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hellbanner

Is this vandalism or a terrorist attack? Interfering with communication structures..

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Probably just failed cable theft. Petty criminals who steal metals for scrap aren't particularly bright.

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/workspace/thousands-sky-cust...

How much scrap metal is there in a fiber optic cable?

I'm sure there are professional grade outfits, but many illicit metal scrappers I know are desperate and might take anything they perceive to have value.

This cable might actually have quite a bit of metal armour on it to protect the cable from damage. Here's a picture that came up earlier today, showing rigid metal "caterpillar" armour that goes on the outside of the cable to protect it near shorelines: https://plus.google.com/+UrsH%C3%B6lzle/posts/Gwz3TFyvCAf?pi...

They say 11th case in the last year, this is terrorism. Probably some kind of luddite version of the ALF/ELF. I'm going to call them the Information Liberation Front, ILF.

I really don't like the overloading of the term "terrorism" here. Nobody was killed, injured, attacked, or threatened.

Yeah, I think the term organized or orchestrated attacks/crimes masks more sense. This isn't inciting terror, it's a planned disruption in violation of the law.

Organized political disruption of markets and business is terrorism. These attacks have caused financial losses and will continue to do so. Everyone was attacked, injured, and threatened.

Isn't terrorism the use or threat of violence and destruction to achieve a political goal?

What goal are these guys trying to achieve? Is there even a "these guys"?

> Isn't terrorism the use or threat of violence and destruction to achieve a political goal?

No, it isn't. It is the act of instilling terror. It seems like a small nuance, but it's different. Sadly, the the ambiguity in the definition lends itself to politicians, and modern use seems to be shifting to be more in-line with your definition of it, as you can see in the link I provided.

Interestingly, the first use of it was in context to a government terrorizing citizens during the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution.[0]

[0]:http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/terrorism

That definition literally says "the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes."

Not about instilling terror, but about accomplishing a goal.

> No, it isn't [use or threat of violence to achieve a political goal]. It's the act of instilling terror.

I think it is, but those two definitions are connected.

When you make the people afraid, that tends to have an implied political goal. Fear will drive the voters to put political pressure on government to do something.

This is hyperbolic nonsense. If terrorism is everything we don't like, then it's just a pejorative. Whoever is doing this is doing a very poor job at instilling fear in anybody.

In Canada, section 83.01 of the Criminal Code[1] defines terrorism as an act committed "in whole or in part for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause" with the intention of intimidating the public "…with regard to its security, including its economic security, or compelling a person, a government or a domestic or an international organization to do or to refrain from doing any act."

http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/cj-jp/victim/rr09_6/p3.ht...

Note "economic security". If you block the flow of the economy, you can be considered a terrorist under this definition in the Canadian criminal code. This is not hyperbolic nonsense. This is the law.

This is California, not Canada, so Canadian legal definitions aren't relevant. Even if it was relevant, there's a saying that "the law is an ass." A legislature could decree that apple pie is terrorism, but it simply does not make it so. Like I said, if you stretch the definition of terrorism to mean anything you don't like, you're just making a farce of language.

We've seen no evidence that this was carried out in furtherance of a "{political, religious, ideological} {purposes, objective, cause}". We've seen no evidence to suggest that this was done to intimidate the public. Yes, it's a lousy, criminal, needlessly destructive thing to do. That doesn't make it terrorism.

Maybe it's a bunch of bored teenagers. Maybe a disgruntled employee has it in for Level 3. Maybe the guy who shot up the PG&E substation has a delusional fear of electricity. These are all plausible, non-terroristic explanations. Until the FBI nabs the perpetrator, or someone makes a credible claim of responsibility, I'm not going to jump to conclusions.

>Maybe it's a bunch of bored teenagers.

When bored teenagers make death threats against the president, it's terrorism... and if teenagers are systematically disrupting commerce, even just with the intent to "have lulz", that is terrorism.

>Maybe a disgruntled employee has it in for Level 3. Maybe the guy who shot up the PG&E substation has a delusional fear of electricity

Lone wolf terrorists.

>These are all plausible, non-terroristic explanations

They are plausible, but not non-terroristic. All of the things you listed are instances of terrorism.

>A legislature could decree that apple pie is terrorism, but it simply does not make it so

Since terrorism is primarily a legal concept, that would indeed make apple pies terroristic.

>We've seen no evidence that this was carried out in furtherance of a "{political, religious, ideological} {purposes, objective, cause}". We've seen no evidence to suggest that this was done to intimidate the public. Yes, it's a lousy, criminal, needlessly destructive thing to do. That doesn't make it terrorism.

This is the best argument against calling it terrorism, but I agree with the comment parent that this is probably the work of neo-luddites. California is certainly known for being a hotbed of radical ideologies and this is just a few logical steps past the bus protests. Considering it is possible to cause massive network damage by taking out a few choke points, expect these attacks to become more widespread in the coming years, probably causing a severe shortage of connectivity at times and significantly disrupting commerce.

By labeling everything under the sun as terrorism, you are terrorizing polite political discourse. I therefore propose that you be water-boarded.

(You'll have to excuse me for being so brash; your harsh rhetoric caused me great emotional distress, making me feel attacked, injured, and threatened.)

Is it terrorism to abuse words like terrorism so badly?

>>Organized political disruption of markets and business is terrorism.

By that logic, employees protesting in front of supermarket entrances are terrorists. Yes, I know technically protesters shouldn't be blocking the entrance to the business.... but to call them terrorists would completely dilute the impact of the word "terrorism" into basically what has become of the word "epic" in tech-circles. Almost meaningless.

"I got free pancakes at iHop today, epic!"

"The store closed 10mins early today because the clerk had to catch the last bus that would get to the voting booths across town on time, terrorist!"

>By that logic, employees protesting in front of supermarket entrances are terrorists.

For many classes of business, this would be terrorism. Read up on the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.

This is not a "by your logic" sort of thing; that is the definition of terrorism. When Al-Qaeda in Iraq blows up oil pipeline, is that not terrorism?

You're really conflating minor financial losses with mass murder and actual violence? Or is this a 'whoosh' moment and did I just miss the sarcasm? Please let that be the case.

Oh yes. If this doesn't feel like terrorism now, check back with me when you can't get to websites because exchange points keep having their power stations destroyed or their fiber lines cut.

This has been happening in places like Iraq and the Niger River Delta for a long time; we're just starting to see it in the US now because it takes time for tactics like that to migrate from very serious asymmetric warfare groups to lone wolves in the US.

Oh for God's sake.

Raise your hands if you feel "terror" at this news.

Yeah, this isn't "terrorism"...

It's about as "terrorism" as the hacking of Sony... as-in, it's not terrorism. It's vandalism and theft from a private company, and it inconvenienced customers. Nothing more.

> Interfering with communication structures..

So? That terrifies you?

a little bit, yeah

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