I work as a telecom engineer troubleshooting/programming the Ciena 5164 optical router used for Verizon and At&t. These companies and many of my colleagues know exactly what it was but the more interesting part that raised some eyebrows was the fact that cc payment processing and emergency services/SOS/911 calls WERE possible for most of the affected customers. This is key. (This all runs on the same fiber optic network and should have been ‘down’ also.)
I cannot overstate how anomalous the above fact pattern is because when our networks go down, they don’t go down in this piecemeal way.
Here’s the takeaway: The goal of a ‘cyber weapon’ is maximum disruption. Whoever deployed (tested) this ‘cyber tool’ went to great lengths to pause communication ONLY. This surgeon scalpel approach we saw was a MUCH more difficult task than to just ‘nuke’ the whole system so to speak. A tool like this would need to be tested a few times to ensure a reliable partitioning of the ‘Target’ [calls/data] and the ‘Not Target’ [911/cc processing].
I'm a patriot who loves their country so I will not say what 'it' was/is, but if you reread the above a few times, and ask yourself the right questions, logical deduction should provide the answer.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing this. So from what I gather we can rule out any kind of physical or low level / hardware level disruption. The outage must have happened at the provisioning level. Would it be reasonable to assume whoever did it must have had access to the provisioning system (either legit or via hacking) and must have used actual operational commands (regular or via backdoor) ?
Is it possible at all that they run SOS/911 and CC payment traffic on a completely different cabling?
Also, there should be audit logs of what kind of operations were carried out and from where?
In any case, welcome to the community and please feel free to share what the world will look like in 2050!
Negative. Same network. That SOS/911/CCards worked and data/voice did not was deliberate. It’s fundamentally impossible based on how the network operates for this “surgeon’s scalpel“ to be an accidental.
Very interesting. Thank you for your insight
Many in same home had 1 cell working. For example a family plan, 4 lines, 3 didn’t work but main line (actual ownership of lines) worked perfectly. Totally let me know something was a miss. Nice name OP!
My son and his wife lost service, I did not. Family plan at&t. Are they, white hats, testing to shut down communications when and where necessary for the take down?
Two of us in the house share the same line and minutes, on the AT&T network. Both were down for about 1 hour.
My roommate and I both have AT&T (separate lines/plans). Mine was down while theirs was not.
Interesting how many of the alternative media podcasters are all parroting the same message, a financial collapse is coming. One can only wonder if this apparent test run might possibly be indicative of an upcoming failure to the financial system?
thanks for the post op.. i hope you will share updates as they arrive.
The military? Only the white hats would be concerned about the people losing access to emergency services.
This too was my first thought. Remember also, the DAY PRIOR Elon posted “This is a test”. Add to that, his post aligned perfectly with the “Test 11” qpost (cant link to it right now or I would.
Ahhh so it was just a test…which wires to cut, what’s the impact, and how to get it back up. Real one is coming so get your satellite phones.
Is it possible that a very expensive, redundant route existed somewhere that you are not aware of and/or given access to, and that the 911 and credit card processing was routed with priority over that, but calls/data were simply not profitable enough to do so?
Without knowing more about the network its difficult to understand exactly why you are saying this was not possible. You must have multiple redundant cables, so I am assuming it can't be a physical fiber break. So it must have involved a central point of equipment failure. Are you sure that equipment might not have simple a fail over configuration that still functioned, but with a cost/bandwidth such that it can only practically be used for very high priority traffic (a pay per byte satellite route for example)? And could something like that exist yet you not be aware of it?
To your first question: No. The lines can be buried, but above ground equipment (fiber, optic routers/signal repeaters) must be used every 10 km in most cases unless it’s an undersea cable.
Telecom networks are laid out in a hub/spoke arrangement effectively. Traffic can be routed around brakes/inoperable equipment. One single fiber that blinks 1.25 Billion times per second (1.25 gbps) can also have up to 99 different spectrums (‘bands’) of light going over it simultaneously that do not interfere or react with one another. So basically one fiber can ‘do the work’ of 99 fibers effectively. It is for this reason that credit card processing/SOS/911/cell traffic/data/Internet/land lines etc etc can ALL be serviced by a single solitary fiber at a given site. In this context, the network is redundant because of its hub/spoke layout, but there is no hidden second network/lines just for 911/SOS/credit card payments.
What happened w/ the outages was like every single system failing in an airplane, except just the stuff necessary for you to land safely. This actually could be possible with an airplane because it has so many physical redundancies built into it. Telecom networks redundancy comes from its hub/spoke LAYOUT, not many different fibers running in parallel lines, etc.
Hope that helps.
I have AT&T - my phone was down. However, I have several other chat apps which all worked just fine. I may not have been able to text or actually TALK to anyone using my AT&T service, but I could still chat thru several other apps. My mom panicked when service was down however. She is 83. Elderly people won't handle it as well. Many have canceled landlines they had for years. I'm glad for the "test" merely bc it gave me an opportunity to show mom we could still communicate.
" My mom panicked when service was down however."
Which is a side benefit of running a test. When it happens a second time, people will think, "Well, this happened once before. I guess they're just having a problem again." People will become accustomed to something that happens more than once and be less prone to panic.
I hope so. My mom's memory has become unreliable. She doesn't remember a Convo from evening to morning. I think many elderly have the same issue.
Sadly, this is true. It seems like so many elderly suffer from memory issues and dementia. One has to wonder if it's induced by prescription medicines. Given that the brain contains cholesterol, one has to wonder if statins are to blame.
I damn sure wonder lol. My cholesterol is "high" and Dr wrote statins. They make my knees hurt so bad I can barely walk. So I don't take them lol. Plus statins are just flat out bad for you. ...... So I don't take them
My bother in Florida has 1 of my 4 family lines (AT&T) and Florida wasn't affected. All my other lines (Texas and Missouri) were out most of the day.
👀🍿
Eyebrows raised....
I thought it was very interesting that some of the voting machines / scanners in NC weren't working because their Internet connection was down just a couple days after this incident. A lot of those systems are on the FirstNet emergency network. https://joehoft.com/bombshell-exclusive-nationwide-cellular-network-connects-election-equipment-and-gives-federal-government
Highly dasting but I can't even figure out who benefits more from the comms being down... Would love to hear some theories.
Just guessing, but Days of communication blackout, basically like unplugging the media for 10 seconds to reset the machine. Arrests happen under the guise of "solar eclipse solar flare" and when we come back we have a Much more neutered media, and have rewarded those who value truth over deception. Dark to light so to speak.
We can't rule out this being a white-hat op. I said in a prior comment that if this were so, then the stories of 911 services not functioning is probably bullshit. Op has me leaning more towards this. Would it have been done to make some magic happen under the cover of darkness / distraction? Several other cyber events took place that day, not just the phones.
Let's not forget Scavino's AOL dial-up tweet a few days prior. Foreknowledge? or control?
Very interesting info u/JohnTitor17. And welcome to GAW 🥰
100% CORRECT
Several pharmacy/prescription networks went down. Not all of them, but a few.
Network and Systems engineer here familiar with many things networking including cell sites. I’ve been looking all over for an explanation to this outage and have yet to find anything that makes sense.
For anyone who doesn’t have an in depth knowledge of networking, it’s easy to assume it could have only been a couple different things. It’s also probably difficult to comprehend the complexity of these networks. (I heard a YouTube interview from someone claiming to be an employee that gave what was clearly a made up explanation of what happened. Basically making it seem like everything relied on a single piece of equipment. After that I knew he had no idea).
When taking about physical networking you have numerous layers of redundancies. And that is what is weird about this. All these systems do not have a centralized provisioning system. They do not have a centralized point of presence. About the only thing remotely central for them is billing and even that is often not very central because not every AT&T is using the same backend hardware/provisioning/billing systems.
For this to have been a nationwide outage has been very interesting to me. It almost looks like a quality of service profile gone wrong but again such a profile wouldn’t affect everyone.
I didn’t personally observe the outage but heard that some people had zero bars during this and that their phones shown SOS. That more less suggests no signal could be found to a tower instead of a network wide outage.
It seems more likely that something impacted these digital frequencies more so than the network that carries them. This might be where the whole solar flare theory came into play.
So I have some data that plays nicely with this theory. Our neighborhood has their own fiber network that was built by a company that leases an AT&T line run from downtown out to the nearest cell tower to us. Our network connects to the AT&T line at the cell tower.
We have AT&T cell (because that is the only company that gives us any coverage at our house) and we had 0 bars that day. No SOS signals, however. But, we had internet all day, without interruption. So I knew the data line was active to the cell tower…
Our county 911 was out that day, weirdly.
What could impact the digital frequencies more so than the network that carries them.Besides a solar flare. I'd like to know what your thoughts are . and thanks for your input fren
At a very high level this is what cell tower transport looks like… a local provider might have a 10G+ handoff. This could be represented in one physical switch, many or a virtual router. There is then physical links leaving the local provider to the cell site. These connect up to a NID. So up until this point you’re fiber. The NID is a handoff point between the local provider and the cellular provider. (You might have every major carrier on a tower, using this setup). Service leaves the NID to customer managed equipment. (Generally a switch the cellular carrier has access to over the previously mentioned link). From this equipment a line connects up to the radio equipment that provides the signal to your phone.
I no longer work on the provisioning/transport side of things but if I did and were troubleshooting this outage, I’d have suggested a tech test the connection from the customer side equipment behind the providers NID. (Can be done remotely or by a tech onsite).
This would allow you to determine if the issues were some type of cellular interference or the network. (If all tests run fine behind the NID you could then suspect it’s interference with the signal).
I don’t know enough about current cellular technologies to suggest what could be the issue. But no matter what is going through the air, there are registered wavelengths. I have nothing to base this on but I could imagine a scenario where a type of jammer could be used to attack certain frequencies. It’s not a reach to thing this could be coordinated in a massive scale. Also not that such jammers are relatively easy to locate should someone use one. Messing with these channels is a federal offense as far as I know.
Right now I’m not really convinced whatever happened was intentional, but am most curious about why we haven’t seen an explanation for it.
Thanks for taking the time to explain this fren. And yes the waiting on the explanation is strange. Either they don't know or they are trying to run cover for it. The smell of alphabet agencies ( ours or elsewhere) .but once again thanks
I got a few theories.
CC processing used satellite or landline comms. Likewise emergency calls can go through any available network. Which would have been T-Mobile. Are most businesses really using cellular networks for their CC processing? Not too long ago I know that satellite links were popular for that application. And there are MVNOs that can operate on multiple carriers. That sounds like a good idea for a high reliability service like CC processing.
GPS disruption. Modern cellular networks require precise time synchronization, which is typically provided by a GPS disciplined oscillator. These oscillators have a holdover specification, a time period for which it can maintain accurate enough time for the system to fully function without a GPS signal. Now, potentially the networks should be designed to operate without such precise synchronization. But in this case the network capacity would be greatly reduced. If that happened, it would make sense to only serve the most important applications.
There was some need to shut stuff down. Such as interrupting NC voting machines. Or reducing RF signal levels for health, to receive a weak signal somewhere, or many other reasons.
Curiosity question - I can't see where WH would need us able to use our cc if communications are cut deliberately; however, I do see most definite need for access to emergency services. Is it possible that the cc payment function remained working merely because of whatever the programming is for 911 services? Like, they are close in programming or similar functions? I'm not wording this the best way 🙈. Is there some bridging or joint programming function that both services use that may account for why cc payments stayed up with emergency services?
People would panic, keeping cc payments means grocery stores, gas etc. would still be available.
Makes sense
I am guessing there are VERY FEW that possess the capability to pull this off. CIA, NAS, and Military Intel would be my guess.
PBD had Erik Prince on his podcast a few days ago and this came up. Prince's opinion was it was the Chinese and it was intended as a kind of shot across the bow (Taiwan , etc.) He put his odds at 70%.
I have no idea really, but it is plausible. Remember when there was a hack inro the Anthem Blue Cross database about 10-12 years ago? I was working at a Brokerage that did employee benefits, and initially they had these big town halls to address it so we would have something to tell the customers and then....nothing. There was talk that it was state sponsored, but it got hushed up pretty quick. (When CV hit, I thought about that because at one point, most people have had Anthem for medical. )
White hats
At around the same time, hospital & pharmacy networks were down too, would those two things be related?
Are most businesses really using cellular networks for their CC processing? Not too long ago I know that satellite links were popular for that application. And there are MVNOs that can operate on multiple carriers. That sounds like a good idea for a high reliability service like CC processing. Likewise emergency calls can go through any available network. I haven't heard anything suggesting tmobile was also affected.
I know this is not what you are implying and it's late so chances are no one will read this, but here goes…. Modern cellular networks require precise time synchronization, which is typically provided by a GPS disciplined oscillator. These oscillators have a holdover specification, a time period for which it can maintain accurate enough time for the system to fully function without a GPS signal. Now, potentially the networks should be designed to operate without such precise synchronization. But in this case the network capacity would be greatly reduced. If that happened, it would make sense to only serve the most important applications.
Calls, credit card processing, 911/SOS, streaming/Internet… basically any type of civilian or commercial communication is essentially DATA and travels along our fiber optic network in the form of light pulses. We called this traffic.
Our fiber optic network can be compared to our highway system and the data that traverses is it, traffic on that highway system.
There is no way for this fiber optic highway to "go down" the way it did. This is because it didn't "go down"the way they would normally go down for a cyber attack or software glitch.
It just got really picky for some non-accidental reason. Impossible that it wasn't deliberate based on the fundamentals of how the network moves data.
Here's the bottom line: Someone went out of their way to engineer the capability to pause communication without disrupting society. Now they are working the bugs out. When upgrading existing networks, half my time is spent troubleshooting until the system works properly. Nothing in this industry works correctly the moment you hit the return key. Nothing. There is always bugs to work out.
I wouldn't be surprised if we see several more tests over the near future before the main event(s). I suspect the outages will be described with more and more uniform/consistent fact, patterns as the bugs are worked out of the tool.
While you're thinking on the above, think about this…
"Internet will be paused." "Blackout necessary." (comms) "It must be hard to communicate." ~Q
Turn off the phones. Blame RU,RU,RU, rekindle the Ukranian gravy train, hide the nazi labs.
Feels about right?