THE OBSERVER

SQUIRREL!

If your internet goes out, as The Observer’s did recently, it’s likely the cyberattack comes not from the Russians, but from forces much closer to home. That was the case in the Kingwood neighborhood in early June, when a cluster of five houses suffered the extremely First World problem of a temporary lack of access to Netflix.

Temperatures soaring and classes out for the year, the problem took on more importance than it might have in, say, April, when school and soccer practices forestalled the excessive screen time emblematic of The Observer’s seasonal parental failings.

Three days after sending up a call for help (insert three tiny violin emojis here), we welcomed the AT&T troubleshooter like a liberating force, here to free us from wholesome family fun and conversation. After a quick inspection of cords and connections, though, the hangdog service tech broke the news: The squirrels went berserk on the fiber-optic network, gnawing through the toothsome cables in multiple spots and shutting down any work-from-home capabilities for the eastern side of the street. And, while the damage was inflicted by a tiny rodent, the problem was too big for him to fix alone. Two more service trucks pulled up, but it would take the crew a couple more days before The Observer could binge “Peaky Blinders” season six.

With internet restored, Google sleuthing revealed that as with most threats large and small, mundane answers (rodents desperate to gnaw their ever-growing teeth back down to size) are more likely culprits than the more conspiratorial, fantastical ones (cyber warfare launched from enemy states, solar flares). The science is hard to pin down here, but marauding squirrels and their rodent brethren are accused of causing more damage to critical infrastructure than either malevolent hackers or powerful storms. Apparently snakes, birds and slugs sometimes get in on the act, too.

Waxing philosophic on this heavy revelation that our true enemies are closer than we ever knew and hidden in plain sight, The Observer reached out to industry experts, hoping they would indulge this line of catastrophizing. They weren’t into it, though, and sent only a perfunctory, zero-fun statement:

Occasionally, our aerial fiber and copper cables can be damaged by squirrels and other small rodents. While this may affect service for individual customers, it’s typically not responsible for widespread impacts. If this does occur, our technicians work quickly to repair damage and restore service.

It’s a fair answer. Maybe there’s no deeper meaning, no worrisome implications, no need to look or think further. But something about the response felt a bit squirrely, if you will. A one-sentence answer to a virtually unknown threat to the nation’s vital infrastructure?

It turns out that scholars and analysts agree there’s something happening here that’s worth keeping tabs on. Researchers at the University of Nebraska were asking the important questions as early as 1989, with their groundbreaking exposè that revealed squirrels caused 24% of all power outages in Lincoln that year, long before internet cables even existed to be added to the menu. Their stats hold up. Today, squirrels can claim credit for nearly a fifth of network outages, although of course it’s hard to know for sure.

Understanding the enemy felt important, so The Observer looked to @CyberSquirrel1, a menacing Twitter persona who brags about power grid destruction already wrought by the animal kingdom and threatens more. A Canadian beaver recently went viral for breaking the internet. For you dataheads out there, CyberSquirrel tracks his and fellow critters’ conquests on a global map at cybersquirrel1.com.

How is it that The Observer, so often homebound and reliant on an internet connection during this pandemic that might just be our life now, had no idea of these dangers lurking in the oaks? There’s a lot to parse about powerlessness in the face of nature, and how small problems can become big ones. Luckily though, with the internet turned back on and distractions once again readily at hand, The Observer doesn’t spend too much time worrying about it.