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ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville

419 points by SpaceInvader 6y ago

Threeve303 6y ago
Watching the impact on the network through downdetector today has been interesting. If I wanted to be conspiratorial I'm reminded of Room 641A. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
- drtillberg 6y ago
  Upon seeing the reports of the location of this specific real-world incident I researched to try to find an article I know exists describing how indestructible those windowless telecommunications hub buildings are. Isn't there an article somewhere describing how they're hardened against unconventional military attack? Visually the Nashville structure seemed very very well reinforced. As for the NSA angle, this location was not on the list published by the Intercept in 2018.[1] [1] https://theintercept.com/2018/06/25/att-internet-nsa-spy-hubs/ https://theintercept.com/2018/06/25/att-internet-nsa-spy-hub...
  - b1c837696ba28b 6y ago
    The Evolution and Special Features of Bell System Telephone Equipment Buildings: https://archive.org/details/bstj58-2-427 https://archive.org/details/bstj58-2-427
  - tyingq 6y ago
    I was surprised how effective pretty primitive homemade shaped charges are.
  - wil421 6y ago
    The NSA’s building in NYC is one of the windowless telecom building called Titanpoint and can withstand and an atomic blast on NYC. [1] As you said the building in Nashville if it’s not even on your list. I guess it’s worth speculating. https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-york-hidden-in-plain-sight/ https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-...
- jrockway 6y ago
  What sort of conspiracy are you imagining here? Someone exploded an RV in an entertainment district so that AT&T had an excuse to disable service while the NSA installed wiretaps? I think that as investigations unfold, that will not end up being what happened. Just a guess though.
  - Ancapistani 6y ago
    Given what little we know, targeting the AT&T infrastructure could be a reasonable guest a motive. The blast itself didn’t seem to take the hub offline; there was a broken water main followed by AT&T being refused access to the building by emergency response. It appears that things started cascading a few hours later, presumably once the generator fuel was exhausted.
    - myrandomcomment 6y ago
      Sensible call on the generator fuel. Thanks for thinking of it.
      - jcims 6y ago
        I would think buried utilities, they lost power?
        Retric 6y ago
        Power loss could have been from the blast, which destroyed underground water pipes. Or they may have turned off power to the area for safety reasons.
    - kitteh 6y ago
      Back when I worked in a CO the engineering goal was to be able to run the building load on gen for at least 24 hours straight before getting fuel trucks. We had weekly gen tests to validate things were working as expected. It could be that they had to de-energizd some equipment to perform inspection and work within the facility. I know our facility had a number of procedures on how to de-energize parts of the building and inhibit the generators from feeding that area (a lesson learned in the Hinsdale CO fire years ago). During Hurricane Katrina a number of us had to invent a procedure for de-energizing non critical equipment to reduce power load in order to keep critical services running for an extended period of time since it was clear we werent going to get utility and resupplies for awhile.
- viraptor 6y ago
  That would require both an "agency ready to do uncontrolled explosion in public" conspiracy and "they can't splice fiber quickly enough"... anti-conspiracy?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
epmaybe 6y ago
Is the FirstNet network only run by AT&T or by other providers as well?
- zw123456 6y ago
  AT&T only. But unclear if that would be effected, that was a wireline C.O., not sure if they also had their wireless switching there, sometimes the wireless and wireline are in different buildings.
  - Pocketknife 6y ago
    There is fiber to thst building as well. I'm in Cumberland County right now and the towers are down. Wi-Fi calling only. Also no 911 service, which astounds me until I remember it's the government running it. Imagine an emergency response system so fragile cutting power to one building fucks it for half a state? My one man company has better disaster tolerance than the 911 system? Insane.
    - zw123456 6y ago
      The telcos run the 911 system for the gov. But if the telco building is down then even if 911 was up they couldn't switch the calls through to it. But agree, sounds like a major fubar. A lot of the fiber from the cell towers to the cell switching offices is supplied by the local telco, in this case AT&T. I wonder if the other wireless carriers are effected?
  - Sylamore 6y ago
    FirstNet went down but they brought up a SatCOW to re-enable it in the area immediately around the bombing. That CO hosted lots of PSAP, ESInet and FirstNet gear. Other SatCOWs are being brought online in the area.
auslegung 6y ago
News about the bombing for those who hadn’t heard yet https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/25/downtown-nashville-explosion-christmas-morning/4044708001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/25/downto...
neom 6y ago
The building (185 2nd Ave N) the RV exploded in front of appears to host a lot of equipment: https://www.telcodata.us/search-switches-by-zip-code?zip=37201 https://www.telcodata.us/search-switches-by-zip-code?zip=372...
- ikiris 6y ago
  Old school bell core CO
- kitteh 6y ago
  Yep it's the main spot in nashville for voice stuff. Has local access switches (dms 100), tandem, and LD goes out of there. At&t I think also has their long haul optical transport and some core ip backbone stuff there.
  - jcims 6y ago
    I was the first person in my town to get residential ISDN back in ~1996. I was a fledgling admin on the network team and work paid for it. It took me almost three months to help the local telco get it up and running, but we could never get 64kbps on the data channels because of some weird issue with the switch. (Still beat the hell out of dial up) I think your comment is the first time I’ve read or thought about the DMS 100 since then.
    - kitteh 6y ago
      Tragically there was nothing simple about ISDN. A customer would have to know their switch type at the CO and there were a number of other things that could break it. At least with a T1/DS1 you only had to worry about SF/ESF, B8ZS/AMI and number of channels.
      - pavlov 6y ago
        Interesting. In many European countries ISDN was widespread in the mid-to-late ‘90s. There were millions of customers in Germany alone, I think. It was slow compared to the DSL connections that replaced it, but I don’t remember hearing too many negative things about ISDN reliability. (I bet the only real legacy of this technology is the album by the Future Sound of London which is named ISDN.)
zamalek 6y ago
Doing this on a public holiday seems to target a business/infrastructure, as opposed to people. Where was the truck parked, is it obvious that the target was AT&T?
mintplant 6y ago
Reportedly, there was a visible countdown timer on the vehicle that exploded, and an audible warning played for 15-20 minutes prior to the blast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nygTJeu9fU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nygTJeu9fU
- drtillberg 6y ago
  Local TV News managed to interview a neighbor from directly across the street where the explosion occurred[1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iag6cTWpgq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iag6cTWpgq8
  - orblivion 6y ago
    Interesting things to consider. 1) I heard something about "fake reports" about gunshots. But maybe the perp shot off some guns just to get the cops to show up? 2) This woman stuck around for 15 minutes or a half hour while this thing was saying "you need to evacuate, this has a bomb"??? 3) This woman recalls a male voice but the news played a female voice. This goes to show how bad our memories are!
    - macintux 6y ago
      > This woman stuck around for 15 minutes or a half hour while this thing was saying "you need to evacuate, this has a bomb"??? Watching a video, the audio was so surreal I had to ask myself how I would respond if I heard that without any clue where it was coming from. Hopefully I never find out, but I guess now I'm a bit more mentally prepared to not linger.
    - resonantjacket5 6y ago
      There were gunshots sounds but we're not sure if it was audio from the RV or actual gun shots
      - orblivion 6y ago
        This makes for such a fascinating story. Supervillain type stuff. Except fortunately in this case a supervillian with some sort of code of ethics.
joshuakelly 6y ago
This article doesn't make this so explicit, but ATT infrastructure appears to be the intentional target of the bombing. You can see the building in the helicopter shot at the top of the NYTimes article on the story: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/25/us/nashville-explosion.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/25/us/nashville-explosion.ht... Obviously a telecommunications/switch hub, with it being a large windowless building in a downtown core. The other thing that's particularly odd is the fact that the attackers appear to have broadcasted some sort of warning or evacuation message from the site of the bombing prior to the explosion.
- paxys 6y ago
  What is the source for AT&T being the intentional target? Maybe it just happened to be the building in the background?
  - deathgrips 6y ago
    Maybe the real targets were the pigeons on the sidewalk?
  - fibers 6y ago
    if you look at the map on the opposite side of the street/block its filled with random pubs/liquor stores/restaurants. do you really think the target was random restaurants?
    - lovetocode 6y ago
      I’d like to play the devil’s advocate. The restaurant industry took a big hit this year due to COVID. The motivation is there.
      - capitol_ 6y ago
        You mean that it's insurance fraud? Wouldn't it be more effective to burn the restaurant down if you wanted to do that?
- 6y ago
bijobini 6y ago
That's some Mr Robot type of stuff.
- px43 6y ago
  Seems more like some Trailer Park Boys type of stuff.
JoshTko 6y ago
Definitely look at some of the photos. Looks like windows, and doors for half a block were destroyed.
exabrial 6y ago
This is truly strange. I'm thankful that nobody was killed. But what on earth is going on?
- gamblor956 6y ago
  There are reports of human remains at the scene.
  - exabrial 6y ago
    Oh dear :( I hadn't seen that
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
DerekL 6y ago
The title is misspelled. It's “AT&T”, not “ATT”. Also, that's not the title of the article, though it is factually correct.
kryogen1c 6y ago
additional angle to consider under tinfoil: building ran telecommunications and the telecom outage affected the nashville airport, altering some flights https://twitter.com/Fly_Nashville/status/1342566428386488324?s=20 https://twitter.com/Fly_Nashville/status/1342566428386488324... not to make a mountain out of a molehill, but thought experiments are good exercise.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  It rarely hurts. It is certainly unusual in a lot of ways. The warning being probably towards the top. Before it was part of the news, I wondered why the initial police encounter resulted in cops immediately calling for a bomb squad. I will admit that my initial thought was that this building was one of the windowless NSA buildings. I guess I was wrong.
  - partiallypro 6y ago
    The bomb squad was called because the RV literally had an intercom saying there was a bomb inside and to evacuate the area, the police apparently also briefly inspected it.
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
      Yes. Sorry. I think my initial post wasn't clear on that aspect now that re-read it. That was actually fairly unusual aspect of it.
    - nexuist 6y ago
      Man, imagine being the guy called in to "inspect" that given what the loudspeaker was saying? And on Christmas Day no less, before the bomb squad shows up? Talk about drawing a short straw.
sammalloy 6y ago
First thing I thought of was all the disgruntled door dashers with AT&T as their provider. For those who don't know, dashers who use use AT&T have been impacted by some kind of network issue for the last month or so. It makes it difficult for them to use the doordash driver app and neither DD nor AT&T have a fix at the moment.
Pxtl 6y ago
Okay, this is the first I'm hearing about a bombing attack in Nashville, and the article kinda starts in media res - was anybody hurt?
- sitharus 6y ago
  Three people, none seriously. All in hospital in a stable condition - https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/25/us/nashville-explosion/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/25/us/nashville-explosion/in...
  - onionisafruit 6y ago
    They’ve also found human remains. edit: now they aren’t sure whether it’s human remains or not. Just that it’s biological matter.
    - bigbubba 6y ago
      ...I guess they just found little red bits. Gruesome to consider.
cwwc 6y ago
Timing on Christmas and the lengthy list of security systems that rely upon ATT.. makes me wonder. Some variety of a Heist? Seems it wouldn’t be market related given mkts already closed. This is far fetched, yeah. Maybe it was just someone who hates 5G.
- KMag 6y ago
  Coupled with the evacuation warning (edit: and early morning timing), presumably Christmas was chosen because the fewest number of people would be in the building and/or out and about. For the record, I think this attack was unjustified and Operation Opera[0] was justified, but when Israel bombed the Osirak reactor, they did it on a Sunday to minimize the number of French civilians in the building. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera
  - notsureaboutpg 6y ago
    Considering how many countries the US threatens with its infrastructure, I can't imagine with what rationale you justify Operation Opera but know already that this attack was unjustified without knowing who did it and why
- zw123456 6y ago
  I agree, the heist angle was something that came to my mind, it would work if they somehow knew that the blast would take out the generator back up and if they knew that that C.O. only had one entrance facility or some vulnerability like that, which would mean some inside knowledge. Often C.O.'s have dual entrance vaults which it would make sense for bank alarms to be redundant, but if they got the generator or something. They went out of their way to try not to hurt anyone which seems more like maybe an Oceans 11 type heist. I guess if come Monday morning a bunch of banks have been hit we will know, but I would think that the cops are standing guard at all he banks right now. Highly unlikely but who knows.
  - philwelch 6y ago
    Jewelry stores are also likely targets.
tootie 6y ago
Anti-5G crazies? T-Mobile partisans?
- judge2020 6y ago
  Speculation at this point will get us nowhere. If there were some reason like "5g bad" or "dont kill movie theatres" (regarding HBO max release of WW1984) there would be a video from the bomber pushing their message since, otherwise, this looks like any other terror attack.
  - dvtrn 6y ago
    Speculation at this point will get us nowhere You follow this, immediately with speculation into the bomber's methodology and tactics?
    - judge2020 6y ago
      Speculation about why there shouldn't be speculation: there's not a public message, so they're not pushing any conspiracy theories like OP suggests.
  - redisman 6y ago
    > this looks like any other terror attack. In what way? It sounds more like something the Joker or unabomber would pull off
    - owenmarshall 6y ago
      Weekend car bombings in non-residential areas with advanced warning is what you’d read if you picked up a textbook on the IRA.
- dqv 6y ago
  ;) > Comcast reminded Nashville residents Friday that the public Xfinity WiFi hotspots throughout the potentially impacted areas are available for anyone to use, including non-Xfinity customers, free of charge. AT&T must have broken the NAP with Comcast
anonymouse008 6y ago
[removed]
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Fear not, The President has announced the SolarWinds hack is fake news. I was expecting him to blame Biden and Obama, but still. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1340333618691002368 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/13403336186910023... for the skeptics
meekmockmook 6y ago
Looks like somebody didn't like Wonder Woman 1984. I think folks on social media are overthinking the motive. A lot of people (most?) hate telecoms and big tech companies (including their employees and contractors) and someone decided to stick it to one. There are so many reasons for this, some logical and valid and some conspiratorial nonsense. In the end, it all boils down to the fact that living under the watch of these massive and all-powerful conglomerates makes many, many people deeply unhappy. The country is a powder keg of armed, angry, diseased, lonely people and unfortunately, something like this was likely to happen sooner rather than later. It's very sad.
- cinquemb 6y ago
  Yeah, I fully expect more incidences like this to happen all over the world. The incentives, socioeconomic backdrop, technical feasibility, and widely accessible tech are all enablers.
  - meekmockmook 6y ago
    The cognitive dissonance and total denial is off the charts with telecom and tech leaders who don't realize (or care) that their massive growth has played a large role in global civil unrest. The general public is terrified and angry at the rapidly shifting technological landscape and the changes in social norms that come with it. Trust in technology is at a low, and for good reason. We have titanic businesses with almost superhuman like abilities to get under our skin at an algorithmic level. Tech companies can literally, for all intents and purposes, make people disappear from the internet. A small group of companies can casually destroy your life with a small code change and you wouldn't even know it. Everyone's data is being sold, stolen, sold on the black market, and intercepted by governments both local and foreign. An internet outage now means that your thermostat or fridge could go out and you're going to spend the night cold. I mean, there's a reason that Cyberpunk 2077 was one of the most hyped games of the last 5 years. The anxiety resonates. Sometimes I wonder if there are people in tech/cable who grew up reading Neuromancer or Snow Crash and thought "Cool! Let's make it happen!"
    - 6y ago
im3w1l 6y ago
Iirc telecommunications are common targets in coups and war. Combined with the professional manner in which it was done I'm thinking more Russia/China/Trump-won-loyalists and less 5g nutjob.
malwarebytess 6y ago
Whoever did it seems to have been inside the RV at the time? Or a body was -- they say they found human remains. I don't think this person wanted to kill anyone. 15 minute warning, low population, date & time. Was it someone who really didn't like AT&T?
- 6nf 6y ago
  They found human remains nearby. No indication that the bomber was in or anywhere near the van. The van was parked in that spot for over a day.
  - malwarebytess 6y ago
    Well, he was in the vehicle. Part conspiracy theorist, part disgruntled AT&T employee.
Scoundreller 6y ago
Reports that most of Tennessee is without 9-1-1 service right now: https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r32982150-AT-T-Suffers-outages-in-Nashvillle https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r32982150-AT-T-Suffers-outa... And AT&T mobile is down across Kentucky: https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r32981927-Services-Suspicious-blast-wounds-3-in-Nashville https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r32981927-Services-Suspicio... Also reports above that calls into Tennessee aren't working.
- unethical_ban 6y ago
  It is pretty nuts that a single physical location can bring down a state's worth of 911, and cellular. It is either institutional incompetence, or malice, or laziness.
  - nexuist 6y ago
    It also perfectly explains why this specific building at this specific location was chosen out of all of the other possibilities. Someone knew about this weakness.
  - gbh444g 6y ago
    Whoever designed the system didn't know about the Paxos protocol.
  - h2odragon 6y ago
    > institutional incompetence, or malice, or laziness. AT&T in TN is an epic example of all 3 and then some. The most recent unbelievably stupid thing I've personally observed was the construction of 15 miles of new fiber on county power poles; right beside a Verizon fiber line that had been there for a decade. They put no slack loops in theirs, VZW's run has many. that line went up this year, and has been torn down and out of service 3 times, so far, that I know of. Oddly I hear the VZW line keeps failing shortly after the ATT trucks are seen, where I dont recall hearing much about failures on the VZW before this year. So perhaps there was a design consideration that suggested the construction method.
    - 6y ago
PIKAL 6y ago
I am overcome with curiosity about who did this and why. The fact that nobody has claimed responsibility makes no sense. If this were a politically motivated attack, domestic or otherwise, it would almost defeat the point to have the name of your cause omitted from those initial headlines. And sparing the lives of the bystanders also doesn’t make sense for a political attack. I heard the NRA gave warnings but the reason why it’s basically unheard of is because it defeats the point of terrorism. The reason why Muslim extremists, the bonafide experts, make a point of killing lots of people is because it’s effective. What political organization has it in for att? It can’t be political. Every day that goes by without someone claiming responsibility, the probability of it being political decreases exponentially. But at the same time, this doesn’t seem like the work of a lone wolf. Lone wolfs usually try to kill people. And almost invariably they fail miserably, killing practically no people at all compared to the number of people that would have been killed at the hands of someone smart or competent with a weapon. And bombs stand out as being difficult for lone wolves to get right. For a lone wolf to build a working bomb and detonation system and have everything work perfectly the first time would be the exception, although not the only one. This was done by one person. Not a typical lone wolf but someone who was smart and methodical. And I would guess he was in the vehicle when it exploded. He was either insane ala templeOS, had no motive ala Mandalay bay, or a disgruntled employee.
- Guthur 6y ago
  There are many strategies that don't necessarily involve large human collateral damage but are still politically motivated. The Provisonsal IRA in N. Ireland during the Troubles was often times either targeting security forces, collaborators or commerical activity. Ostensibly the goal was to make the UKs continued involvement in N. Ireland untenable from an economic and political stand point. The IRA was quite aware that too many indiscriminate killing of N.Ireland civilians would be detrimental to their cause.
  - PIKAL 6y ago
    But I don’t even need to look it up to know that they made absolutely sure to get credit for every single bombing. Why is that missing here?
vageli 6y ago
> I think bombers broadcasting warning messages is somewhat more common with certain types of political violence. I know weather underground bombings tried to choose times for their bombings when buildings would not be inhabited, not always successfully. Just wanted to point out that dressing things up as "political violence" is a disservice; violence performed in the commision of promoting an ideology is terrorism. edit: I expected this to spark conversation; I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people would rather downvote than respond.
- vkou 6y ago
  Your definition is not quite accurate. Some forms of violence performed to promote an ideology are called war. In fact, war is by far the most common, and the most destructive form of 'violence used to promote an ideology'.
  - fwip 6y ago
    Perhaps war is a form of terrorism.
    - klipt 6y ago
      One difference is war has rules, terrorism doesn't. Deliberately targeting civilians in war is usually considered a war crime, while deliberately targeting civilians in a terrorist attack is considered ... a standard terrorist attack.
      - vageli 6y ago
        > One difference is war has rules, terrorism doesn't. Citation needed? Unless every party to a war ever signed the Geneva Convention or something (and even then, war crimes exist which are arguably acts of terrorism). See: the use of agent orange, the bombing of Dresden, etc.
        cinquemb 6y ago
        Lol yeah, Total warfare[0] has no rules: "A war that is unrestricted in terms of the weapons used, the territory or combatants involved, or the objectives pursued, especially one in which the laws of war are disregarded." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war
motohagiography 6y ago
Nanog thread: https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2020-December/210910.html https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2020-December/2109... Indicates closest ATT building was an ILEC CO, oddly, a voice exchange / telco meet-me point, or what we would call a peering point on the internet. Risk/reward on the bombing, we're clearly missing incentives information, as of the options available and conceivable purposes for going to that much effort, it doesn't add up yet. Everything about it so far is so dumb the only thing I could see it being is a test run for a real one.
- bsder 6y ago
  My first thought was arson for insurance money. However, the bomb placement makes no sense for that case. It really does seem like this was targeted at the ATT building.
  - partiallypro 6y ago
    Insurance doesn't cover terrorism in most all cases, as it is considered a war zone.
    - rsync 6y ago
      Insurance typically does not cover terrorism but, of course, it can cover terrorism. If Tina Turner can insure her legs[1] you can insure your building for terrorism claims. [1] https://www.crfashionbook.com/celebrity/g30247446/celebrity-legs-insured-betty-grable-rihanna/ https://www.crfashionbook.com/celebrity/g30247446/celebrity-...
      - onetimemanytime 6y ago
        But you'd stand out just as someone killing their spouse the day after $1m life insurance kicked in.
    - stkdump 6y ago
      I actually bought insurance that did cover the case of war explicitly, with the only disclaimer being that I can't be personally actively involved in any act of war - for when I spent a few months in Israel.
numair 6y ago
It’s as though someone watched an action movie and thought, what if we get rid of the need to cut the comms in the building itself, and if we chose a time and day when nobody would show up: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xLcHPsWK5xg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xLcHPsWK5xg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jrA-1cG_wq4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jrA-1cG_wq4 This is a scenario that is in like pretty much every action heist movie ever. Except the movies have super-dramatic bad guys who blow their own cover to take credit for irrational reasons. Based on what we are seeing about comms and 911, the “true crime” might have happened far from the scene of this blast.
- xwdv 6y ago
  The human remains might be that of someone who threatened to blow the cover and ended up strapped to a chair just a few feet away from the explosives.
  - octoberfranklin 6y ago
    Hell, I can get you a toe by 3 o'clock this afternoon, with nail polish.
    - the-dude 6y ago
      You are not wrong.
      - octoberfranklin 6y ago
        Username checks out.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  Covering for your crime by committing a far more severe crime seems like a pretty bad idea... though I think there is no shortage of criminals with bad ideas, so this seems at least plausible.
  - 6y ago
ideophobia 6y ago
Considering the FBI recently foiled a plot by a group who was planning to "take out" parts of the energy grid, it seems likely from my experience that this is another set of people executing a similar plan targeting telecoms. I imagine there is a high probability of more incidents like this happening between now and the inauguration, meant to target various infrastructure and "big government" components throughout the country. This attack screams anti-government militia with it's technique, and we will see in the following days online chats emerging with all the planning details that will likely include someone that had some degree of "insider information" about the ATT facility.
- bronco21016 6y ago
  The only thing you’re missing in your plot is encrypted messengers that can’t be cracked without sweeping legislation.
  - ideophobia 6y ago
    I saw a bunch of headlines recently that said the FBI had decrypted one of the popular secure messaging apps (telegram or signal maybe?), which, bizarrely enough, fits my narrative perfectly. Though I saw other headlines stating that was incorrect reporting.
    - corndoge 6y ago
      You probably saw the headlines about Cellebrite claiming to have "signal decryption" capabilities, which they did, provided they had the device in hand and unlocked https://signal.org/blog/cellebrite-and-clickbait/ https://signal.org/blog/cellebrite-and-clickbait/
      - anonymouse008 6y ago
        Just like anyone with a private key and file — this site has tangibly shifted from ‘14 to now.
Animats 6y ago
Too much speculation. Interesting that the outage started hours after the explosion. The obvious speculation is that the CO lost power after the batteries ran down, but that's not definite yet. Are they back up? If it's just power loss, they should be by now.
- welcome_dragon 6y ago
  As of about 10am on Saturday, we are still without service
hhh 6y ago
This feels very similar to the Metcalf attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack If I were to speculate, this feels like it could be a test of response before further action. If they wanted to kill people at AT&T, the HQ is only a few blocks away. This seems very... crafted for an attack.
pengaru 6y ago
And AT&T's list of plausible enemies is effectively endless...
iJohnDoe 6y ago
Here is an update from AT&T: The front 1/3rd of the building is structuraly damaged. That includes fiber entry. They have no power and there is major flooding on all floors including the basement. The Fire Department is en route with pump trucks to help with the flooding. They have Building Engineers and Electricians on the way to look into the structure and getting power turned on. They have 2 850KW generators on the way and 2 1MW generators on standby. They have new A/C Chillers on the way (Existing Chiller plant was destroyed).
- onionisafruit 6y ago
  This post from reddit has a bit more information...although it's mostly the same information in slightly different format. https://www.reddit.com/r/nashville/comments/kkcwkh/status_of_the_att_noc_on_2nd_from_a_friend/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nashville/comments/kkcwkh/status_of... "The Nashville building (NSVLTNMT) has sustained significant structural damage to the front one-third of the building; the rear two-thirds of the building appears to be intact. Parts of the interior are still inaccessible for safety reasons due to the structural damage sustained. Structural and electrical engineers are en route. There is standing water in the basement and on every floor. The fire department will assist with pumping water out of basement. There is no commercial power connectivity to the equipment due to breaker and switch equipment damage. Teams are currently working to de-energize all systems. Two 850W generators are en route with an ETA of 21:00 CT. A chiller is also en route with no ETA available at this time. The parking lot adjacent to the building (opposite the damaged side) has been secured to stage the generators. Once the generators arrive, teams will determine if it is safe to wire the generators tonight due to the sustained building damage and water in the building. In addition, TEMA (Tennessee Emergency Management Agency) is volunteering two 1 megawatt generators to support recovery. A SATCOLT has been positioned approximately a block and a half from the NSVLTNMT building and is up and taking traffic to aid in communication with those performing restoration. The next update will be issued at approximately 20:00 CT, unless there is a significant change in status."
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userzero 6y ago
Many facilities have generators that are tied to the fire system and will not provide electricity when there is an alarm. A diesel generator tank is designed around (sized based on) the amount of time the facility is expecting to have fuel delivered. A more central location will have small tanks, remote locations will have larger. Gas powered generators are a great option because they do not run out of fuel, although they are dependent on the gas grid. Facilities running gas generators require an automatic safety shutoff valve (electronically actuated) to be tied to the fire system to prevent explosion.
sneak 6y ago
This may be a good time to remind everyone that you can't give up privacy to obtain safety: the NSA spies on everyone, no warrants, and terror attacks still happen. We're not getting that for which we've paid, and it is time to demand a refund of our privacy.
vijaybritto 6y ago
This is quite confusing to read cause the article doesn't mention it as terrorism. They seem to play it down as some sort of violence. I'm not sure if this would have been the case if there were any Muslim involved.
- pageandrew 6y ago
  Terrorism is violence with political or ideological motives. The motive in this situation is currently completely unknown. It very well may be terrorism, and that has nothing to do with the race or religion of the perpetrators. It has to do with their motive.
  - vijaybritto 6y ago
    Yeah thats the theory but is it followed in practice?
gfd213 6y ago
They Bombed a major network switching and server hub for att AT&T snags FBI business from Verizon with $92M FirstNet contract just days ago FirstNet system is a unified communication platform to connect all levels of government and collect information during times of crisis. Was created in 2012 after the Boston bombing. Government agencies all are going to be linked through this system top to bottom. This is basically a much faster private parallel internet that the public wont have access to. very dangerous. Who ever did this may be pointing this out https://www.fiercewireless.com/operators/at-t-snags-fbi-business-from-verizon-92m-firstnet-contract https://www.fiercewireless.com/operators/at-t-snags-fbi-busi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Responder_Network_Authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Responder_Network_Author...
- dkn775 6y ago
  I wouldn’t be sure about this. I have firstnet on a work phone (EMT) and it’s rarely any better than my regular ATT device. While it does have low latency (sometimes 1ms) speed is not any different. I’m actually kind of mad because my department had Verizon before like your link, and it was way faster and worked in more places.
- Sylamore 6y ago
  The wireless side of this is band 14, which is shared with regular consumers but FN customers get priority and the band can be restricted to FN only customers.
iridium_core 6y ago
Telco worker here. These sort of exchanges in big cities are usually built from solid concrete to minimise damage from these sort of attacks - either from warfare or terrorism. At least, for buildings built during the world wars or cold war. Here's an exchange in Melbourne: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gHeHncO6W4U/ThpRVvEhXHI/AAAAAAAAJn4/3OvieNPtPbQ/s1600/telstra-brutalist-telephone-exchange-sydney-city.JPG https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gHeHncO6W4U/ThpRVvEhXHI/AAAAAAAAJ... Built with solid concrete and with thin windows.
- voxadam 6y ago
  My favorite example is 33 Thomas Street in NYC.[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street
- phendrenad2 6y ago
  Once you see them (which started for me when I read about the secret NSA data tap room some At&T worker discovered), you can't unsee them. They're pretty cool. I'm actually really surprised that there was ANY damage at all. If you look at the photos of the building post-blast, it barely looks scratched. In fact the news has been focusing on pictures of the burned-out vehicles outside on the street, because the damage to the building is so underwhelming.
Cyberthal 6y ago
Likely an attempt to stop Dominion forensic investigation, headed by AT&T. A suicide bombing via RV. This is just my impression from today's news skimming. Needs verification.
lovetocode 6y ago
Id like to take a conspiracy stab. Could it possibly be insurance fraud by the restaurant owners? I mean covid hit their industry pretty hard.
eternalban 6y ago
Curious as to the relationship between ATT and Apple's iCloud outages, if any. (I remember ATT was the original carrier for iPhone.) Fair disclosure: this -is- a paranoid musing. Does my iCloud login ping "Room 641A" in ATT per some understanding between the national security state and apple computer?
0xbadcafebee 6y ago
This HN title is dangerously editorializing. The story says it was an explosion, not a bombing, but that the police are suspecting it was intentionally caused. When "media" (yes HN you are media too) starts to drift the narrative, people latch onto it and they stop looking for evidence-based facts, and instead start looking for anything that supports their preferred narrative. You'd think 4 years of Trump and decades of Fox News would've been a lesson.
xyst 6y ago
Telcos infrastructure is so broken. Why does an outage in Tennessee somehow affect areas in California and Texas (depicted in that outage map by the yellow areas)? ATT and other big telcos need to be broken up, and municipal run ISPs need to become the norm. These outages should be local to the city and not ripple across the nation.
person_of_color 6y ago
The game begins
Cyberthal 6y ago
This may be connected to the Dominion audit. Last time I mentioned this rumor that I didn't see addressed in the comments, I got silently downvoted. Perhaps because I didn't provide links. So I'll now provide links, because this deserves a closer look. A skeptical layman contacted the Facebook post author and confirmed that it wasn't a fabricated post: https://twitter.com/kr3at/status/1342673196470964225 https://twitter.com/kr3at/status/1342673196470964225 The author set the post to private because his phone was blowing up. https://twitter.com/kr3at/status/1342680906381799424 https://twitter.com/kr3at/status/1342680906381799424 Human remains were found at the bombing scene, which suggests a body in the RV, possibly a suicide bomber babysitting the payload to prevent heroics, or a murder victim. Suicide bombing would fit the Stephen Paddock pattern. https://bigleaguepolitics.com/authorities-recover-human-remains-at-scene-after-nashville-rv-bombing/ https://bigleaguepolitics.com/authorities-recover-human-rema... This matters because as motohagiography observed, we're missing a motive. Right-wing terrorists targeting infrastructure is a possibility, but they archetypically target electrical, not Internet, since they regard the Internet as their propaganda equalizer against the MSM and means of decentralized cohesion. Shutting down the Internet during the Presidential transition would seem contrary to their interests. (Targeting electrical also interdicts Internet, but the benefit of the havoc caused in Democrat cities outweighs this in their eyes.) My original downvoted lazy comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25542746 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25542746
Cyberthal 6y ago
5G conspiracy-theorist suicide bombing is now the strong likelihood, due to the demographics of the primary suspect and the use of an RV. Boomer independent sole-proprietor businessmen such as this electrician / internet IT guy trend heavily right-wing. His social isolation is evidenced by the gift of houses to an unaware single mom. When the MSM loses credibility, people such as the bomber are set adrift to seek truth in hostile seas swarming with clickbait. Success in small business does not translate to epistemological accuracy. His failure to obtain a family to sublimate his death drive is a sign of societal breakdown. When sufficient numbers of combat-capable men fail to reproduce, they initiate violence, regardless of the proximate trigger. He reminds me of a less-intelligent, less-alienated Unabomber. Given those facts, I'm comfortable deprecating the much weaker Dominion-AT&T angle.
daraghfi 6y ago
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/25/nsa-att-intercept-surveillance/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/25/nsa-att-intercept-surveill... The vehicle was parked outside an AT&T Inc office, and the blast caused widespread telephone, internet and TV service outages in central Tennessee and parts of several neighboring states, including Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama and Georgia. https://www.reuters.com/article/tennessee-blast-idUSKBN2900CX https://www.reuters.com/article/tennessee-blast-idUSKBN2900C...
Fjolsvith 6y ago
Bombing was a government exercise. https://www.bitchute.com/video/eY00nRw9rVXu/ https://www.bitchute.com/video/eY00nRw9rVXu/
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  How do you reach that conclusion from the shared video?
  - Fjolsvith 6y ago
    The officers were pretty calm for an explosion that could have killed them. I suspect they were the final sweep of the area before detonation. An in-depth analysis of the explosion (history, motivation, means, benefit): https://www.brighteon.com/cb6f4b98-ff6d-4515-8bfa-2b756abaa290 https://www.brighteon.com/cb6f4b98-ff6d-4515-8bfa-2b756abaa2...
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      I wouldn't consider "officers acting professionally" as evidence of a conspiracy. A simpler explanation is that they acted calmly because they are well trained. They may have also acted calmly before the explosion because they didn't expect an actual detonation---most bomb threats don't end in detonation of a device. However, it is their duty to evacuate the area because no one likes the excuse "statistics were against anything bad happening" when their family members are dead.
husamia 6y ago
several people in the area reported hearing several shots fired within minutes before the explosion. If it was a lone person, why was there shots fired?
ConspiraOrg 6y ago
Dominion servers there for forensic data audit, voting fraud. Biden's bro-in-law part owner of building. Evidence of directed energy weapons attack. Dig deeper yourself to verify...massmedia NEVER helps only misleads.

419 points by SpaceInvader 6y ago

Watching the impact on the network through downdetector today has been interesting. If I wanted to be conspiratorial I'm reminded of Room 641A. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

drtillberg 6y ago
Upon seeing the reports of the location of this specific real-world incident I researched to try to find an article I know exists describing how indestructible those windowless telecommunications hub buildings are. Isn't there an article somewhere describing how they're hardened against unconventional military attack? Visually the Nashville structure seemed very very well reinforced. As for the NSA angle, this location was not on the list published by the Intercept in 2018.[1] [1] https://theintercept.com/2018/06/25/att-internet-nsa-spy-hubs/ https://theintercept.com/2018/06/25/att-internet-nsa-spy-hub...
- b1c837696ba28b 6y ago
  The Evolution and Special Features of Bell System Telephone Equipment Buildings: https://archive.org/details/bstj58-2-427 https://archive.org/details/bstj58-2-427
- tyingq 6y ago
  I was surprised how effective pretty primitive homemade shaped charges are.
- wil421 6y ago
  The NSA’s building in NYC is one of the windowless telecom building called Titanpoint and can withstand and an atomic blast on NYC. [1] As you said the building in Nashville if it’s not even on your list. I guess it’s worth speculating. https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-york-hidden-in-plain-sight/ https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-...
jrockway 6y ago
What sort of conspiracy are you imagining here? Someone exploded an RV in an entertainment district so that AT&T had an excuse to disable service while the NSA installed wiretaps? I think that as investigations unfold, that will not end up being what happened. Just a guess though.
- Ancapistani 6y ago
  Given what little we know, targeting the AT&T infrastructure could be a reasonable guest a motive. The blast itself didn’t seem to take the hub offline; there was a broken water main followed by AT&T being refused access to the building by emergency response. It appears that things started cascading a few hours later, presumably once the generator fuel was exhausted.
  - myrandomcomment 6y ago
    Sensible call on the generator fuel. Thanks for thinking of it.
    - jcims 6y ago
      I would think buried utilities, they lost power?
      - Retric 6y ago
        Power loss could have been from the blast, which destroyed underground water pipes. Or they may have turned off power to the area for safety reasons.
  - kitteh 6y ago
    Back when I worked in a CO the engineering goal was to be able to run the building load on gen for at least 24 hours straight before getting fuel trucks. We had weekly gen tests to validate things were working as expected. It could be that they had to de-energizd some equipment to perform inspection and work within the facility. I know our facility had a number of procedures on how to de-energize parts of the building and inhibit the generators from feeding that area (a lesson learned in the Hinsdale CO fire years ago). During Hurricane Katrina a number of us had to invent a procedure for de-energizing non critical equipment to reduce power load in order to keep critical services running for an extended period of time since it was clear we werent going to get utility and resupplies for awhile.
viraptor 6y ago
That would require both an "agency ready to do uncontrolled explosion in public" conspiracy and "they can't splice fiber quickly enough"... anti-conspiracy?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

epmaybe 6y ago

Is the FirstNet network only run by AT&T or by other providers as well?

zw123456 6y ago
AT&T only. But unclear if that would be effected, that was a wireline C.O., not sure if they also had their wireless switching there, sometimes the wireless and wireline are in different buildings.
- Pocketknife 6y ago
  There is fiber to thst building as well. I'm in Cumberland County right now and the towers are down. Wi-Fi calling only. Also no 911 service, which astounds me until I remember it's the government running it. Imagine an emergency response system so fragile cutting power to one building fucks it for half a state? My one man company has better disaster tolerance than the 911 system? Insane.
  - zw123456 6y ago
    The telcos run the 911 system for the gov. But if the telco building is down then even if 911 was up they couldn't switch the calls through to it. But agree, sounds like a major fubar. A lot of the fiber from the cell towers to the cell switching offices is supplied by the local telco, in this case AT&T. I wonder if the other wireless carriers are effected?
- Sylamore 6y ago
  FirstNet went down but they brought up a SatCOW to re-enable it in the area immediately around the bombing. That CO hosted lots of PSAP, ESInet and FirstNet gear. Other SatCOWs are being brought online in the area.

auslegung 6y ago

News about the bombing for those who hadn’t heard yet https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/25/downtown-nashville-explosion-christmas-morning/4044708001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/25/downto...

neom 6y ago

The building (185 2nd Ave N) the RV exploded in front of appears to host a lot of equipment: https://www.telcodata.us/search-switches-by-zip-code?zip=37201 https://www.telcodata.us/search-switches-by-zip-code?zip=372...

ikiris 6y ago
Old school bell core CO
kitteh 6y ago
Yep it's the main spot in nashville for voice stuff. Has local access switches (dms 100), tandem, and LD goes out of there. At&t I think also has their long haul optical transport and some core ip backbone stuff there.
- jcims 6y ago
  I was the first person in my town to get residential ISDN back in ~1996. I was a fledgling admin on the network team and work paid for it. It took me almost three months to help the local telco get it up and running, but we could never get 64kbps on the data channels because of some weird issue with the switch. (Still beat the hell out of dial up) I think your comment is the first time I’ve read or thought about the DMS 100 since then.
  - kitteh 6y ago
    Tragically there was nothing simple about ISDN. A customer would have to know their switch type at the CO and there were a number of other things that could break it. At least with a T1/DS1 you only had to worry about SF/ESF, B8ZS/AMI and number of channels.
    - pavlov 6y ago
      Interesting. In many European countries ISDN was widespread in the mid-to-late ‘90s. There were millions of customers in Germany alone, I think. It was slow compared to the DSL connections that replaced it, but I don’t remember hearing too many negative things about ISDN reliability. (I bet the only real legacy of this technology is the album by the Future Sound of London which is named ISDN.)

zamalek 6y ago

Doing this on a public holiday seems to target a business/infrastructure, as opposed to people. Where was the truck parked, is it obvious that the target was AT&T?

mintplant 6y ago

Reportedly, there was a visible countdown timer on the vehicle that exploded, and an audible warning played for 15-20 minutes prior to the blast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nygTJeu9fU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nygTJeu9fU

drtillberg 6y ago
Local TV News managed to interview a neighbor from directly across the street where the explosion occurred[1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iag6cTWpgq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iag6cTWpgq8
- orblivion 6y ago
  Interesting things to consider. 1) I heard something about "fake reports" about gunshots. But maybe the perp shot off some guns just to get the cops to show up? 2) This woman stuck around for 15 minutes or a half hour while this thing was saying "you need to evacuate, this has a bomb"??? 3) This woman recalls a male voice but the news played a female voice. This goes to show how bad our memories are!
  - macintux 6y ago
    > This woman stuck around for 15 minutes or a half hour while this thing was saying "you need to evacuate, this has a bomb"??? Watching a video, the audio was so surreal I had to ask myself how I would respond if I heard that without any clue where it was coming from. Hopefully I never find out, but I guess now I'm a bit more mentally prepared to not linger.
  - resonantjacket5 6y ago
    There were gunshots sounds but we're not sure if it was audio from the RV or actual gun shots
    - orblivion 6y ago
      This makes for such a fascinating story. Supervillain type stuff. Except fortunately in this case a supervillian with some sort of code of ethics.

joshuakelly 6y ago

This article doesn't make this so explicit, but ATT infrastructure appears to be the intentional target of the bombing. You can see the building in the helicopter shot at the top of the NYTimes article on the story: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/25/us/nashville-explosion.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/25/us/nashville-explosion.ht... Obviously a telecommunications/switch hub, with it being a large windowless building in a downtown core. The other thing that's particularly odd is the fact that the attackers appear to have broadcasted some sort of warning or evacuation message from the site of the bombing prior to the explosion.

paxys 6y ago
What is the source for AT&T being the intentional target? Maybe it just happened to be the building in the background?
- deathgrips 6y ago
  Maybe the real targets were the pigeons on the sidewalk?
- fibers 6y ago
  if you look at the map on the opposite side of the street/block its filled with random pubs/liquor stores/restaurants. do you really think the target was random restaurants?
  - lovetocode 6y ago
    I’d like to play the devil’s advocate. The restaurant industry took a big hit this year due to COVID. The motivation is there.
    - capitol_ 6y ago
      You mean that it's insurance fraud? Wouldn't it be more effective to burn the restaurant down if you wanted to do that?
6y ago

bijobini 6y ago

That's some Mr Robot type of stuff.

px43 6y ago
Seems more like some Trailer Park Boys type of stuff.

JoshTko 6y ago

Definitely look at some of the photos. Looks like windows, and doors for half a block were destroyed.

exabrial 6y ago

This is truly strange. I'm thankful that nobody was killed. But what on earth is going on?

gamblor956 6y ago
There are reports of human remains at the scene.
- exabrial 6y ago
  Oh dear :( I hadn't seen that
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

DerekL 6y ago

The title is misspelled. It's “AT&T”, not “ATT”. Also, that's not the title of the article, though it is factually correct.

kryogen1c 6y ago

additional angle to consider under tinfoil: building ran telecommunications and the telecom outage affected the nashville airport, altering some flights https://twitter.com/Fly_Nashville/status/1342566428386488324?s=20 https://twitter.com/Fly_Nashville/status/1342566428386488324... not to make a mountain out of a molehill, but thought experiments are good exercise.

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
It rarely hurts. It is certainly unusual in a lot of ways. The warning being probably towards the top. Before it was part of the news, I wondered why the initial police encounter resulted in cops immediately calling for a bomb squad. I will admit that my initial thought was that this building was one of the windowless NSA buildings. I guess I was wrong.
- partiallypro 6y ago
  The bomb squad was called because the RV literally had an intercom saying there was a bomb inside and to evacuate the area, the police apparently also briefly inspected it.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
    Yes. Sorry. I think my initial post wasn't clear on that aspect now that re-read it. That was actually fairly unusual aspect of it.
  - nexuist 6y ago
    Man, imagine being the guy called in to "inspect" that given what the loudspeaker was saying? And on Christmas Day no less, before the bomb squad shows up? Talk about drawing a short straw.

sammalloy 6y ago

First thing I thought of was all the disgruntled door dashers with AT&T as their provider. For those who don't know, dashers who use use AT&T have been impacted by some kind of network issue for the last month or so. It makes it difficult for them to use the doordash driver app and neither DD nor AT&T have a fix at the moment.

Pxtl 6y ago

Okay, this is the first I'm hearing about a bombing attack in Nashville, and the article kinda starts in media res - was anybody hurt?

sitharus 6y ago
Three people, none seriously. All in hospital in a stable condition - https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/25/us/nashville-explosion/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/25/us/nashville-explosion/in...
- onionisafruit 6y ago
  They’ve also found human remains. edit: now they aren’t sure whether it’s human remains or not. Just that it’s biological matter.
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    ...I guess they just found little red bits. Gruesome to consider.

cwwc 6y ago

Timing on Christmas and the lengthy list of security systems that rely upon ATT.. makes me wonder. Some variety of a Heist? Seems it wouldn’t be market related given mkts already closed. This is far fetched, yeah. Maybe it was just someone who hates 5G.

KMag 6y ago
Coupled with the evacuation warning (edit: and early morning timing), presumably Christmas was chosen because the fewest number of people would be in the building and/or out and about. For the record, I think this attack was unjustified and Operation Opera[0] was justified, but when Israel bombed the Osirak reactor, they did it on a Sunday to minimize the number of French civilians in the building. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera
- notsureaboutpg 6y ago
  Considering how many countries the US threatens with its infrastructure, I can't imagine with what rationale you justify Operation Opera but know already that this attack was unjustified without knowing who did it and why
zw123456 6y ago
I agree, the heist angle was something that came to my mind, it would work if they somehow knew that the blast would take out the generator back up and if they knew that that C.O. only had one entrance facility or some vulnerability like that, which would mean some inside knowledge. Often C.O.'s have dual entrance vaults which it would make sense for bank alarms to be redundant, but if they got the generator or something. They went out of their way to try not to hurt anyone which seems more like maybe an Oceans 11 type heist. I guess if come Monday morning a bunch of banks have been hit we will know, but I would think that the cops are standing guard at all he banks right now. Highly unlikely but who knows.
- philwelch 6y ago
  Jewelry stores are also likely targets.

tootie 6y ago

Anti-5G crazies? T-Mobile partisans?

judge2020 6y ago
Speculation at this point will get us nowhere. If there were some reason like "5g bad" or "dont kill movie theatres" (regarding HBO max release of WW1984) there would be a video from the bomber pushing their message since, otherwise, this looks like any other terror attack.
- dvtrn 6y ago
  Speculation at this point will get us nowhere You follow this, immediately with speculation into the bomber's methodology and tactics?
  - judge2020 6y ago
    Speculation about why there shouldn't be speculation: there's not a public message, so they're not pushing any conspiracy theories like OP suggests.
- redisman 6y ago
  > this looks like any other terror attack. In what way? It sounds more like something the Joker or unabomber would pull off
  - owenmarshall 6y ago
    Weekend car bombings in non-residential areas with advanced warning is what you’d read if you picked up a textbook on the IRA.
dqv 6y ago
;) > Comcast reminded Nashville residents Friday that the public Xfinity WiFi hotspots throughout the potentially impacted areas are available for anyone to use, including non-Xfinity customers, free of charge. AT&T must have broken the NAP with Comcast

anonymouse008 6y ago

[removed]

mhh__ 6y ago
Fear not, The President has announced the SolarWinds hack is fake news. I was expecting him to blame Biden and Obama, but still. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1340333618691002368 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/13403336186910023... for the skeptics

meekmockmook 6y ago

Looks like somebody didn't like Wonder Woman 1984. I think folks on social media are overthinking the motive. A lot of people (most?) hate telecoms and big tech companies (including their employees and contractors) and someone decided to stick it to one. There are so many reasons for this, some logical and valid and some conspiratorial nonsense. In the end, it all boils down to the fact that living under the watch of these massive and all-powerful conglomerates makes many, many people deeply unhappy. The country is a powder keg of armed, angry, diseased, lonely people and unfortunately, something like this was likely to happen sooner rather than later. It's very sad.

cinquemb 6y ago
Yeah, I fully expect more incidences like this to happen all over the world. The incentives, socioeconomic backdrop, technical feasibility, and widely accessible tech are all enablers.
- meekmockmook 6y ago
  The cognitive dissonance and total denial is off the charts with telecom and tech leaders who don't realize (or care) that their massive growth has played a large role in global civil unrest. The general public is terrified and angry at the rapidly shifting technological landscape and the changes in social norms that come with it. Trust in technology is at a low, and for good reason. We have titanic businesses with almost superhuman like abilities to get under our skin at an algorithmic level. Tech companies can literally, for all intents and purposes, make people disappear from the internet. A small group of companies can casually destroy your life with a small code change and you wouldn't even know it. Everyone's data is being sold, stolen, sold on the black market, and intercepted by governments both local and foreign. An internet outage now means that your thermostat or fridge could go out and you're going to spend the night cold. I mean, there's a reason that Cyberpunk 2077 was one of the most hyped games of the last 5 years. The anxiety resonates. Sometimes I wonder if there are people in tech/cable who grew up reading Neuromancer or Snow Crash and thought "Cool! Let's make it happen!"
  - 6y ago

im3w1l 6y ago

Iirc telecommunications are common targets in coups and war. Combined with the professional manner in which it was done I'm thinking more Russia/China/Trump-won-loyalists and less 5g nutjob.

malwarebytess 6y ago

Whoever did it seems to have been inside the RV at the time? Or a body was -- they say they found human remains. I don't think this person wanted to kill anyone. 15 minute warning, low population, date & time. Was it someone who really didn't like AT&T?

6nf 6y ago
They found human remains nearby. No indication that the bomber was in or anywhere near the van. The van was parked in that spot for over a day.
- malwarebytess 6y ago
  Well, he was in the vehicle. Part conspiracy theorist, part disgruntled AT&T employee.

Scoundreller 6y ago

Reports that most of Tennessee is without 9-1-1 service right now: https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r32982150-AT-T-Suffers-outages-in-Nashvillle https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r32982150-AT-T-Suffers-outa... And AT&T mobile is down across Kentucky: https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r32981927-Services-Suspicious-blast-wounds-3-in-Nashville https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r32981927-Services-Suspicio... Also reports above that calls into Tennessee aren't working.

unethical_ban 6y ago
It is pretty nuts that a single physical location can bring down a state's worth of 911, and cellular. It is either institutional incompetence, or malice, or laziness.
- nexuist 6y ago
  It also perfectly explains why this specific building at this specific location was chosen out of all of the other possibilities. Someone knew about this weakness.
- gbh444g 6y ago
  Whoever designed the system didn't know about the Paxos protocol.
- h2odragon 6y ago
  > institutional incompetence, or malice, or laziness. AT&T in TN is an epic example of all 3 and then some. The most recent unbelievably stupid thing I've personally observed was the construction of 15 miles of new fiber on county power poles; right beside a Verizon fiber line that had been there for a decade. They put no slack loops in theirs, VZW's run has many. that line went up this year, and has been torn down and out of service 3 times, so far, that I know of. Oddly I hear the VZW line keeps failing shortly after the ATT trucks are seen, where I dont recall hearing much about failures on the VZW before this year. So perhaps there was a design consideration that suggested the construction method.
  - 6y ago

PIKAL 6y ago

I am overcome with curiosity about who did this and why. The fact that nobody has claimed responsibility makes no sense. If this were a politically motivated attack, domestic or otherwise, it would almost defeat the point to have the name of your cause omitted from those initial headlines. And sparing the lives of the bystanders also doesn’t make sense for a political attack. I heard the NRA gave warnings but the reason why it’s basically unheard of is because it defeats the point of terrorism. The reason why Muslim extremists, the bonafide experts, make a point of killing lots of people is because it’s effective. What political organization has it in for att? It can’t be political. Every day that goes by without someone claiming responsibility, the probability of it being political decreases exponentially. But at the same time, this doesn’t seem like the work of a lone wolf. Lone wolfs usually try to kill people. And almost invariably they fail miserably, killing practically no people at all compared to the number of people that would have been killed at the hands of someone smart or competent with a weapon. And bombs stand out as being difficult for lone wolves to get right. For a lone wolf to build a working bomb and detonation system and have everything work perfectly the first time would be the exception, although not the only one. This was done by one person. Not a typical lone wolf but someone who was smart and methodical. And I would guess he was in the vehicle when it exploded. He was either insane ala templeOS, had no motive ala Mandalay bay, or a disgruntled employee.

Guthur 6y ago
There are many strategies that don't necessarily involve large human collateral damage but are still politically motivated. The Provisonsal IRA in N. Ireland during the Troubles was often times either targeting security forces, collaborators or commerical activity. Ostensibly the goal was to make the UKs continued involvement in N. Ireland untenable from an economic and political stand point. The IRA was quite aware that too many indiscriminate killing of N.Ireland civilians would be detrimental to their cause.
- PIKAL 6y ago
  But I don’t even need to look it up to know that they made absolutely sure to get credit for every single bombing. Why is that missing here?

vageli 6y ago

> I think bombers broadcasting warning messages is somewhat more common with certain types of political violence. I know weather underground bombings tried to choose times for their bombings when buildings would not be inhabited, not always successfully. Just wanted to point out that dressing things up as "political violence" is a disservice; violence performed in the commision of promoting an ideology is terrorism. edit: I expected this to spark conversation; I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people would rather downvote than respond.

vkou 6y ago
Your definition is not quite accurate. Some forms of violence performed to promote an ideology are called war. In fact, war is by far the most common, and the most destructive form of 'violence used to promote an ideology'.
- fwip 6y ago
  Perhaps war is a form of terrorism.
  - klipt 6y ago
    One difference is war has rules, terrorism doesn't. Deliberately targeting civilians in war is usually considered a war crime, while deliberately targeting civilians in a terrorist attack is considered ... a standard terrorist attack.
    - vageli 6y ago
      > One difference is war has rules, terrorism doesn't. Citation needed? Unless every party to a war ever signed the Geneva Convention or something (and even then, war crimes exist which are arguably acts of terrorism). See: the use of agent orange, the bombing of Dresden, etc.
      - cinquemb 6y ago
        Lol yeah, Total warfare[0] has no rules: "A war that is unrestricted in terms of the weapons used, the territory or combatants involved, or the objectives pursued, especially one in which the laws of war are disregarded." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war

motohagiography 6y ago

Nanog thread: https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2020-December/210910.html https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2020-December/2109... Indicates closest ATT building was an ILEC CO, oddly, a voice exchange / telco meet-me point, or what we would call a peering point on the internet. Risk/reward on the bombing, we're clearly missing incentives information, as of the options available and conceivable purposes for going to that much effort, it doesn't add up yet. Everything about it so far is so dumb the only thing I could see it being is a test run for a real one.

bsder 6y ago
My first thought was arson for insurance money. However, the bomb placement makes no sense for that case. It really does seem like this was targeted at the ATT building.
- partiallypro 6y ago
  Insurance doesn't cover terrorism in most all cases, as it is considered a war zone.
  - rsync 6y ago
    Insurance typically does not cover terrorism but, of course, it can cover terrorism. If Tina Turner can insure her legs[1] you can insure your building for terrorism claims. [1] https://www.crfashionbook.com/celebrity/g30247446/celebrity-legs-insured-betty-grable-rihanna/ https://www.crfashionbook.com/celebrity/g30247446/celebrity-...
    - onetimemanytime 6y ago
      But you'd stand out just as someone killing their spouse the day after $1m life insurance kicked in.
  - stkdump 6y ago
    I actually bought insurance that did cover the case of war explicitly, with the only disclaimer being that I can't be personally actively involved in any act of war - for when I spent a few months in Israel.

numair 6y ago

It’s as though someone watched an action movie and thought, what if we get rid of the need to cut the comms in the building itself, and if we chose a time and day when nobody would show up: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xLcHPsWK5xg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xLcHPsWK5xg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jrA-1cG_wq4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jrA-1cG_wq4 This is a scenario that is in like pretty much every action heist movie ever. Except the movies have super-dramatic bad guys who blow their own cover to take credit for irrational reasons. Based on what we are seeing about comms and 911, the “true crime” might have happened far from the scene of this blast.

xwdv 6y ago
The human remains might be that of someone who threatened to blow the cover and ended up strapped to a chair just a few feet away from the explosives.
- octoberfranklin 6y ago
  Hell, I can get you a toe by 3 o'clock this afternoon, with nail polish.
  - the-dude 6y ago
    You are not wrong.
    - octoberfranklin 6y ago
      Username checks out.
bigbubba 6y ago
Covering for your crime by committing a far more severe crime seems like a pretty bad idea... though I think there is no shortage of criminals with bad ideas, so this seems at least plausible.
- 6y ago

ideophobia 6y ago

Considering the FBI recently foiled a plot by a group who was planning to "take out" parts of the energy grid, it seems likely from my experience that this is another set of people executing a similar plan targeting telecoms. I imagine there is a high probability of more incidents like this happening between now and the inauguration, meant to target various infrastructure and "big government" components throughout the country. This attack screams anti-government militia with it's technique, and we will see in the following days online chats emerging with all the planning details that will likely include someone that had some degree of "insider information" about the ATT facility.

bronco21016 6y ago
The only thing you’re missing in your plot is encrypted messengers that can’t be cracked without sweeping legislation.
- ideophobia 6y ago
  I saw a bunch of headlines recently that said the FBI had decrypted one of the popular secure messaging apps (telegram or signal maybe?), which, bizarrely enough, fits my narrative perfectly. Though I saw other headlines stating that was incorrect reporting.
  - corndoge 6y ago
    You probably saw the headlines about Cellebrite claiming to have "signal decryption" capabilities, which they did, provided they had the device in hand and unlocked https://signal.org/blog/cellebrite-and-clickbait/ https://signal.org/blog/cellebrite-and-clickbait/
    - anonymouse008 6y ago
      Just like anyone with a private key and file — this site has tangibly shifted from ‘14 to now.

Animats 6y ago

Too much speculation. Interesting that the outage started hours after the explosion. The obvious speculation is that the CO lost power after the batteries ran down, but that's not definite yet. Are they back up? If it's just power loss, they should be by now.

welcome_dragon 6y ago
As of about 10am on Saturday, we are still without service

hhh 6y ago

This feels very similar to the Metcalf attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack If I were to speculate, this feels like it could be a test of response before further action. If they wanted to kill people at AT&T, the HQ is only a few blocks away. This seems very... crafted for an attack.

pengaru 6y ago

And AT&T's list of plausible enemies is effectively endless...

iJohnDoe 6y ago

Here is an update from AT&T: The front 1/3rd of the building is structuraly damaged. That includes fiber entry. They have no power and there is major flooding on all floors including the basement. The Fire Department is en route with pump trucks to help with the flooding. They have Building Engineers and Electricians on the way to look into the structure and getting power turned on. They have 2 850KW generators on the way and 2 1MW generators on standby. They have new A/C Chillers on the way (Existing Chiller plant was destroyed).

onionisafruit 6y ago
This post from reddit has a bit more information...although it's mostly the same information in slightly different format. https://www.reddit.com/r/nashville/comments/kkcwkh/status_of_the_att_noc_on_2nd_from_a_friend/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nashville/comments/kkcwkh/status_of... "The Nashville building (NSVLTNMT) has sustained significant structural damage to the front one-third of the building; the rear two-thirds of the building appears to be intact. Parts of the interior are still inaccessible for safety reasons due to the structural damage sustained. Structural and electrical engineers are en route. There is standing water in the basement and on every floor. The fire department will assist with pumping water out of basement. There is no commercial power connectivity to the equipment due to breaker and switch equipment damage. Teams are currently working to de-energize all systems. Two 850W generators are en route with an ETA of 21:00 CT. A chiller is also en route with no ETA available at this time. The parking lot adjacent to the building (opposite the damaged side) has been secured to stage the generators. Once the generators arrive, teams will determine if it is safe to wire the generators tonight due to the sustained building damage and water in the building. In addition, TEMA (Tennessee Emergency Management Agency) is volunteering two 1 megawatt generators to support recovery. A SATCOLT has been positioned approximately a block and a half from the NSVLTNMT building and is up and taking traffic to aid in communication with those performing restoration. The next update will be issued at approximately 20:00 CT, unless there is a significant change in status."

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

userzero 6y ago

Many facilities have generators that are tied to the fire system and will not provide electricity when there is an alarm. A diesel generator tank is designed around (sized based on) the amount of time the facility is expecting to have fuel delivered. A more central location will have small tanks, remote locations will have larger. Gas powered generators are a great option because they do not run out of fuel, although they are dependent on the gas grid. Facilities running gas generators require an automatic safety shutoff valve (electronically actuated) to be tied to the fire system to prevent explosion.

sneak 6y ago

This may be a good time to remind everyone that you can't give up privacy to obtain safety: the NSA spies on everyone, no warrants, and terror attacks still happen. We're not getting that for which we've paid, and it is time to demand a refund of our privacy.

vijaybritto 6y ago

This is quite confusing to read cause the article doesn't mention it as terrorism. They seem to play it down as some sort of violence. I'm not sure if this would have been the case if there were any Muslim involved.

pageandrew 6y ago
Terrorism is violence with political or ideological motives. The motive in this situation is currently completely unknown. It very well may be terrorism, and that has nothing to do with the race or religion of the perpetrators. It has to do with their motive.
- vijaybritto 6y ago
  Yeah thats the theory but is it followed in practice?

gfd213 6y ago

They Bombed a major network switching and server hub for att AT&T snags FBI business from Verizon with $92M FirstNet contract just days ago FirstNet system is a unified communication platform to connect all levels of government and collect information during times of crisis. Was created in 2012 after the Boston bombing. Government agencies all are going to be linked through this system top to bottom. This is basically a much faster private parallel internet that the public wont have access to. very dangerous. Who ever did this may be pointing this out https://www.fiercewireless.com/operators/at-t-snags-fbi-business-from-verizon-92m-firstnet-contract https://www.fiercewireless.com/operators/at-t-snags-fbi-busi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Responder_Network_Authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Responder_Network_Author...

dkn775 6y ago
I wouldn’t be sure about this. I have firstnet on a work phone (EMT) and it’s rarely any better than my regular ATT device. While it does have low latency (sometimes 1ms) speed is not any different. I’m actually kind of mad because my department had Verizon before like your link, and it was way faster and worked in more places.
Sylamore 6y ago
The wireless side of this is band 14, which is shared with regular consumers but FN customers get priority and the band can be restricted to FN only customers.

iridium_core 6y ago

Telco worker here. These sort of exchanges in big cities are usually built from solid concrete to minimise damage from these sort of attacks - either from warfare or terrorism. At least, for buildings built during the world wars or cold war. Here's an exchange in Melbourne: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gHeHncO6W4U/ThpRVvEhXHI/AAAAAAAAJn4/3OvieNPtPbQ/s1600/telstra-brutalist-telephone-exchange-sydney-city.JPG https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gHeHncO6W4U/ThpRVvEhXHI/AAAAAAAAJ... Built with solid concrete and with thin windows.

voxadam 6y ago
My favorite example is 33 Thomas Street in NYC.[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street
phendrenad2 6y ago
Once you see them (which started for me when I read about the secret NSA data tap room some At&T worker discovered), you can't unsee them. They're pretty cool. I'm actually really surprised that there was ANY damage at all. If you look at the photos of the building post-blast, it barely looks scratched. In fact the news has been focusing on pictures of the burned-out vehicles outside on the street, because the damage to the building is so underwhelming.

Cyberthal 6y ago

Likely an attempt to stop Dominion forensic investigation, headed by AT&T. A suicide bombing via RV. This is just my impression from today's news skimming. Needs verification.

lovetocode 6y ago

Id like to take a conspiracy stab. Could it possibly be insurance fraud by the restaurant owners? I mean covid hit their industry pretty hard.

eternalban 6y ago

Curious as to the relationship between ATT and Apple's iCloud outages, if any. (I remember ATT was the original carrier for iPhone.) Fair disclosure: this -is- a paranoid musing. Does my iCloud login ping "Room 641A" in ATT per some understanding between the national security state and apple computer?

0xbadcafebee 6y ago

This HN title is dangerously editorializing. The story says it was an explosion, not a bombing, but that the police are suspecting it was intentionally caused. When "media" (yes HN you are media too) starts to drift the narrative, people latch onto it and they stop looking for evidence-based facts, and instead start looking for anything that supports their preferred narrative. You'd think 4 years of Trump and decades of Fox News would've been a lesson.

xyst 6y ago

Telcos infrastructure is so broken. Why does an outage in Tennessee somehow affect areas in California and Texas (depicted in that outage map by the yellow areas)? ATT and other big telcos need to be broken up, and municipal run ISPs need to become the norm. These outages should be local to the city and not ripple across the nation.

person_of_color 6y ago

The game begins

Cyberthal 6y ago

This may be connected to the Dominion audit. Last time I mentioned this rumor that I didn't see addressed in the comments, I got silently downvoted. Perhaps because I didn't provide links. So I'll now provide links, because this deserves a closer look. A skeptical layman contacted the Facebook post author and confirmed that it wasn't a fabricated post: https://twitter.com/kr3at/status/1342673196470964225 https://twitter.com/kr3at/status/1342673196470964225 The author set the post to private because his phone was blowing up. https://twitter.com/kr3at/status/1342680906381799424 https://twitter.com/kr3at/status/1342680906381799424 Human remains were found at the bombing scene, which suggests a body in the RV, possibly a suicide bomber babysitting the payload to prevent heroics, or a murder victim. Suicide bombing would fit the Stephen Paddock pattern. https://bigleaguepolitics.com/authorities-recover-human-remains-at-scene-after-nashville-rv-bombing/ https://bigleaguepolitics.com/authorities-recover-human-rema... This matters because as motohagiography observed, we're missing a motive. Right-wing terrorists targeting infrastructure is a possibility, but they archetypically target electrical, not Internet, since they regard the Internet as their propaganda equalizer against the MSM and means of decentralized cohesion. Shutting down the Internet during the Presidential transition would seem contrary to their interests. (Targeting electrical also interdicts Internet, but the benefit of the havoc caused in Democrat cities outweighs this in their eyes.) My original downvoted lazy comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25542746 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25542746

Cyberthal 6y ago

5G conspiracy-theorist suicide bombing is now the strong likelihood, due to the demographics of the primary suspect and the use of an RV. Boomer independent sole-proprietor businessmen such as this electrician / internet IT guy trend heavily right-wing. His social isolation is evidenced by the gift of houses to an unaware single mom. When the MSM loses credibility, people such as the bomber are set adrift to seek truth in hostile seas swarming with clickbait. Success in small business does not translate to epistemological accuracy. His failure to obtain a family to sublimate his death drive is a sign of societal breakdown. When sufficient numbers of combat-capable men fail to reproduce, they initiate violence, regardless of the proximate trigger. He reminds me of a less-intelligent, less-alienated Unabomber. Given those facts, I'm comfortable deprecating the much weaker Dominion-AT&T angle.

daraghfi 6y ago

https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/25/nsa-att-intercept-surveillance/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/25/nsa-att-intercept-surveill... The vehicle was parked outside an AT&T Inc office, and the blast caused widespread telephone, internet and TV service outages in central Tennessee and parts of several neighboring states, including Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama and Georgia. https://www.reuters.com/article/tennessee-blast-idUSKBN2900CX https://www.reuters.com/article/tennessee-blast-idUSKBN2900C...

Fjolsvith 6y ago

Bombing was a government exercise. https://www.bitchute.com/video/eY00nRw9rVXu/ https://www.bitchute.com/video/eY00nRw9rVXu/

shadowgovt 6y ago
How do you reach that conclusion from the shared video?
- Fjolsvith 6y ago
  The officers were pretty calm for an explosion that could have killed them. I suspect they were the final sweep of the area before detonation. An in-depth analysis of the explosion (history, motivation, means, benefit): https://www.brighteon.com/cb6f4b98-ff6d-4515-8bfa-2b756abaa290 https://www.brighteon.com/cb6f4b98-ff6d-4515-8bfa-2b756abaa2...
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    I wouldn't consider "officers acting professionally" as evidence of a conspiracy. A simpler explanation is that they acted calmly because they are well trained. They may have also acted calmly before the explosion because they didn't expect an actual detonation---most bomb threats don't end in detonation of a device. However, it is their duty to evacuate the area because no one likes the excuse "statistics were against anything bad happening" when their family members are dead.

husamia 6y ago

several people in the area reported hearing several shots fired within minutes before the explosion. If it was a lone person, why was there shots fired?

ConspiraOrg 6y ago

Dominion servers there for forensic data audit, voting fraud. Biden's bro-in-law part owner of building. Evidence of directed energy weapons attack. Dig deeper yourself to verify...massmedia NEVER helps only misleads.