Is an adversary attacking US Internet Providers?

[Amol S.]

It's one thing for two different network providers in an area to be down at the same time. It's a whole different thing if all internet providers go down at the same time in NYC. My internet just came back on, and I saw this on down detector.

 

[Jaskalas]

NYC might be having an issue, not sure I noticed anything in the Midwest.
In a city that dense I wouldn't be surprised if there are certain vital arteries that could have... issues.

 

[BoomerD]

It would NOT surprise me if Russia, China, or even Iran did something like this.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Considering we just had a major outage caused by simple fucking stupidity on the part of corporations, not sure I'd jump to it being cyberwarfare by a foreign government. Frankly, I don't even see it would benefit them, as the more time online Americans spend, seemingly the less informed, dumber, and prone to jumping to conspiracy theories they are. (See this thread a prime example.)

Hell, even as far as political terrorism I'd guess the call is coming from inside the house first, between how many Neo Nazis and right wing nutjobs fantasize about plans to take out stuff like the electrical grid to try to trigger a race war, and how the tech companies and crypto industry are tripping over their dicks to suck up to Turmp and Republicans, they'd be more likely culprits than any of those countries.

Could even be some internet backbone stuff, as all of them are dependent on pipes they don't control. With a couple of major hurricanes, I could see traffic being re-routed or some backbone nodes needing to be replaced down that way, leading to some temporary disruptions elsewhere.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

It's one thing for two different network providers in an area to be down at the same time. It's a whole different thing if all internet providers go down at the same time in NYC. My internet just came back on, and I saw this on down detector.

That's a tough one to answer, because it depends on the specificity of the question. Black hats from various countries search for vulnerable systems (generally automated) on a continual basis. State actors may or may not be doing the same, or focusing attacks on someone or something specific at any given moment. Attacking the actual internet's infrastructure isn't easy, but sometimes there's weak spots that someone can get leverage on, or if they get enough resources in just the right places they might be able to ddos something, but widespread stuff is hard due to the distributed nature of things.

Based on absolutely nothing, I'd say either something centralized to several ISPs is getting ddos'd, or something high up failed and it's causing too much load somewhere else.

I'd need more information to draw any other conclusions.

 

[brycejones]

Attacks never stop. Networks around the world are constantly being attacked by various actors.

 

[sdifox]

is OP teleporting back and forth between LA and NYC?

 

[pete6032]

It would NOT surprise me if Russia, China, or even Iran did something like this.

I think it happens 24/7. Success rate it just low. There are probably morons in our own country doing it too.

 

[FelixDeCat]

If the internet goes down not much will be lost tbh. The whole thing has devolved into a toilet thanks to AI auto-generated brain rot content.

Seriously, that crap is almost completely unavoidable now on YT videos, image sites and 'news' outlets. 😳

 

[hal2kilo]

That's a tough one to answer, because it depends on the specificity of the question. Black hats from various countries search for vulnerable systems (generally automated) on a continual basis. State actors may or may not be doing the same, or focusing attacks on someone or something specific at any given moment. Attacking the actual internet's infrastructure isn't easy, but sometimes there's weak spots that someone can get leverage on, or if they get enough resources in just the right places they might be able to ddos something, but widespread stuff is hard due to the distributed nature of things.

Based on absolutely nothing, I'd say either something centralized to several ISPs is getting ddos'd, or something high up failed and it's causing too much load somewhere else.

I'd need more information to draw any other conclusions.

Probably someone put a backhoe somewhere it doesn't belong. Happened to Astound about 2 months ago.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Probably someone put a backhoe somewhere it doesn't belong. Happened to Astound about 2 months ago.

U put a backhoe where? 🤭

 

[Humpy]

It would NOT surprise me if Russia, China, or even Iran did something like this.

Probably just the NSA performing some routine server maintenance and nothing to be alarmed about.

 

[iRONic]

It would NOT surprise me if Russia, China, or even Iran did something like this.

All three of them absolutely are doing that. They aren't the only ones, including bad actors right inside the United States.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Probably someone put a backhoe somewhere it doesn't belong. Happened to Astound about 2 months ago.

Hey now, you build fiber lines in a backhoe's environment, don't be surprised with the result. We're encroaching on THEIR territory, not the other way around.