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   Jack Daniel (often offline) (jack_daniel@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 26-Jul-2025 09:54:41 JST Jack Daniel (often offline)

   Just told my ISP "May the backhoe of despair forever hunt your underground fiber"

   • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
   • RamenCatholic 🐢 🌈 and Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Angus McIntyre (angusm@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 26-Jul-2025 09:54:41 JST Angus McIntyre

     in reply to

     • Cory Doctorow

     @jack_daniel @pluralistic Reminds me of one of my favorite sysadmin jokes:

     The Sysadmin Wilderness Survival Kit consists of a couple of meters of fiber in a carrying pouch and a small shovel.

     If you’re ever lost in the wilderness, you take out the fiber and bury it under a few feet of earth.

     Within two days, a backhoe will appear and cut the fiber, and then you just follow the backhoe back to civilization.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     JohnMashey (johnmashey@mstdn.social)'s status on Saturday, 26-Jul-2025 13:46:02 JST JohnMashey

     in reply to

     • Cory Doctorow
     • Angus McIntyre
     • Steve Bellovin

     @SteveBellovin @angusm @jack_daniel @pluralistic
     Needless to say, this did not start with fibre... at Bell LAbs ~1980, I managed development of data mining software specifically for outside plant phone cables, i.e., from central office to subscribers.
     "Man-made problems" category included backhoes, and there were plenty of them, despite pervasive efforts to avoid them.
     All this is part of reason it's cheap to do underground in fersh new developments, and expensive in developed ones.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Steve Bellovin (stevebellovin@infosec.exchange)'s status on Saturday, 26-Jul-2025 13:46:03 JST Steve Bellovin

     in reply to

     • Cory Doctorow
     • Angus McIntyre

     @angusm @jack_daniel @pluralistic Yup. (Years ago, I was at a NANOG (North American Network Operators Group) meeting where a nearby street had a line of backhoes parked. I think it was a warning.)