The Backhoe, The Internet's Natural Enemy 382
Juha-Matti Laurio writes "Experts say last week's Sprint outage is a reminder that with all the attention paid to computer viruses and the latest Windows security holes, the most vulnerable threads in America's critical infrastructures lie literally beneath our feet. A study issued last month by the Common Ground Alliance, or CGA -- an industry group comprised of utilities and construction companies -- calculated that there were more than 675,000 excavation accidents in 2004 in which underground cables or pipelines were damaged." I estimate that one third of those accidents occured within the 5 block radius surrounding my office.
The Backhoe, the sailor's best friend. (Score:5, Funny)
Always carry a length of fiber-optic cable in your pocket. Should you be shipwrecked and find yourself stranded on a desert island, bury the cable in the sand. A few hours later, a guy driving a backhoe will be along to dig it up. Ask him to rescue you.
Information Technologist vs. The Red Neck (Score:5, Funny)
Red Neck: 1
They call it an "Accident" (Score:2, Funny)
is this what they were thinking?
Argh i give up! Those conniving small minded cable companies
--
Keepin' it real over at http://wi-fizzle.com/ [wi-fizzle.com]!
It's the backhoe (Score:3, Funny)
From ze smallest divot to ze largest canyon... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And on the ocean...? (Score:5, Funny)
Based on this article, I'd hazard it's either:
1: Backhoes falling off ships transporting them hitting cables.
2: Submarines with backhoes, no doubt performing black ops at the time.
Re:Hard Problem (Score:5, Funny)
A backhoe driver that accidentally digs up your cable, and then backs into the telephone pole?
Main Pipe (Score:2, Funny)
Rumors said the guy was fired due to failing a drug test.
Hah! (Score:5, Funny)
For some reason the Servers and Networks guys don't think it is funny.
ARPA identifies backhoe fade effect (Score:4, Funny)
this as "backhoe fade" and ARPA has conducted
considable research on the effect of fiber
optic cable to attrace backhoes in the wild...
ARPA Science Research Funding News Today......
ARPA to Fund Network Reliability Research
Washington, DC -
The Advanced Research Projects Agency of the DoD announced today they are
funding a three-year effort to improve the field reliability of
fiber-optic communications networks. The program is aimed at reducing
network outages from damage to buried fiber optic cables caused by
construction machinery. Many telecommunications outages are caused each
year when machines called "backhoes" dig-up underground fibers, cutting
them and causing massive service disruptions.
This phenomenon is commonly referred to as "backhoe fade" and
the uncanny ability of the construction backhoe to locate buried
cables will be the focus of this effort.
Dr. Zweiback Gimfizel of the Marginalia Institute of Technoplasty
has been designated Principle Investigator on the project and
held a news conference today and described the proposed line of
research.
"We are taking a page from the biologists who discovered
the magnetic organ in the brains of homing pigeon. This
organ senses the earth's magnetic field and allows the
pigeon to track its location.
"In like manner, our research will focus
on identifying the specialized organ structure within
the backhoe that can somehow sense the location of glass
fibers."
"The hope is that if this fiber-seeking mechanism can be
identified, measures can be developed to disguise
telecommunications cables, thereby creating "stealth"
fiber bundles which will not attract the attention of
the rampaging backhoes."
In another unrelated statement today, ARPA announced the creation of the
Remote Autonomous Rodent Program which will work on developing specialized
weapons systems for attacking the underground communications systems of
adversaries. In recent theater actions, modern fiber-optic communications
systems have proven quite resilient to traditional attacks and require
new techniques to disable them.
Dr. Gimback Zweifizel of Hardly Yardwell University was designated
Principle Investigator. In a prepared statement, Dr. Zweifizel noted that
this work program was funded for three years and was to produce a field
demonstration of a working system. Other details of the project are
classified.
How to recognize a backhoe (Score:5, Funny)
The Common Yellow Backhoe [68.232.111.189] attempting to hide from view.
The Hammer Backhoe [onsiterents.com] evolved to fit particular niches.
DIY Backhoe Fade (Score:5, Funny)
Next time I created backhoe fade, was again in an unexpected way. I'd been trenching along the driveway, after dutifully and carefully marking the underground phone line to the house (that the brain-trust from the phone company decided to run next to my driveway, despite instructions not to). I carefully and successfully avoided the cable, no worries there. Then, when reaching juuuuuuust a bit too far over, I got the backhoe stuck in the muddy ditch along the road. Apparently, in the effort to get un-stuck, I pressed down on the cable, which then stretched over a rock in the trench and broke.
The phone company (eventually) got out there and tried to say I dug it up. I showed 'em exactly what happened - yes, I'd been digging. Yes, the wire was marked. Yes, none of my digging was along the wire's path (all true). The cable had clear marks of a pull over a rock, not a cut from a hoe. Shear vs. tension, obvious from inspection.
Phone company guy didn't want any part of explainations until I (a) bet him that I could dig right (made an X) here and find a big rock with a sharp edge "that you people left in the trench of this improperly installed wire", and (b) pointed out that if he's gonna dig the trench, he's standing in poison ivy while doing so, and I could just go get the backhoe and make it easier for all involved.
He called his boss, explained the high points of the situation (including the poison ivy, which inexplicably a guy in his job didn't recognize without help), and they fixed the cable no charge. But, I bet I'm one of those statistcs in the article.
T-Shirt (Score:3, Funny)
This is defiantly true though. Living in a fairly recent subdivision, back when the construction was closer to my house this would happen all the time. The phone. The cable. The internet. Even the power once.
I think it's clear what we need to do: go kill all the backhoes.
Save the internet!
Re:And on the ocean...? (Score:3, Funny)
> The telco is now suing the vessel...
Darn right! Why the hell didn't the ship call Miss Utility and have lines drawn in the water before recklessly dropping an anchor into the water?
Did you know that... (Score:1, Funny)
A good sysadmin always carries a few feet of fiber (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Nothing is for certain... (Score:5, Funny)
Simple, easy, flaw (which I'm sure you've already thought of) -- human error. Like the time the construction worker started digging a hole next to my house right on top of the orange paint mark specifying the location of my phone line.
The funniest thing was the foreman trying to fix the line, since the phone company (thank you, SBC) said they'd take a day or two to get there. He was shocked (literally) to find out that phone lines carry electricity. :-)
bad joke time (Score:2, Funny)
Nah, playing cards are easier (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Information Technologist vs. The Red Neck (Score:4, Funny)
Information Technologist: 8,050,000
Red Neck: 37,200,000
http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?word1=Inform
Re:Nothing is for certain... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hah! (Score:2, Funny)
Probably because your faux Fudd is flawed; should be:
"Be vewy, vewy quiet... I'm hunting fiber"
Give this subtle nuance a try and report back with your results.
Go! We're waiting!
Re:Nothing New (Score:4, Funny)
Steve Irwin to the rescue! (Score:5, Funny)
Today I'm going to show you one of the wonders of nature. If you look down in that hole there you can long fibrous tendrils. Those are fiber optic cables and they snake their way through the ground all over the world.
Crikey, it's nice to see them. Usually they stay underground so this is really special. Just look at the size of the hole they make as they burrow through the earth.
Oh look! I didn't expect this. The only known enemy to these folks is coming over to investigate. The backhoe. Look at those nasty pointed teeth. I wouldn't want to get caught by them I'll tell you.
I'll just walk away so I don't disturb him. This could get real exciting any moment.
*growl* *snort* dig dig dig dig
Look at that! This is a real treat. The backhoe is digging up the fiber optic! Look at the way those teeth just dig into the soil and expose those poor buggers. Oh wow, just look at it as it tears those fibers to ribbons.
I know it may seem cruel to stand by and do nothing but this is part of nature. Someone has to eat and someone has to be eaten.
But don't worry mate, those fiber optics grow back real quick. In fact, they grow so quickly there will never be a shortage of them no matter how many get eaten by the backhoe.
Re:it's called backhoe fade in telecom (Score:5, Funny)
At one of my previous jobs, we had popped for the whole menu of auto-whizbang-failover magic. Redundant routers, redundant switches, redundant connections from separate providers. Protected to the nuts against outages.
Imagine our surprise when early the first spring after installing all of this, our connection went down. Both T's out. We were more than a little perplexed - the way the odds were explained to us, God himself would've had to smite most of the southeast US to make this happen.
It turns out that it wasn't God, and there was no smiting involved. Instead, over certain stretches, provider #2 was leasing fiber from provider #1, and one of these stretches ran under the edge of a farmer's field in Georgia. Come spring, the farmer comes out with his backhoe, and... well, you know.
For as long as I was there, we were guaranteed at least a half a day of outage somewhere around the beginning of spring. Every time, the problem was eventually reported to us as "A fiber cut in Georgia..." They never would tell us if it was the same farmer every time.
Re:Nah, playing cards are easier (Score:1, Funny)
Re:The Backhoe, the sailor's best friend. (Score:2, Funny)
I can imagine it already...
> look
...
You are on an island.
It is dark, you are likely to be eaten by a grue.
> inv
- fiber-optic cable
> bury cable
A backhoe arrives, it hits!
Would you like your posessions identified?
Yeah, i know that isn't all from one game...
Re:Cable information isn't always right (Score:3, Funny)
Is that what that was? I thought we'd found Jimmy Hoffa! I guess we can tell CSI:Backhoe that there's no hurry.
Re:Nothing New (Score:3, Funny)