

cwwc wrote: post #48

Timing on Christmas and the lengthy list of security systems that rely upon ATT.. makes me wonder. Some variety of a Heist? Seems it wouldn’t be market related given mkts already closed. This is far fetched, yeah. Maybe it was just someone who hates 5G.

I agree, the heist angle was something that came to my mind, it would work if they somehow knew that the blast would take out the generator back up and if they knew that that C.O. only had one entrance facility or some vulnerability like that, which would mean some inside knowledge. Often C.O.'s have dual entrance vaults which it would make sense for bank alarms to be redundant, but if they got the generator or somet…

Jewelry stores are also likely targets.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#225

Post by rhodozelia » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 4:19 AM UTC

Ancapistani wrote: post #5

jrockway wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sort of conspiracy are you imagining here? Someone exploded an RV in an entertainment district so that AT&T had an excuse to disable service while the NSA installed wiretaps? I think that as investigations unfold, that will not end up being what happened. Just a guess though.

Given what little we know, targeting the AT&T infrastructure could be a reasonable guest a motive. The blast itself didn’t seem to take the hub offline; there was a broken water main followed by AT&T being refused access to the building by emergency response. It appears that things started cascading a few hours later, presumably once the generator fuel was exhausted.

It would be strange to have a diesel generator that could power a building only for a few hours. I’ve commissioned numerous diesel generators to provide power to power plants if the transmission line is down and generally they can go at least three days. A diesel generator that could use all its fuel in 3 hours would be like a car with a 1 gallon tank.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#226

Post by iJohnDoe » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 4:20 AM UTC

Here is an update from AT&T:

The front 1/3rd of the building is structuraly damaged. That includes fiber entry.

They have no power and there is major flooding on all floors including the basement.

The Fire Department is en route with pump trucks to help with the flooding.

They have Building Engineers and Electricians on the way to look into the structure and getting power turned on.

They have 2 850KW generators on the way and 2 1MW generators on standby.

They have new A/C Chillers on the way (Existing Chiller plant was destroyed).

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#227

Post by nr2x » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 4:20 AM UTC

avs733 wrote: post #163

elmo2you wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm only speculating, it could be quite possible that whoever may have wished to damage or destroy the AT&T building, seriously underestimated what these kind of buildings can take (essentially being disguised bunkers). This certainly wasn't a small explosion, from the looks of it. But taking out a bunker .. unless you have access to weapons specially build for that purpose, good luck. That AT&T still went down…

>While I'm only speculating, it could be quite possible that whoever may have wished to damage or destroy the AT&T building, seriously underestimated what these kind of buildings can take (essentially being disguised bunkers). Which somehow makes it more plausible to me? The type of insane person who would do this seems like the type of insane person who would underestimate how reinforced such a building is.

It’s odd that if you knew why the building was valuable you wouldn’t also know it’s designed for this. Which makes me lean more towards coincidence.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#228

Post by philwelch » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 4:21 AM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #118

vinay427 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote: In my experience, a small but sizeable number of homes in suburban areas that are still outside the city enough to be affected by weather-related power outages every several months have whole-home generators connected to city natural gas lines. Growing up in one of these areas, there was the occasional power outage (once a year or so at most) but I can't recall any gas line outages. Those who had whole-home…

I'm more surprised that Nashville has city gas. It's not a very cold climate. It almost never even snows there.

Gas is useful for ranges or water heaters regardless of climate.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#229

Post by pseudo0 » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 4:22 AM UTC

ideophobia wrote: post #148

Considering the FBI recently foiled a plot by a group who was planning to "take out" parts of the energy grid, it seems likely from my experience that this is another set of people executing a similar plan targeting telecoms. I imagine there is a high probability of more incidents like this happening between now and the inauguration, meant to target various infrastructure and "big government" components throughout th…

If anything, this attack reminded me of the Weather Underground bombings in the 70s, which were often prefaced by evacuation warnings and targeted infrastructure rather than people. If I had to take a guess though, I'd go with a genuinely mentally ill person attempting to take out the 5G "mind control rays" or whatever, particularly given the potential presence of human remains found at the scene.

I read that story you mentioned about the energy grid plot, but it seems like bizarrely pathetic larping that was stopped before any substantive action was taken [0]. One part of the article I couldn't help but laugh at:

> The affidavit says the Ohio teen put Nazi flags in his room, but his mother told him to take them down.

[0] - https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/national-international/fbi-w...

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#230

Post by Natales » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 4:27 AM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #72

CamperBob2 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ISDN was pretty much plug and play when I had it back in the day. The gateways were available off the shelf (IIRC mine came from CompUSA) and you could get them with either one or two B channels, as I recall.

That's BRI ISDN. PRI has a lot more channels. Also, there was dial setup and PPP vs IDSN bonding. So it can be complex.

Yes indeed. I had the pleasure to work for Ascend Communications for 4 years. The bulk of our business was the Ascend Max TNT that could terminate dozens of PRI lines into hundreds of digital modems. They were the bread and butter for early ISPs. For BRI lines, there was the Pipeline 50, remarkable little box with a BRI input and Ethernet output. Good times.