Today eWEEK (where I originally discovered this story, but found I cannot post stories via eWEEK per eWEEK) reports that last week the New York City Police Department and the federal terrorist taskforce were both called in to investigate a burglary at the New York Manhattan CO (central office) of Verizon Communications Inc. This central office, eWEEK reports, is a co-location office housing competing carriers' equipment; and is one of the many hubs for the country's voice and data networks and a key component of the nation's critical infrastructure.
On May 2, three DS-3 networking cards were stolen leaving several corporate customers without Internet service for a full business day. Major questions have been raised eWeek reports," about the security of the nation's critical infrastructure, as well as the curious relationships among competing service providers that share space in hundreds of similar facilities across the country".
Automatically, the burglary brought in FBI terrorism investigators and this ongoing "investigation has been shrouded in secrecy," claims eWEEK. "As of late last week," they add, "no arrests had been made"; and the investigation continues.
One wonders if this is an example of "cyber terrorism" at work or some disgruntled former employees taking revenge. The later is a problem when you engage in the wholesale dismissal of technically capable people, which Cisco has been known to do.
While having Cisco's IPv6 code may tell competitors how Cisco has "tweaked" the standards and make it possible, if they want to make their products more interoperable. I can think of better ways to attack the Internet (there's this bridge in Saint Louis that carries both Sprint and MCI's fiber... :o)
As for Verizon, I'm not sure how terrorists could benefit from lifting some DS-3 cards (unless they were building their own switch for training purposes?) A terrorist would be better off lifting a 5ESS manual or getting one of Verizon's switch tech's drunk. Sounds more like one of their colo's wanted some spares.