UPDATED: Rogers outage caused by a cyber attack?

For hapless Canucks, Friday the 8th turned out to be even more distressing than Friday the 13th. The "Please stand by" graphic Ed. posted on the 7th turned out to be oddly premonitory, as Canadians struggled to cope with a massive disruption of mobile and internet "service" provided by Rogers (aka "Robbers") Communications.

Canada's telecoms market is dominated by just three "service providers". [You understand why Walt is using quote marks, right? Ed.] -- Bell, Rogers and Telus. Knocking out their networks disrupts not just mobile phone calls, but money transfers (Interac, using debit cards), data exchange (problems for airlines, pharmacies, banks, etc), wi-fi (disastrous for those working from home) and even 9-1-1 service. 

But that's what happened yesterday, as Robbers customers  found themselves unconnected for most of the day. Last night, the company said it had restored mobile and internet service for the "vast majority: of its customers. However, it added, some customers may experience delays in regaining full service as its network comes back online and traffic volumes return to normal. 

In a statement posted to the company's social media channels (which customers of other telecoms companies could read, one presumes), Rogers apologized for the disruption the outage has caused to its customers and said it "will be proactively crediting" all customers. Which means: don't call us asking for a refund, we're already doing it. 

Tony Staffieri, CEO of Rogers, said in an open letter that the company apologizes for the service interruption but offered no explanation for the outage or how many customers were affected. Staffieri says Rogers "is committed to understanding the cause and would make changes to meet and exceed expectations in the future."

As of this morning, Rogers still hasn't said what caused their service to go down. Mr Staffieri said they would investigate "the root cause of this outage." Walt humbly suggests they read "FBI director calls China 'biggest' US threat; authorities warn of North Korean cyber attacks", posted on ABC News on July 6th.

The story quotes FBI Director Christopher Wray as saying the Chinese government (not those nice Chinese people, especially immigrants) is set on stealing our technology. Speaking alongside his British counterpart in London on Wednesday, Mr Wray called China the "biggest long-term threat" to both the US and the UK. (He didn't mention Canada because, no matter what Justin Trudeau says, Canada's not important.) 

"The Chinese government is set on stealing your technology -- whatever it is that makes your industry tick -- and using it to undercut your business and dominate your market," said Mr Wray, adding, "They're set on using every tool at their disposal to do it." 

Canada's telecoms, including Rogers, already use Huawei equipment, although M Trudeau (a great admirer of the ChiComms' ability "to get things done") now says they won't be allowing any new Huawei 5-G technology to be used in Canadian networks. Is it possible the Chinese (or North Koreans) hacked the Rogers network as a test, to see how easy it would be to throw a country into confusion and chaos? Just askin'....

UPDATE ADDED 10/7/22: Rogers Communications Inc. says it believes the massive system outage it suffered on Friday occurred after a maintenance update to its core network, but critics are unimpressed with the explanation after the telecom’s second major service interruption in two years.

This critic -- yr obdt svt -- wonders if Rogers would say anything different, if the massive outage had indeed been caused by hackers working for a hostile foreign government, which they (Rogers) did  not expect and could not control. Given the panic that would likely have ensured had they admitted such a huge security breach, would they not have said, "Oopsy. Our problem. We fixed it. Nothing to see here." Just askin'....

And now... AUKUS, but no CAN?

Regular readers will know that Walt often refers to "the AABC countries" -- America, Australian, Britain and Canada -- which are (or should be) the major English-speaking countries, who have (or should have) common interests and should therefore support each other against common interests. Sometimes things work out. Sometimes not.

I left New Zealand out of that list because "AABCNZ" is rather unwieldy, and, let's be frank, New Zealand isn't much more than an appendage of Australia. [Some would say Canada isn't much more than an appendage of othe USA! Ed.] But in recent years all five countries have joined together in an "intelligence alliance" called the Five Eyes.

The United Kingdom - United States of America Agreement, to give the Five Eyes its formal name, has now been superseded (or modified or strengthened -- depends how you look at it), by AUKUS -- a new security pact beweetn America, Australia and Britain... but not Canada.

Here's Senile Joe, flanked virtually by Aussie Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British PM Boris Johnson (see footnote), announcing the trilateral security partnership, aimed at countering the increasing dominance of Communist China in Asia and the Pacific. None of the three leaders mentioned China, but there can be no doubt that the initiative was a response to China’s expansionist drive in the South China Sea and increasing belligerence towards Taiwan.

The plan includes building a nuclear-powered submarine fleet, along with wide-ranging projects on cyber warfare, artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Over the next 18 months, teams from the AAB countries are to draw up a plan for assembling a new Australian nuclear-powered submarine fleet. Australia will become only the seventh country in the world to have submarines propelled by nuclear reactors. 

Speaking from London, BoJo said the three countries were "natural allies" even though "we may be separated geographically," He added that the alliance would create "a new defence partnership and driving jobs and prosperity." Of course. Pouring massive amounts of money into the military-industrial complex (a phrase coined as a warning by the late President Eisenhower) always results in jobs and prosperity, if not peace.

BoJo neglected to mention that since the Brits handed Hong Kong (on a silver platter) to China in 1997, they have had virtually no territories in the Pacific. "Separated georgraphically" was something of an understatement! How is it, one wonders, that a country with a very long Pacific coastline, was left out of the agreement. I refer to Canada, and the question is a good one.

Could it be that the AAB countries don't trust Canada, now that it's under the proprietorship of the very Liberal Just In Trudeau, who has openly expressed his admiration for Communist China and their ways of "getting things done"?

The Globe and Mail quotes Eric Miller, a political and business consultant specializing in Canada-U.S. affairs, as saying AUKUS represents an alliance between countries "more willing than Canada to take on China... Those who are in the world of 'we need to directly confront China, and use all of our assets and resources to do that' – they are essentially moving forward."

Canada is clearly not in the "world" to which Mr Miller refers. It is the only one of the Five Eyes not to have banned Huawei Technologies from its 5G network. Intelligence experts fear that the Chinese firm could use such access to collect sensitive information and turn it over to Beijing's spy agencies.

The Canadian government has been dithering for three years over what to do about Huawei, and its position is more than awkward because of its continued detention of Meng Wanzhou, aka "The Princess of Huawei". The CFO of the telecoms giant has for some three years been under house arrest ["mansion arrest", shurely! Ed.] awaiting extradition to the USA on a warrant issued by the Trump administration.

The arrest of Ms Meng angered the Chicomms, who retaliated by arresting "the two Michaels" -- Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor -- Canadian citizens who have now spent well over 1000 days in Chinese prisons, as hostages for the release of Ms Meng. Sleepy Joe could solve that problem for Mr Socks by giving the OK to let Ms Meng go, but this is the one action of the Trump administration which he apparently doesn't want to undo.

Canada is also reluctant to jeopardize business interests in China, which include export markets for canola, pork and seafood. "Canada has not really made a choice about where it stands on China. For a long time, the attitude has been, 'We'll focus on the economic relationship with China, and the security relationship with the U.S. will be unaffected'" Mr. Miller said. "Canada now has to choose between its economic interests and security interests." 

The office of the Prime Minister of Canuckistan would not answer questions about AUKUS, including about whether it had been involved in discussions over the pact, or whether it had asked to join or wanted to join in the future. A spokesthing for Blackie McBlackface referred questions to the government's  "Global Affairs" [sic] department, but answer came there none.

Footnote: You think I'm disrespectful to keep referring to the freely and fairly elected President of the Excited States of America as "Sleepy Joe"? In its report on AUKUS, Breitbart News says that Mr Biden appeared to forget who he was talking to when he looked away from his prepared notes for just a few seconds and addressed Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison as "that fella down under."

Another footnote (added 17/9/21): Canada's alleged foreign policy was, in the first years of Mr Socks' government, led by Chrystia Freeland, "Diplomat of the Year" in 2018. She was known as "The Lady in Red" -- colour-coordinated with the Communist Chinese flag?!

Nashville explosion: Nothing to see here, folks ???

The story so far. Big bang rocks Nashville as Christmas Day dawns. White RV demolished near AT&T transmission building. That and 40 other buildings damaged. Power outages plague Nashville. Electronic communications disrupted across five states.

Human meatballs found inside smoldering remains of white RV. Cops/FBI/CIA posit suicide "bombing" but clueless on motive or choice of target, also fail to explain how a bomb inside an RV could do that much damage. Walt suggests another possibility. See "Some awkward questions about the Nashville explosion" (WWW 26/12/20) and "James Bond & the Electromagnetic Pulse" (WWW 27/12/20. Includes videos.)

Yesterday the authorities named Nashville resident Anthony Quinn Warner, a techie and "computer consultant" as the "bomber" who blew himself to smithereens. Why did he do it? The British Daily Mail  quotes "a source close to the investigation" as saying that Mr Warner hoped he would be "hailed a hero" for targeting AT&T because he believed 5G cellular technology was killing people. 

The less-than-esteemed tabloid paints the deceased as a member of the tinfoil hat brigade who was "heavily into conspiracy theories." Since the 5G telecommunications network was introduced, claims have been made that it's a tool to spy on Americans (Herro, Huawei!) and that it has fueled the spread of Covid-19. 

OK, let's suppose those claims are baseless (Right, Huawei?), and that Mr Huawei was indeed nutsy-kookoo to think that taking out one transmission facility would save Nashville/the country/the world. Still open is the question of how he did it. Which brings us back to the first paragraph and the possibility suggested by Walt that he used an EMP. 

EMP? Wozzat? Try to keep up please. EMP = electromagnetic pulse generator, a very powerful version of which was used in the fictional James Bond movie Golden Eye. Well...  themovie is not entirely fictional. EMPs are real, and can be purchased online for less than $200. Check out this l'il gem. 

I note that this particular model is shown as "sold out". But there are others. And of course you'd need a lot  more power than that provided by a 24-volt battery. A "computer consultant", even acting alone (???) should be able to figure out a way to tap into a gigantic power source, such as might be found in... wait for it... an AT&T transmission centre. Just a thought.