Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s a cat bomb?
Probably a car bomb. The IRA were infamous for those.
Thanks. Apparently it's no longer cool to ask questions on HN, since I had no idea what a cat bomb was, yet a mod flagged it regardless.
ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville
431–440 of 517 posts
Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville
#432Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting things to consider. 1) I heard something about "fake reports" about gunshots. But maybe the perp shot off some guns just to get the cops to show up? 2) This woman stuck around for 15 minutes or a half hour while this thing was saying "you need to evacuate, this has a bomb"??? 3) This woman recalls a male voice but the news played a female voice. This goes to show how bad our memories are!
> 3) This woman recalls a male voice but the news played a female voice. This goes to show how bad our memories are! Here is the recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nygTJeu9fU I actually also watched the video before reading that it was a female voice and also thought it was male.
Holy shit I think the same thing happened to me. Maybe this is one of those perception quirks rather than a memory quirk.
Listening again, I could see it being a man with a voice like David Sedaris.
Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville
#433This article doesn't make this so explicit, but ATT infrastructure appears to be the intentional target of the bombing. You can see the building in the helicopter shot at the top of the NYTimes article on the story: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/25/us/nashville-explosion.ht... Obviously a telecommunications/switch hub, with it being a large windowless building in a downtown core. The other thing that's particularly…
Just to add an interesting bit it appears possible there was someone in or in the direct vicinity of the vehicle when it exploded.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-nashville-...
Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville
#434Earlier 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).
Gas runs forever without electricity. My folks have a gas generator on a pad at their home because ice storms take down the electric grid every year in their town. This year it ran for ten days straight.
Pressure in natural gas infrastructure is maintained by pumping stations that are fueled by the gas. These are huge and impressive and usually located far from any town.
Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville
#435Considering 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…
One thing I found interesting was this list of media companies now owned by AT&T. I can imagine a motive scenario based on these names alone.
https://bgr.com/2018/06/16/att-time-warner-merger-brands-wha...
Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville
#436The game begins
Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville
#437Too much speculation. Interesting that the outage started hours after the explosion. The obvious speculation is that the CO lost power after the batteries ran down, but that's not definite yet. Are they back up? If it's just power loss, they should be by now.
As of about 10am on Saturday, we are still without service
Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville
#438Earlier quoted context omitted.
While that's true, I think two factors strongly indicate that this was targeted at the ATT building. The first observation is, of course, that the ATT building was the closest to the explosion. A direct witness to the RV broadcasting the evacuation message, who lives across the street, describes this fact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iag6cTWpgq8 . The second observation is the evacuation message itself. How often…
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.
If a group is hoping for a negotiated settlement they basically have to do it that way, both because mass casualty bombings tend to make negotiations impossible and because it increases confidence that a group could stop the bombings if their demands are met. Deadly bombings only seem to work when the group using them is trying to start a war.
Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 def…
Arguing what things are based on their dictionary definition is often a mistake. The people that compile the dictionary are not experts in every field. They optimize for brevity, and their sources are not exhaustive. They are not trying to be encyclopedic and all encompassing.
Note, have have worked with people assembling a major dictionary. They are just regualr people with regular foibles.
Re: ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville
#440Earlier 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). 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.
Either that, or they understood exactly what they were doing and simply needed to shut down 911 services for a while - perhaps so they could commit some sort of crime without the authorities being able to be summoned or coordinate.