Fiber Optic RoadmapUncle Sam worried about grad student project... ( old news - 11:06AM Tuesday Jul 08 2003) tags: Fiber · statsDespite being dubbed "tedious and unimportant" by his professor, one college student's dissertation has Uncle Sam a little worried. Sean Gorman has not only mapped every business and industrial sector in the American economy, he's mapped the fiber optic infrastructure that connects them. Gorman could tell you how many and what type of bandwidth each building is connected to, and where, if one were so inclined, would be the easiest place to 'strike' if you were interested in crippling the system. According to Richard Clarke, recently departed White House cyberterrorism chief, "He should turn it in to his professor, get his grade -- and then they both should burn it." Because, as Clarke puts it, "The fiber-optic network is our country's nervous system," and "you don't want to give terrorists a road map to blow that up."
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 Yukstah
Premium
join:2003-04-07
Boston, MA | Fiber!! I wish I could see a map of my local area! | |
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GoD of KaOs
Agent of KaOs
join:2001-01-29
Chatsworth, CA
| Re: Fiber!! Go to backbone providers sites like Level3, Quest, UUnet, Global Crossings, MCI etc, they usually have backmaps on there sites.
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Lord Please Murder My Enemies, BURN'EM AT 1000 DEGREES!!!!!!!!!!! | |
| | waynemr
join:2002-01-28
Madison, WI | Sell it to Google! Put it on Google, so we can all tinker around with figuring out who is connected to what. | |
| | Yukstah
Premium
join:2003-04-07
Boston, MA | Re: Fiber!! It would be so useful to see what carriers are in my building, or even surrounding buildings that share this ones foundation. We're 50 floors, next door's 150...I bet they have better carriers than we do! | |
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Archivis
Your Daddy
Premium
join:2001-11-26
Earth | So sell it Sell it to the highest bidder and live lavishly for the rest of your life in another country...
hooray | |
| | Yukstah
Premium
join:2003-04-07
Boston, MA | Re: So sell it I think this kid has them on a building by building level. That would impress me. | |
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bistro777
Donuts-Is There Anything They Can't Do?
Premium,MVM
join:2002-02-07
Englewood, CO
| Re: So sell it It's actually worth a few bucks to anyone interested in network deployment in the metro space (DWDM or whatever) - - maybe Yipes et al will offer him a job...if the No Such Agency doesn't snatch him up first.
Fiber is good for you. | |
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grunteled
Puffy And Prickly
Premium
join:2001-06-13
Kansas City, MO
clubs:
| Re: So sell it [SARCASIM ON]
Sell it? You fool don't you know there is a war on. We must all hide in our basements with plastic and duct tape and classify all public information. Terrorists (read bogeymen) could get their hands on it for gods sake!
I think we should not even be able to find out the names of our representatives. I mean just vote for R or D and take what you get. If terrorists can find out the names of government officials then they could be killed. For that matter..... aw to hell with it
[SARCASIM OFF]
Sometimes I just got to shake my head. Next they will be telling us we can't know the addresses of government buldings... too dangerous. | |
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bistro777
Donuts-Is There Anything They Can't Do?
Premium,MVM
join:2002-02-07
Englewood, CO
| Re: So sell it I was going to respond, but just realized this post would eventually flow from my home to a POP to a data center to MAE EAST on its way to BBR - all of which are probably targeted in this grad student's work. We might as well put tarps over all the reservoirs, power plants, farmers' fields, dams, etc. to hide them as well, huh? 
I have nothing to say, and I am saying it. - - John Cage | |
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Archivis
Your Daddy
Premium
join:2001-11-26
Earth | Re: So sell it I said sell... not sue. | |
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cyberthugin
join:2002-03-12
Kew Gardens, NY
| Re: American Idiocy at its finest... Well if you got politicians with 5 grade intelligence, no wonder that this type of thing happens.
Anyone who is smart can get this information even if it was not public info.
But then again we got to watch out for this clumsy construction road people digging up the road and cutting up lines.
What they should do is secure the borders, cause damn they alot of illegal aliens roaming around lately.
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www.alltechneeds.com
"Your Everyday Hosting Needs" | |
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aztecnology
The Autumn wind is a Raider
join:2003-02-12
Murrieta, CA |  Re: American Idiocy at its finest...
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | DonLibes
Premium,ExMod 2001
join:2003-01-19
| Re: American Idiocy at its finest... said by aztecnology  :
said by KrK :
said by aztecnology :
I doubt that communication companies are hiring illegal aliens to work the chain gang of digging trenches to lay cable...
True. Just the contractors they use hire them. Construction (of any kind) is one of the biggest hires of illegals.
I know the telcos have their own construction groups, and I'm pretty sure they aren't hiring illegals either...
Sure communication companies have their own construction groups but they also make extensive use of contractors to do construction. | |
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cyberthugin
join:2002-03-12
Kew Gardens, NY | They are suspect, thats why they hired H1 people~ | |
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dilettante
join:2002-01-01
Haslett, MI |  Re: American Idiocy at its finest...
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kapil
The Kapil
join:2000-04-26
Chicago, IL
edited
| CLASSIFY THIS!!!!
This nation was founded on certain principles. Our forefathers thought they could do it better than the way it was done in their respective countries....that's why they left it all behind and started over again. Freedom, Equality, Justice for all...THAT is Americana....not SUV's Cheap Broadband and Big Macs. If we give up the sole reason we had for forming this country...might as well go back where we came from and give the land back to the natives (...this way the DoI can have its web servers turned back on too)
I do not care what Osama thinks...we are America...we are stronger, more resolved, and more determined to survive as a nation, as a democracy...than a terrorist can and will ever be about destroying what we stand for.
GMU is tossing W's salad...they want the research grant money...they have sold their souls. This is not what Academia is about....almost makes me want to go to the University of Phoenix
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::: Do, or do not, there is no try:::
»www.kapilville.com
[text was edited by author 2003-07-08 11:38:39] | |
| | c0mmander
join:2001-10-03 | Re: CLASSIFY THIS!!!! i'm sure there's plenty of redundancies, and considering 95% of the fiber is unlit or dark anyway... | |
| | | kg74b5
join:2001-04-11
Fort Smith, AR
| Re: CLASSIFY THIS!!!! I can understand why people are concerned about protecting the fiber network. Even an accident can cause major problems, when a sand barge hit and knocked out a bridge over the Arkansas river in Oklahoma several cell companies and internet services lost all service east of the river for days because of all the fiber running along the bridge. | |
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dddane
join:2002-01-10
Chicago, IL | well, I think the gov't is trying to protect all business, whereas the RIAA is trying to protect their own business. | |
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kapil
The Kapil
join:2000-04-26
Chicago, IL | Re: CLASSIFY THIS!!!! Neither one is very effective at whatever it is that they think they are doing.
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::: Do, or do not, there is no try:::»www.kapilville.com | |
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chex5
join:2000-05-24
NorthEnd BOS
clubs:
edited
| I know one place... I just recently came back to Boston from a pan-America trip to Colorado and back, on my motorcycle. I couldn't help noticing, being the telecomm geek that I am, that in Western Kansas, on Rt. US-36, things are pretty remote, and the fiber poles, on both side of the highway were pretty obvious and clearly marked with the rubber-capped poles. There are repeater stations setup, with power lines pulled in from god only knows where, to repeat the fiber signal every 10-20 or so miles. (purely conjecture, please correct me if I am wrong about that. ) If you look at the Qwest map, the link from Kansas City to Denver, Im fairly sure ran along that route.
It wouldn't take a genius to map out some places fiber runs, or even get some more highly sensitive places. However, isnt the Net' , ATM networks, and the like supposed to be resiliant and self-healing? What about all the 90% of dark fiber that is out there? Surely with the multitudes of redundant networks across this country, even a major strike against the fiber infrastructure should not be too much of a problem to re-route around.
- Chex
[text was edited by author 2003-07-08 13:53:40] | |
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kapil
The Kapil
join:2000-04-26
Chicago, IL
| Re: I know one place... You are right. Our infrastructure is extremely resilient by design....mostly because it was built by geeks who know and understand these things. In case of an attack, the problem won't be a technological one...the hardest part will be convincing the suits on what course of action to take. The article mentioned an exec from the power company...the idiot isn't worried about national security...he's worried about an attack on HIS part of the national infrastructure that HE has to pay to secure...and pay to rebuild in case of an attack....all he cares about is his bonus and preventing bad PR. It is hard to get people like this to call things rationally. Unfortunately, these are the people buying politicians so their voices get heard, and ours don't.
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::: Do, or do not, there is no try:::»www.kapilville.com | |
| | | | | Beeper
Part Of The Problem
join:2001-09-27
Dayton, OH
clubs:
| Re: I know one place... said by RayW :
Was is the right word. That was back when the paranoid military (ARPANET) was dictating how to do it. Now we have big business 'running' it, and all they care about is how to save money, and that means consolidation /centralization. Or so I have read.
ARPA used big business to build ARPANET. They liked and used suggested improvements of private companies.
»www.dei.isep.ipp.pt/docs/arpa--1.html
Excerpt:
"The Defense Supply Service - Washington (DSS-W) agreed to be a procurement agent for ARPA. At the end of July the Request for Quotation for network IMPs was mailed to 140 potential bidders who had expressed interest in receiving it. Approximately 100 people from 51 companies attended a subsequent bidders' conference. Twelve proposals were actually received by DSS_W comprising 6.6 edge-feet of paper and presenting an awesome evaluation task for IPT, which more normally awards contracts on a sole source basis. Attempting to evaluate the proposals "strictly by the book", an ARPA-appointed evaluation committee retired to Monterey, California, to carry out their task. ARPA was pleasantly surprised that several of the respondents believed that they could construct a network which performed as much as a factor of five better than the delay constraint given in the RFQ..." (ARPA draft, III-35)
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Guaranteed Fear and Loathing. Abandon all hope. Prepare for the Weirdness. Get familiar with Cannibalism. | |
| | | | RayW
Premium
join:2001-09-01
Layton, UT
clubs:
 ·XMission
| Re: I know one place... True Beeper, but still it was a system that was designed to resist failure through redundant paths, with profit not being the driving force. Back in the 60's and 70's we were still setting up for the nuclear holocaust that would fragment our infrastructure.
The last time I looked, the alternate paths were being consolidated since no one believes (or cares) that the fears of the 60's and 70's can happen. Of course, all that I learned back then and in later years could be wrong and just a figment of corporate and governmental mind manipulation  .
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I am not lost, I find myself every time. | |
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Maggs
Premium
join:2002-11-29
Woodside, NY
clubs:
 ·RCN CABLE
| Freedom of Speech This college student has a right to air his work in the public venue irregardless of its security risk. If crippling the fiber backbone was a security problem, wouldn't the IP backbone providers hide their maps. Since this information is free and available, I guarantee you if you spent enough time Googling & doing research you would come to the same conclusions. Why should the government restrict the free speech of an American citizen? This information could in fact be used for benovolent purposes, such as determining whether the communication structure within a certain geographic area is adequate to meet the needs of the region.
"Risk is the price of both innovation & invention" SeanMaggs
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"Too much of a good thing, is good for nothing." | |
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See 6 replies to this post | |
tomsprat
Draw Me A "Cold One"
Premium,ExMod 2002-04
join:2000-11-03
Fort Lauderdale, FL
clubs:
| When greed and stupidity exceeds common sense If he has access to the information that will provide him with a road map to destruction, so do terrorists, but his dissertation simplifies matters for them. quote:
"They're worried about national security. I'm worried about getting my degree." - Sean Gorman
Nice attitude, pal. Maybe you should have considered the consequences before starting your project...
quote:
Toward the other end of the free speech spectrum are such people as John Young, a New York architect who created a Web site with a friend, featuring aerial pictures of nuclear weapons storage areas, military bases, ports, dams and secret government bunkers, along with driving directions from Mapquest.com. He has been contacted by the FBI, he said, but the site is still up.
"It gives us a great thrill," Young said. "If it's banned, it should be published. We like defying authority as a matter of principle."
Prisons are filled with inmates who defied authority as a matter of principal. Why don’t you go join them so you can revel together in your moronic platitude?
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Anything that ever was, was once a dream... | |
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See 13 replies to this post | |
oliphant5
Got Identity?
Premium
join:2003-05-24
Corona, CA | Despite deserving an F Like terrorists couldn't do this on their own. This guy is hardly Oppenheimer. | |
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See 42 replies to this post | |
Jauja
join:2002-07-05
Panama | Who cares? i dont! | |
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aztecnology
The Autumn wind is a Raider
join:2003-02-12
Murrieta, CA |  Re: Who cares?
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CoxCable4
Temp banned from BBR more then anyone
join:2002-10-02
PwnZone | after they turn it in they should bury it in a steel chest. then make a pirate's treasure map. sell the map on ebay for 30 million | |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK | Typical reponse. "Hide the facts"... How about.... ... Looking at the Roadmap and seeing where it needs beefing up, reinforcing, and alternate backups?
IE, Using it to bulletproof the system? Nah! Can't have that! Instead, bury it. | |
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See 6 replies to this post | |
Agent_haito
join:2002-09-20
Winston Salem, NC | Security... through obscurity....hahaha let him go on...any intelligent sleeper would have this information already... | |
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calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA
| This Has Happened Before.... It's not like this is a new problem.
There's a well documented case of a Princeton student who, as part of his thesis/dissertation, decided to develop the specifications for a nuclear warhead.
He only discovered his success when he found out that the university couldn't give him his paper back because it had been classified.
Under current educational privacy rules, any paper submitted as a mandatory part of your education can only be released with your consent. The student can easily get his grade, decline all publication or release options, and keep it quiet IF HE WANTS.
IF HE DOESN'T WANT TO KEEP IT QUIET, then it's probably in the public domain. In that case, it's more like knowledge of a tremendous security hole in software. Releasing the info forces the fix--it's just that in this case, the fix is probably neither easy or cheap.
Calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies! | |
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bistro777
Donuts-Is There Anything They Can't Do?
Premium,MVM
join:2002-02-07
Englewood, CO
| Re: This Has Happened Before..... As I recall from my own thesis – Advanced Cocktail Coaster Design and Its Impact on DWDM in Deploying Metropolitan Area Networks – the student/author’s rights are NOT protected under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (as amended 11/96).
Typically – and you see this in the fine print on your thesis/dissertation application form – receipt of an approval for either is tantamount to publication in the university’s eyes. Most verbiage (either the form itself or buried in the grad school's polices) states that copyright ownership of projects, theses and dissertations generated by research which is performed by a student with financial support in the form of wages, salaries, stipend, or grants shall be shall become the property of the university.
And they go further because – besides any stipend or grad assistantship or whatever - copyright ownership of projects, theses and dissertations generated by research performed utilizing equipment or facilities provided to or by the university belongs to the university. It’s as if you were a chemist in a $100 million lab – any patents belong to your employer because odds are you couldn’t have come up with it in your “basement lab,” and you signed-off on that as a condition of employment when hired. (No choice for either the student or scientist.)
Copyright for projects, theses and dissertations not generated as above – i.e. you’re an “adult” student and not using university “monies or tools” – remain your property. However - as a condition of a degree award – you typically signed-away somewhere in the fine print as a part of your acceptance into a degree program…royalty-free permission to the university to reproduce and publicly distribute copies of the project, thesis or dissertation!
So – whether or not you use your own or your school’s resources and money, by virtue of school policy and the degree program, itself, you’ve probably already signed-off on publication and/or ownership rights to your work product.
Quoting one is plagiarism; quoting many is research. | |
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calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA
| Re: This Has Happened Before..... Nope, this has changed again, fairly recently.
Current dissertation authors are given the option to totally withold dissemination rights--even to the point of not giving the university library its own copy.
Calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies! | |
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bistro777
Donuts-Is There Anything They Can't Do?
Premium,MVM
join:2002-02-07
Englewood, CO
| Re: This Has Happened Before..... Okey, dokey: I stand corrected - - must be because I got my MS back when we chopped wood before class, the last Ice Age was still a thing of the future, a laptop was chalk on a slate board, we read by whale-oil lamps, and there were only 8 planets...
All those who believe in telekinesis raise my hand. | |
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Naiirita
Lupus
Premium
join:2002-12-20
Splendora, TX
| i may be missing something but other than the govt saying he shouldnt do it and they hope he burns it when he finishes......what has the govt done? i hear all this talk about the govt squahing the rights of free speech, but all i have seen it do was ask him not to do it.
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i never cease to be amazed by the way goths choose to not conform by all wearing the exact same damn thing. | |
| No Name5
You Only Regret What You Have Not Done.
join:2000-01-26
Glendale, AZ
| The data still may be proprietary. Even though he found the information on the net it does not mean it is all free to do with as he pleases. Some of it may have been gotten improperly. I am more thinking of the building by building and exact location of trenches. Yes telcos put those fun little backbone maps on the net but with those you would have to take out a whole city.
The more detailed info usually has a disclaimer saying for bell company use only, etc. So as far as reselling it or such some companies may step in and say it is their proprietary information not his even though he found it on the net. | |
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bistro777
Donuts-Is There Anything They Can't Do?
Premium,MVM
join:2002-02-07
Englewood, CO
| Re: The data still may be proprietary. A company I once worked for did much the same in compiling a “city build” knowledge base of targeted cities for MAN deployment: carrier hotels/headends/data centers; which carriers had fiber to where and how much; demarc/MPOE/colo data right down to the exact manhole and floor/suite/cage; customer data and bandwidth usage/needs.
Stuff like that was used for determining where the best bang for our bucks could be had. And most of the data was found in the public domain. The “manhole stuff,” of course, came from people like Level(3), MFN, XO, NEON, Flag, etc. that were trying to sell us dark fiber, but most of the rest of the info was compiled simply with some diligent research.
That said, I think none of us want to provide those who wish us ill a blueprint to, say, darken Wall Street. But it is incumbent upon those who build networks to protect them – whether physical security, redundancy in routing and circuits, fail-over plans, etc. To them I say, "Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it." - Thomas Paine. And to those who would stifle free speech under the argument of "the individual v. the greater good" I say, “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” - Thomas Jefferson. (just my 2 cents' worth).
"In the beginning, the universe was created. This made a lot of people angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad move." - - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | |
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redstepchild
Premium
join:2002-01-04
Birmingham, AL
| A college student applying his mind/ learnings This story emphasizes what my motto is. You go to college not just to get a degree, but to do "something" and gain contacts in your field of study.
Mr. Goman applied himself to a tedious task.. He, and the AlQuada both could have accomplished this by now (scary- keeping cash on hand)
Imagine the things he may have missed..
All the same.. I'm impressed with his focus and achievements.. he probably just secured his future with the FBI or a high tech security firm.
This story is so early 90's in that it is the story of a kid with a computer and too much time on his hands. | |
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Jerm
join:2000-04-10
Richland, WA
|  ATTN TERRORISTS: How to take out the NW & Asia!
»www.westinbuilding.com/
"The Westin Building, located in Seattle, is the premier telecommunications hub and carrier hotel for the Pacific Northwest. The Westin Building is also the home of the Seattle Internet Exchange (SIX) and Pacific Northwest Gigapop's Pacific Wave Exchange (PNWGP)"
The PNWGP alone looks like this (note Internet2 & Asian connections)
A quote from the PNWGP site:
"The PNWGP leverages and enhances an already well established telecommunications infrastructure based in Seattle and serving the Pacific Rim as well as the Pacific Northwest. The PNWGP facility is located in a neutral carrier hotel in downtown Seattle. The hotel houses major Network Service Providers, most Inter-eXchange-Carriers (IXCs), and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) including Worldcom, Sprint, AT&T, Qwest (Abilene), Time Warner Telecom, NTT/Verio, Williams, and Metromedia Fiber Network (MFN)."
And of course besides the Gigapop you also have the SIX, and all the other directly linked telecommunication companies.
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Want an OC3? Go to college! Washington State University OC3 MRTG | |
| keyboard5684
join:2001-08-01
Youngsville, PA
 ·WestPAnet Inc.
·WestPAnet Inc. CA..
·Verizon Online DSL
| Publicly Available Information So, if the information is completely available to anyone who pursues it then anyone can get the info and use it regardless of the fact that the map is available. The map just means less effort to gather the data.
I personally am more worried about the fact that the guy was able to do it. With that much data available for him to gather there is little for anyone else to actually to do when focusing on a place in Virginia and/or other concentrations of connectivity. | |
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Varangian
join:2002-12-08
Collinsville, IL | Re: Publicly Available Information | |
| jimahrens
join:2002-05-30
Owego, NY | am I missing something? there is a weakness in something...
the best way to cover that weakness is to hide it?
burn the plans? classify the information?
I got a better idea...
why not just fix it? | |
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Re: American Idiocy at its finest...