Hobo Disrupts Internet2 Network With Cigarette

By Greg McNevin

May 8, 2007: The US Internet2 network suffered a interesting outage between Boston and New York last week, when a homeless man accidentally set fire to communications cables.

According to network world, cables running across a bridge near Boston we engulfed in flames after the vagrant carelessly flicked a cigarette, infighting a mattress under the bridge.

Technicians quoted between one and two days to repair the problem, leading to communications being re-routed in the meantime.

Internet2 is a consortium of 208 universities and 60 companies working on a next-generation internet technologies and research projects. While the project is driving vastly increased speeds and the development of new applications, the fire highlights exactly how vulnerable our communications infrastructure can be.

With virtualisation, SANs and online applications becoming increasingly popular, the consequences of even short network outages can prove costly to those too reliant on communications infrastructure.

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