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

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#131

Post by judge2020 » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 2:55 AM UTC

dvtrn wrote: post #84

judge2020 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speculation at this point will get us nowhere. If there were some reason like "5g bad" or "dont kill movie theatres" (regarding HBO max release of WW1984) there would be a video from the bomber pushing their message since, otherwise, this looks like any other terror attack.

Speculation at this point will get us nowhere You follow this, immediately with speculation into the bomber's methodology and tactics?

Speculation about why there shouldn't be speculation: there's not a public message, so they're not pushing any conspiracy theories like OP suggests.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#132

Post by vageli » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 2:56 AM UTC

klipt wrote: post #126

fwip wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps war is a form of terrorism.

One difference is war has rules, terrorism doesn't. Deliberately targeting civilians in war is usually considered a war crime, while deliberately targeting civilians in a terrorist attack is considered ... a standard terrorist attack.

> One difference is war has rules, terrorism doesn't.

Citation needed? Unless every party to a war ever signed the Geneva Convention or something (and even then, war crimes exist which are arguably acts of terrorism). See: the use of agent orange, the bombing of Dresden, etc.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#133

Post by numair » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 2:57 AM UTC

It’s as though someone watched an action movie and thought, what if we get rid of the need to cut the comms in the building itself, and if we chose a time and day when nobody would show up:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xLcHPsWK5xg

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jrA-1cG_wq4

This is a scenario that is in like pretty much every action heist movie ever. Except the movies have super-dramatic bad guys who blow their own cover to take credit for irrational reasons.

Based on what we are seeing about comms and 911, the “true crime” might have happened far from the scene of this blast.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#134

Post by bsder » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 2:58 AM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #122

Nanog thread: https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2020-December/2109... Indicates closest ATT building was an ILEC CO, oddly, a voice exchange / telco meet-me point, or what we would call a peering point on the internet. Risk/reward on the bombing, we're clearly missing incentives information, as of the options available and conceivable purposes for going to that much effort, it doesn't add up yet. Everything a…

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.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#135

Post by joseph_grobbles » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 2:58 AM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #115

joseph_grobbles wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the current neural net voice synthesis engines are fantastic and sound extremely real. Amazon Polly for instance. I'd punch in the phrase and do some comparisons, but given the attention those logs will certainly get maybe I won't.

Neural net synth would be even easier to trace. It’s quite hard to set up an aws account via untraceable currency and an untraceable phone. I did it when I was 25 or so, and it took about three weeks of planning and execution just to get the cards and phone. Given the sophistication of the attack, I wouldn’t say it’s impossible they have neural net experience. But as someone who spent a good chunk of time trying to g…

The same difficulty of anonymity arises with the RV itself, a very ostentatious vehicle that not only can be traced with ease, it can be tracked retroactively on virtually every street, every highway, etc.

Regardless, for all we know the person isn't concerned with being caught (and may currently be deceased given that possible human remains have been found).

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#136

Post by notsureaboutpg » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 2:58 AM UTC

KMag wrote: post #54

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.

Coupled with the evacuation warning (edit: and early morning timing), presumably Christmas was chosen because the fewest number of people would be in the building and/or out and about. For the record, I think this attack was unjustified and Operation Opera[0] was justified, but when Israel bombed the Osirak reactor, they did it on a Sunday to minimize the number of French civilians in the building. [0] https://en.wik…

Considering how many countries the US threatens with its infrastructure, I can't imagine with what rationale you justify Operation Opera but know already that this attack was unjustified without knowing who did it and why

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#137

Post by RobRivera » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 2:58 AM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #105

vageli wrote: post #99

> I think bombers broadcasting warning messages is somewhat more common with certain types of political violence. I know weather underground bombings tried to choose times for their bombings when buildings would not be inhabited, not always successfully. Just wanted to point out that dressing things up as "political violence" is a disservice; violence performed in the commision of promoting an ideology is terrorism.…

> violence performed in the commision of promoting an ideology is terrorism. Was the invasion of Iraq terrorism? What about the Boston tea party?

No, by definition the invasion of Iraq was a state on state attack, pursuant to geneva accords and conventional warfare roe's.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#138

Post by xwdv » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 2:58 AM UTC

numair wrote: post #133

It’s as though someone watched an action movie and thought, what if we get rid of the need to cut the comms in the building itself, and if we chose a time and day when nobody would show up: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xLcHPsWK5xg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jrA-1cG_wq4 This is a scenario that is in like pretty much every action heist movie ever. Except the movies have super-dramatic bad guys who blow their own co…

The human remains might be that of someone who threatened to blow the cover and ended up strapped to a chair just a few feet away from the explosives.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#139

Post by User23 » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 2:58 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.

For many years there was an unholy union between the timber lobby and the lineman’s union that required all power lines in Tennessee to be above ground. Middle Tennessee regularly has serious wind storms that knock out those power lines, so gas is attractive.

Also gas is just an efficient way to produce heat.

Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

#140

Post by Guthur » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 2:59 AM UTC

PIKAL wrote: post #90

I am overcome with curiosity about who did this and why. The fact that nobody has claimed responsibility makes no sense. If this were a politically motivated attack, domestic or otherwise, it would almost defeat the point to have the name of your cause omitted from those initial headlines. And sparing the lives of the bystanders also doesn’t make sense for a political attack. I heard the NRA gave warnings but the rea…

There are many strategies that don't necessarily involve large human collateral damage but are still politically motivated.

The Provisonsal IRA in N. Ireland during the Troubles was often times either targeting security forces, collaborators or commerical activity. Ostensibly the goal was to make the UKs continued involvement in N. Ireland untenable from an economic and political stand point. The IRA was quite aware that too many indiscriminate killing of N.Ireland civilians would be detrimental to their cause.