scary shit

Yesterday morning around 2:00 am, someone cut four fiber optic cables (owned by AT&T, leased to Verizon) resulting in the disruption of internet, 50,000 land line phones, cell phones, and ATMs and credit card machines across Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties. With the slash of a (whatever tool he/she used) our world of commerce and communication was effectively shut down for an entire day. Banks closed, as well as thousands of other businesses and services dependent on the internet. You couldn't call 911 if there were an emergency. I couldn't check my email ( !!! ) ! Imagine if this had not been resolved within a day, but went on for days or weeks or months? And/or if it had occurred across the nation? My god.

Terrorism has been ruled out. "They" think it must have been an inside job because in order to get down the manhole leading to the cables, one needs a special tool. Hmm. OK. How difficult would it be to get one of those, I wonder? Finding the spot to dig (or go down the manhole) was easy, as there's a sign posted right at the spot, indicating where the cables are. Now, think for a minute. If you were a terrorist and wanted to fuck with the US, what would one of your prime targets be? Yesterdays incident showed us just how dependent we've become on our telecommunications technology, just how vulnerable it is, and just how paralized we are without it. Pretty scary shit indeed.

I nearly dropped my cup of coffee when I read this (from the SJ Merc): "The lesson from the sabotage is that ordinary people need to be more vigilant about what is happening around them. We can't expect police and firefighters to watch every inch of fiber. People shouldn't freak out, they should keep their eyes open." WTF?!? Like some regular citizen was supposed to spot the guy going down the manhole at two in the morning? And somehow know he/she wasn't official? Give me a break! Another "official" claims it would cost too much money to put in back-up systems. Oh yeah, fuck security but god forbid you threaten the companies' bottom line.

I wonder about the wisdom of going digital, as we are all constantly being urged to do, at the expense of more bulky systems. For instance, on-line banking. Which I refuse to do, so forgive me if I get it wrong. But its my understanding that its possible to keep all your records on your computer (or on the banks computers) without ever having a paper back-up of statements, deposits, etc. This to me seems outright stupid. Computers can be hacked, or break. And we know now how vulnerable the internet is. I get the "paper reduction" thing, but good grief, if we want to cut down on paper, get rid of the junk mail for crying out loud.

Going 100% digital with TV also seems foolish. As far as I know it would be pretty dificult to mess with the airwaves. Thank god the TVs worked yesterday, as it and radio were our only source of news. And don't get me started on radio. Satelite stations such as Serius are wonderful for their content, but "real" radio is dying a slow and relatively unnoticed death. There are still a few independent stations out there but they are serously struggling (insert plug: SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL RADIO STATION!) 'nuf said about that, its a whole 'nother rant.

So anyway, by the time I got home from work last night, we had internet. At least partly. AOL worked, and I was able to access my old, nearly defunct "spam" account. But Hotmail wouldn't let me in. It was as if my accounts had been deleted. I didn't panic, but I quickly realized what a pain in the ass it would be if I lost all my saved emails and my addy book. Thank god it all works this morning. But now I realize I need to figure out a way to back all that up. Ugh.

All day yesterday my mind kept wandering to a lifestyle I've often contemplated: that of the so-called survivalist. I picture a nice big piece of land (dare I use the term compound?) with a nice big garden and orchard, a good well. I wouldn't want to be completely off the grid, but would want to be able to produce our own elec with generators when needed. I'd want my computer, but I'd also want a ham radio. My neighbor has one of those, which ironically, I was thinking about (looking at his eye-sore antennas) and considering obsolete just two days ago. I'd want one of those at my compound, too.

Probably a better option than the compound would be to have cities with their own power and communication systems, but also gridded to other cities. So that if one goes out, they don't all go out. Am I making any sense? Seriously, I think we at least need to reexamine where we're going with our communication technology, and our power grids, and maybe back up a few steps. The way things stand now, we're a cable snip from disaster.

Well that's it for this morning. I wish Denise were writing this blog, fleshing it out with many more related facts, her unique philisophical point of view, and trademark sense of humor/cynicism/sarcasm. I have to go do my (on-line) homework!