BS: Cellpocalypse - 4 August 2017

Subject: BS: Cellpocalypse - 4 August 2017
From: JMB
Date: 04 Aug 17 - 10:49 PM

Today thousands of landlines, cellular phone lines and internet connections were out of service in Atlantic Canada. It was due to a "cut fibre" on a shared network. It created a huge frenzy. People called it Cellpoclypse as it was mainly cell phones out of service. A friend of mine posted "What would we do in the event of a more serious situation" we lose our cell phones and everyone loses their cool. It makes some think have we relied so much on technology that we feel like it's the end of the world that we lose our cell service for a day. Personally, I did have problem as I am relocating to another community and crossing all my t's does require telecommunications.

What are your thoughts?

Subject: RE: BS: Cellpocalypse - 4 August 2017
From: Iains
Date: 05 Aug 17 - 05:30 AM

Technology has a nasty habit of becoming ever more complex as we become ever more reliant upon it. More complex equals more vulnerable.
A backhoe and service maps for a city and a terrorist could bring it to its knees. Water, communications and power do not like people digging holes in the ground in their immediate vicinity. Even in the countryside, set up a rig or start excavating near a pipeline and little whirly birds tend to fall out of the sky disgorging rather irate officials. We wont even talk about hacking the control systems for a city's infrastructure.
Yup. City dwellers are vulnerable. The loss of cellphones is the least of the vulnerabilities. Having spent a period of my life involved in geotechnical investigations all over the UK I have a little firsthand knowledge of how much chaos can result from excavations in the wrong place (generally as a result of inaccurate service maps) I can recall one site in rural Wales where both the water authority and Telecom officials were present to show where their respective services ran. The first bucket wiped out the phone line, the second the water supply. Sometimes you cannot win. Trashing fibre optic cables along a motorway is another big no-no. The list is a long one and some were biggies.. Big cities are very, very vulnerable.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellpocalypse - 4 August 2017
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Aug 17 - 10:03 AM

Back in the day when technology was used, as opposed to being worshipped, there were usually work-arounds if one type of technology failed.

No more. In many cases, instead of "liberating" us technology has instead enslaved us, as the number of techno-addicts continues to rise, and we become dependant upon it.

Basic survival skills & the ability to do even simple tasks atrophy as they are handed over to machines, and we let those machines think for us.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

And its only going to get worse.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellpocalypse - 4 August 2017
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Aug 17 - 01:56 PM

This is what we really should be worrying about:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110302-solar-flares-sun-storms-earth-danger-carrington-event-science/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859

Subject: RE: BS: Cellpocalypse - 4 August 2017
From: CupOfTea
Date: 05 Aug 17 - 09:26 PM

It grieves me that I had to give up my hardwired - to - the - wall telephone in order to get high speed internet (dial up was no longer feasible). Some years back with the big power grid failure, when I was without power for days, I still had phone service on that wired in line.

Kinda makes ya think that ALL the stuff survivalists do isn't completely whackadiddle, doesn't it? Since then, I always have some water on hand, alternate ways to cook, enough medications and a few candles. Being a folkie, I can entertain myself for days making music.

Joanne in Cleveland

Subject: RE: BS: Cellpocalypse - 4 August 2017
From: robomatic
Date: 06 Aug 17 - 12:03 AM

A 'Carrington' type event is more possible than probable, but the cost of fortifying the electrical grid is about an order of magnitude less than fixing the damage done on an unreinforced electrical system by such an event. Also, such an event can be manufactured artificially by detonating a nuclear weapon in the upper atmosphere. (N. Korea, say)
It is worth getting things fixed.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellpocalypse - 4 August 2017
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 Aug 17 - 03:50 AM

If any power is likely to use a nuclear-weapon-induced electromagnetic pulse for military purposes, it's going to be the US or Israel. But its effects would be quite local - the Carrington event hit the entire planet.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellpocalypse - 4 August 2017
From: Iains
Date: 06 Aug 17 - 05:20 AM

The lead time for replacing those big transformers is considerable. If many of them take a hit parts of the grid could be down for perhaps a couple of years, according to some sources. Could be messy.


Jack Campin your links were fascinating. Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellpocalypse - 4 August 2017
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Aug 17 - 09:37 AM

There is a new type of ground zero.
I know the location of two, Tyson's corners VA and the submarine 65Tbps single fiber in lower Manhattan. If these are severed it is like severing your Aorta.

The Military uses encoded microwave burst stations with redundancy that are hidden in plain sight even in commercial areas that are fairly secure.

The Stuxnet varients can do terminal damage to our electrical grid.
What man makes can be destroyed.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellpocalypse - 4 August 2017
From: Gurney
Date: 07 Aug 17 - 01:01 AM

A couple of years ago we had a seismic event in Christchurch, New Zealand, which took out services in many parts of the city. People were alive but trapped downtown in collapsed and damaged buildings, and the service providers re-powered the cell-towers with electric generators, so that the trapped could alert rescuers to their plight by phone.
Some of the generators were promptly stolen, presumably by people who wanted to power their frig and freezer or some other device.

It doesn't take terrorists to destroy rescue efforts, just totally selfish bastards just looking after their own comforts.

As I posted at the time, rescue teams arrived as promptly as distance allowed, from Oz first, then Japan, and then from the USA and from Europe.

As IanS said, and my wife keeps saying, technology could be a trap we'll never get out of. Our local shop couldn't even make change!

Subject: RE: BS: Cellpocalypse - 4 August 2017
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Aug 17 - 09:52 AM

technology could be a trap we'll never get out of

Not "could be" --- is.