Getting a better look at the sheer size and windowless-ness of that facility, I suspect it was more likely the primary target than the courthouse.
The size of that VBIED was clearly designed to knock out that building entirely. It was no small bomb.
However, anti-terrorist architecture has come a long way since Oklahoma City. If it's critical network infrastructure, there may be some kind of re-enforced outer walls to protect it. Not to mention, the distance from the building is probably what saved it.
I still suspect that whoever attacked the facility missed. They wanted to destroy that building... but they didn't want to kill people.
Normally state actors like China, Iran, or North Korea wouldn't need to blow up a telecom center, they could do plenty of damage without physically attacking it. This may be a genuine unaffiliated terrorist. Unless done by a conventional military force, state actors don't tend to take that much effort into keeping civilians out of harm's way. That kind of thing seems like someone who wants to hurt a system, but not people, as a moral act. That would make it much more likely to be a terrorist than a state actor who would be much more pragmatic and uncaring.
All that being said, I'm pretty confident we can cross "Islamist" off the list at this point.
Hahahaha yeah something about the woman politely asking people to evacuate downtown didn't exactly scream "Muslim" to me. They'd be driving a van labeled "free candy".
Getting some strong NSA vibes from that building. But I do know a little bit about centers like these. Those floors just house equipment and not people, they don't really benefit from windows and it's likely not nefarious or covert. Who knows.
As a telecom AT&T obviously works hand-in-hand with the NSA. Here's an article from The Intercept dating back to June 2018.
It doesn't mention Nashville specifically, but does cite other cities and general infrastructure precautions (bombs, earthquakes). The Nashville building was supposedly built in 1994, so it's fairly modern.
If the reason is election related then it's surprising as a layman that the Atlanta point wouldn't have been targeted instead, and again, it seems unlikely that critical infrastructure wouldn't have safe-guards...but who knows.
There are AT&T outages in Atlanta. Do those logs have evidence of election fraud in the presidential election or the upcoming election?
The Nashville location was apparently a switching hub. It's possible that other outages are knock-on effects to an over-burdened telecom network.
Atlanta-Nashville is a good spot for an inter-regional link. It's definitely possible.
Getting a better look at the sheer size and windowless-ness of that facility, I suspect it was more likely the primary target than the courthouse.
The size of that VBIED was clearly designed to knock out that building entirely. It was no small bomb.
However, anti-terrorist architecture has come a long way since Oklahoma City. If it's critical network infrastructure, there may be some kind of re-enforced outer walls to protect it. Not to mention, the distance from the building is probably what saved it.
I still suspect that whoever attacked the facility missed. They wanted to destroy that building... but they didn't want to kill people.
Normally state actors like China, Iran, or North Korea wouldn't need to blow up a telecom center, they could do plenty of damage without physically attacking it. This may be a genuine unaffiliated terrorist. Unless done by a conventional military force, state actors don't tend to take that much effort into keeping civilians out of harm's way. That kind of thing seems like someone who wants to hurt a system, but not people, as a moral act. That would make it much more likely to be a terrorist than a state actor who would be much more pragmatic and uncaring.
All that being said, I'm pretty confident we can cross "Islamist" off the list at this point.
Hahahaha yeah something about the woman politely asking people to evacuate downtown didn't exactly scream "Muslim" to me. They'd be driving a van labeled "free candy".
Getting some strong NSA vibes from that building. But I do know a little bit about centers like these. Those floors just house equipment and not people, they don't really benefit from windows and it's likely not nefarious or covert. Who knows.
As a telecom AT&T obviously works hand-in-hand with the NSA. Here's an article from The Intercept dating back to June 2018.
It doesn't mention Nashville specifically, but does cite other cities and general infrastructure precautions (bombs, earthquakes). The Nashville building was supposedly built in 1994, so it's fairly modern.
If the reason is election related then it's surprising as a layman that the Atlanta point wouldn't have been targeted instead, and again, it seems unlikely that critical infrastructure wouldn't have safe-guards...but who knows.
AT&T had the infamous Room 641A, which was the first publicly confirmed NSA tap on internet infrastructure.