Anyone that thinks of stealing copper from BT's (NYSE: BT) network should think twice about their actions. While many U.S.-based service providers have posted rewards for information that leads to arrests of copper thieves, BT has taken an even more extreme action by placing "smartwater" bombs that spray not only the culprits but also the copper itself.
This SmartWater liquid carries a DNA finger print that not only links the thief to the crime scene, but the stains they leave on the thief can be detected by police carrying ultra-violet light detectors.
What's contributed to the increase in copper theft in recent years has been the rising price of copper. "There's a direct correlation between the price of copper and the level of theft," said Bernie Auguste, head of security for BT Openreach.
Copper theft is not just a UK problem, however. AT&T and Frontier have in the past year reported various incidences of copper theft-crimes that also caused outages on their respective networks.
For more:
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