Vandals Cut Fiber-Optic Lines, Causing Outage For Spectrum Internet Subscribers (arstechnica.com)
- Reference: 0178069257
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/06/16/2125238/vandals-cut-fiber-optic-lines-causing-outage-for-spectrum-internet-subscribers
- Source link: https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/06/vandals-cut-fiber-optic-lines-causing-outage-for-spectrum-internet-subscribers/
> Subscribers in Southern California of Spectrum's Internet service experienced outages over the weekend following what company officials said was an [1]attempted theft of copper lines located in Van Nuys , a suburb located 20 miles from downtown Los Angeles. The people behind the incident thought they were targeting copper lines, the officials wrote in a statement Sunday. Instead, they cut into fiber optic cables. The cuts caused service disruptions for subscribers in Van Nuys and surrounding areas. Spectrum has since restored service and is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the apprehension of the people responsible. Spectrum will also credit affected customers one day of service on their next bill.
>
> "Criminal acts of network vandalism have become an issue affecting the entire telecommunications industry, not just Spectrum, largely due to the increase in the price of precious metals," the officials wrote in a statement issued Sunday. "These acts of vandalism are not only a crime, but also affect our customers, local businesses and potentially emergency services. Spectrum's fiber lines do not include any copper." Outage information service Downdetector [2]showed that thousands of subscribers in and around Van Nuys reported outages starting a little before noon on Sunday. Within about 12 hours, the complaint levels returned to normal. Spectrum officials told the Los Angeles Times that personnel had to splice thousands of fiber lines to restore service to affected subscribers.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/06/vandals-cut-fiber-optic-lines-causing-outage-for-spectrum-internet-subscribers/
[2] https://downdetector.com/status/spectrum/los-angeles_27/
Re: RUSSIAAAAAAA! (Score:2)
Russia, Iran, and North Korea have nothing on good old American ingenuity.
Nobody fucks the USA as hard or as deep as the USA.
Re: (Score:2)
As clearly demonstrated by the 2016 and 2024 election results. And heck, let's throw in the 2020 election as well, for good measure.
Re: (Score:2)
We've last 50 years defending democracy by ignoring our own.
Leave a little copper out (Score:2)
In a dish.
Or take a lesson from urban street-parkers. Leave a sign, "Doors unlocked, nothing of value inside".
Re: Leave a little copper out (Score:1)
Or you could get a police department that protects its citizens and tries to stop car theft. They are too busy protecting Trump's stormtroopers and helping right wing killers get away. One thing I do not understand is if they issued a warning saying cops are never buy themselves, how did the cops not understand that at 3am? Just stupid or ignorant?
Re: (Score:1)
More police is not the solution to food insecurity and poverty.
Re: (Score:3)
> Or you could get a police department that protects its citizens and tries to stop car theft.
> More police is not the solution to food insecurity and poverty.
The american education system has failed you.
Re: (Score:3)
Perhaps if it had adequate funding... ?
Re: (Score:3)
"Perhaps if it had adequate funding"
LAUSD has about half the number of students they had 20 years ago. They have more than double the number of administrators and about 20 more teachers over that same time scale -- and the budget of LAUSD is over $18 billion -- up from $8 billion 20 years ago. The number of students in that time also went from closer to 800,000 to about 400,000 now.
What this doesn't include are the various city, county and state bond initiatives that added additional funding (which came a
Re: Leave a little copper out (Score:2)
Umm... Have you ever even been here before? It's always like this. Whether set intentionally or not, LA is always a fucking dumpster fire.
they take anything now (Score:3)
In the last 6 months, around our office:
The brass screws on the big backflow valves for the Fire Sprinklers were cutoff/stolen from 6 valves.
A fire hydrant was stolen.
The copper pipe for 3 different water mains was stolen. These were fixed and they did it again.
Now the hydrants have special locks around the bolts, and everything else is coved with locking cages.
They come prepared, shut off the water and use tools.
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder the same thing. I assume its drug addicts. A guy from the city said they've had around 60 hydrants stolen in a year.
Go after the overhead cables! (Score:1)
Shoot, 5-6 years ago one of the at&t techs told me that most of the overhead "trunk lines" have been abandoned, save for a few old folks that still had POTS lines for phones, or a few business alarm systems, which have now been abandoned for LTE. Yeah, it would be harder to get to the copper lines on the poles, not to mention burning off the insulation, but these copper pirates are stupid enough to try it.
Good Old San Fernando Valley (Score:1)
It's sad what's happened to the Van Nuys and much of the San Fernando Valley since the end of the 1960s.
At least the air quality has improved.
But it still sucks.
Re: Good Old San Fernando Valley (Score:2)
Shit, you're telling me the air quality was even worse here during the 60s?