Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

tennessean.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 517 posts

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#401

Post by whimsicalism »

6nf wrote: post #296
londons_explore wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were deliberately destroying a cargo of tea that they didn't own...

Sure but that’s not ‘terrorism’ under most definitions

Why not?

> the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

Violence:

> behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.

So, as the use of physical force intended to damage something for political aims, it seems definitionally "terrorism"

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#402

Post by whimsicalism »

lovetocode wrote: post #389
bawolff wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine having to drink coffee. Its pretty terrifying, especially for a Brit. More seriously - the people who own that property were civilians and probably scared. In usa terrorism is defined currently as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents". (Title 22 Chapter 38 U.S. Code § 2656f) The boston tea party was premeditated, pol…

Non-combatant targets isn’t physical goods.

The law pretty explicitly disagrees with your interpretation [0] if we've decided we're going to take the US govt definition as gospel.

[0]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840...

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#403

Post by _wp3r »

TylerE wrote: post #254
philwelch wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sure, but as someone who's lived in the Southeast my entire life, I've never seen city gas. Where there's gas there's a tank that's filled by a truck.

Lack of gas service is mostly a geography issue ie rural vs urban, and less of a climate issue. Most of the small rural towns in the SE have gas service in at least the city centers, if nothing else for the municipal and the hospital generators.

On site Propane storage can be super expensive capital wise, and also it just does not give you much runtime for any serious usage. The best solution is battery with generator backup for onsite, which our local 911 just went to in the SE, because the uptime in that setup was 4x generator with onsite storage because of the increased production efficiency.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#404

Post by ideophobia »

leblancfg wrote: post #384
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 made that link too - it’s spurious at best though, of course. Ever heard of Metcalf sniper attack, too, taking down a California power station a couple years back? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack Crippling a country’s energy and telecom capabilities could align with the motives of another nation.

Yep metcalf is why I'm making the leaps here. Also because metcalf is only one of dozens of similar events that occured throughout the US in the past 8-10 years or so, all similarly targeting infrastructure and energy companies, most of which remain unsolved today.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#405

Post by whimsicalism »

j4yav wrote: post #317
nr2x wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe they were blowing it up to stop 5G rays from spontaneously generating viruses, in which case if they didn't really know what they were doing beyond a surface level it wouldn't come as a huge surprise.

It's not any rando that can get access to the levels of explosive necessary to do this in the domestic US, it's actually quite hard.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#406

Post by mytailorisrich »

capableweb wrote: post #396
mytailorisrich wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Targeting infrastructure can be terrorism as well, it does not require aiming at killing people. Terrorism is unlawfully using violence, especially against civilians, to achieve a political aim.

> Terrorism is unlawfully using violence, especially against civilians, to achieve a political aim. Important to note that there is not one single definition of "terrorism" that everyone agrees on. For some, "terrorism" is a label assigned to your opposing groups, for others it's about violence for political or religious purposes. If it's from another nation-state, it's usually not labeled terrorism, even if it's aga…

There is a general definition that you will find in dictionaries and that is generally accepted. So I think there is a definition that everyone agrees on when there are not pushing an agenda.

Then there is the use of the term for rhetorical and political purposes... This is what obviously varies according to the interests of those using the term. Obviously the terrorists are always the 'other guys'.

Note that the definition I gave, which is nothing more than the Oxford dictionary one, includes a crucial word, "unlawful". This is very important to differentiate between warfare and terrorism. A sovereign state uses violence for political aims, this is warfare and it is 'lawful' (it may be unlawful under international law, though). This is why action by nation-states are usually not labelled 'terrorism'.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#407

Post by _wp3r »

partiallypro wrote: post #252
bsder wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first thought was arson for insurance money. However, the bomb placement makes no sense for that case. It really does seem like this was targeted at the ATT building.

Insurance doesn't cover terrorism in most all cases, as it is considered a war zone.

Lenders have required my company to carry terrorism clauses on our brick and mortar assets while collateralized.

SBA loans also requires this, I believe.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#408

Post by ideophobia »

betwixthewires wrote: post #283
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…

>between now and the inauguration Why the inauguration? >This attack screams anti-government militia What about it screams anything identifiable? Are you sure your biases aren't creeping into your analysis?

First, this isn't an analysis as much as it is pointless speculation on a Y Combinator message board.

I already listed some things that stood out to me in another comment.

I call out the inauguration because it's literally about to happen? Its the next the largest event in American politics on the calendar. And obviously my assumptions that this is tied to anti government efforts means those involved would likely be stirred up by whatever is currently happening in politics. Everyone's bias creeps into everything they do. Neither of us are immune to that. So calling it out here in such a uselessly rhetorical manner isn't some logical fallacy flag, it's a derailment of the discussion. I'm not even sure what bias you're accusing me of, I guess leftist politics?

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#409

Post by eternalban »

capableweb wrote: post #396
mytailorisrich wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Targeting infrastructure can be terrorism as well, it does not require aiming at killing people. Terrorism is unlawfully using violence, especially against civilians, to achieve a political aim.

> Terrorism is unlawfully using violence, especially against civilians, to achieve a political aim. Important to note that there is not one single definition of "terrorism" that everyone agrees on. For some, "terrorism" is a label assigned to your opposing groups, for others it's about violence for political or religious purposes. If it's from another nation-state, it's usually not labeled terrorism, even if it's aga…

Terrorism: Non-state and/or extra-judicial use of means to induce perception of collective insecurity ("terror") in order to achieve specific goals.

Basic categorization of terrorism then would be concerned with:

a: tuple (agency, means)

must resolve to be "illegal" within the applicable legal scope. For example, a state dropping bombs on a civilian population (nation-state, war-crime) satisfies the above requirement but doing the same to enemy soldiers (nation-state, warfare) does not. Same with a private group blowing up a bank (ngo, crime).

b: tuple (target, reacting-agency)

Goal is to use terror in the target to induce the reacting-agency in responding in a desired manner. If there is no reacting-agency (and thus no goal) it is not terrorism; it is merely pathological.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#410

Post by daniellarusso »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #347
jeffbee wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facilities don't really keep that large of an inventory of fuel on site. Usually once they start running they have to call for fuel immediately and be regularly refueled until power is restored. They don't have a week of fuel or anything like that. I don't see why natural gas is such a bad backup for utility electric. It doesn't share fate with the electric grid and it's buried. Seems pretty good.

How long will the gas grid keep working without electricity? Sure, the pressure is likely maintained from a reservoir, but many of the control systems likely depend on electricity, and I could imagine some being fail-safe (solenoids holding valves open and shutting if power fails).

It depends how well it is maintained, like most infrastructure.

https://www.wvpublic.org/news/2014-03-10/ntsb-determines-cau...

Post reply on HN