I first heard about this pressing enterprise information technology concern when a friend directed me to MyTractorForum.com.
Now, I know more people with Segways than tractors. But the story involved the Kingsbury electrical substation less than five miles from my condo, and it involved someone who apparently broke through the fences in order to dig up the copper grounding wire of the electrical substation. He was ultimately – in a “BZZZZZZAP!” way – unsuccessful.
He is currently in “extremely critical condition.” And I’m a monster for laughing, but let’s face it, this is stuff that is supposed to be confined to the realm of Wile E. Coyote cartoons.
Speaking of Wile E. Coyote cartoons, it made me think of the Road Runner – or Road Runner cable, in this case. See, the apparent thief was stealing copper wire because copper prices are sky high, and this brings me to two interesting points: First, it’s not inconceivable that someone might dig out the copper wires in your company, raising havoc with the physical layer of your network performance. Second, if copper prices are high enough to risk electrocution for, it’s high enough that companies might want to start thinking about transitioning away from copper-based technology.
It is because human stupidity is particularly destructive that this is something to watch out for. Any large electrical equipment – like, say, a data center’s power plant – will have copper in it, either as grounding wires, or as part of the construction of the machine. Or, let’s take Cat-6 cable: four twisted pairs of 24 gauge copper wires, running throughout the infrastructure. Sure, it would be a repetitive and tedious task to strip out the cable, a task that requires the inhuman patience and obsessiveness of, oh, say, a habitual methamphetamine user, or “tweaker.”
The major concern isn’t that a thief will “get away with your stuff.” Repairing and replacing copper cable, even with the high prices involved, are not likely to be significant expenses for companies. However, the costs of repairing the auxiliary damage to equipment that can be done in a theft attempt, and the opportunity costs from waiting for service to be safely restored, are likely to be significant. The Kingsbury station man who did his impression of a bug zapper also cut off power to 7,300 nearby homes.
It’s strange because while we worry about viruses and worms, hackers trying to get at valuable data and cause disruption; people often don’t think about the physical layer of their networks.
Of course, you could just put some sort of deterrent up to prevent people from stealing copper. Perhaps
some sort of electrified fence, because you’d have to be pretty dumb to… oh.
Which brings me to the next point: with copper prices sky-high, perhaps it’s time for new technologies – specifically fiber optics – to start becoming even more widely used. Yes, fiber is expensive and difficult; better suited to long-haul connections, but it will become less expensive and difficult with increased adoption; and copper is inexpensive and simple, though it becomes more expensive and difficult as time goes on.
Nothing worth quoting or putting on the site. Copper thieves are big in this area. They are targeting new housing (construction sites) and CHICKEN HOUSES. 80 – 150 foot long chicken houses and the only thing to see them are the chickens. But they don’t strip the wires. They set fire to the wires in huge piles in a field. Melts and burns the plastic and the copper is lumps they can sell. Not nearly as tedious as it seems and apparently makes a lot of money. On a side note – the University of Arkansas had an auction of computer parts two years ago. We bought several HUGE lots and there were probably 500 lbs of old cabling in huge boxes too big to lift mixed in with the stuff I wanted. We gave them away to an older couple – know what they did? Burnt them down and took the copper to the bank. A little money to add to the social security.