Post AwVxLNIBDBUwH0gEBE by SteveBellovin@infosec.exchange
 (DIR) More posts by SteveBellovin@infosec.exchange
 (DIR) Post #AwVxLLLeRJ5QFCHyJU by jack_daniel@mastodon.social
       2025-07-25T17:33:04Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       Just told my ISP "May the backhoe of despair forever hunt your underground fiber"
       
 (DIR) Post #AwVxLMMOg1HFNne57A by angusm@mastodon.social
       2025-07-25T18:47:27Z
       
       1 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @jack_daniel @pluralistic Reminds me of one of my favorite sysadmin jokes:The Sysadmin Wilderness Survival Kit consists of a couple of meters of fiber in a carrying pouch and a small shovel.If you’re ever lost in the wilderness, you take out the fiber and bury it under a few feet of earth.Within two days, a backhoe will appear and cut the fiber, and then you just follow the backhoe back to civilization.
       
 (DIR) Post #AwVxLNIBDBUwH0gEBE by SteveBellovin@infosec.exchange
       2025-07-25T21:47:35Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @angusm @jack_daniel @pluralistic Yup. (Years ago, I was at a NANOG (North American Network Operators Group) meeting where a nearby street had a line of backhoes parked. I think it was a warning.)
       
 (DIR) Post #AwVxLNz4dhoEQ2kU2S by JohnMashey@mstdn.social
       2025-07-26T00:11:30Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @SteveBellovin @angusm @jack_daniel @pluralistic Needless to say, this did not start with fibre... at Bell LAbs ~1980, I managed development of data mining software specifically for outside plant phone cables, i.e., from central office to subscribers."Man-made problems" category included backhoes, and there were plenty of them, despite pervasive efforts to avoid them.All this is part of reason it's cheap to do underground in fersh new developments, and expensive in developed ones.