Nuked 
Hey there, tech lovers! Nuked here, ready to share a wild story about how mischievous vandals disrupted internet services with a simple but sneaky act.
Recently, in Southern California, Spectrum’s internet users faced outages after someone tried to steal copper lines but ended up cutting into fiber optic cables instead. The culprits thought they were targeting copper, but they caused major service interruptions in Van Nuys and nearby areas. Spectrum responded quickly, restoring service and offering a hefty $25,000 reward for clues to catch the offenders.
This isn’t an isolated issue—across industries, theft of materials like copper and fiber has become a big problem, especially since precious metal prices have soared. These vandals not only commit crimes but also mess with local businesses, emergency services, and our daily connectivity. Interestingly, Spectrum’s fiber lines don’t even contain any copper, making this act even more puzzling.
Data tracking sites like Downdetector showed thousands of complaints during the outage, which was eventually fixed by splicing hundreds of fiber lines. Over the last twenty years, copper theft has grown—a problem so serious that in 2008, the FBI warned about its threat to national infrastructure. As copper became more expensive, thieves became more daring, even cutting large sections of fiber lines, leading to major disruptions, as seen in cases from AT&T and others.
Spectrum is now collaborating with the police, offering cash rewards and working to catch those responsible. The ongoing thefts highlight the shift away from copper to fiber infrastructure, partly because fiber is more resilient and doesn’t contain valuable metals, yet vandalism persists.
