Actually they cut the fiber cable going to the SSL to get at copper wire.
Here is the news from Berkeley on that one.

"March 5, 2001

Around 11:00 GMT (3:00am PST) on Tuesday, February 27, 2001, network fibers
were broken, cutting off the entire Space Sciences Laboratory and Lawrence
Berkeley Labs from the internet. It turns out this was the work of vandals
who cut the fiber in the process of gathering a bunch of expensive copper
wire. Due to the difficulty in finding the break, and then repairing in the
rain and mud (on a steep slope no less), the outage lasted over five days."



Ahhh, the memories.



"Number 6" <Number6@The Village.Org> wrote in message
news:cdhep704r4@drn.newsguy.com...

Some of you folks have to chill out a bit. There have been outages before,

like

the time somebody swiped the copper cable leading to the SSL and the site

was

down for a week. There will be outages again. Just keep enough workunits

cached

to get you through a week or a little more. If you're having problems

connecting

then check the newsgroups to see if anyone else is having problems. It's

not the

end of the world if you can't connect for a day or two. I sent 6 results

and

received 6 new work units just minutes ago.
Rick

"Who is Number 1?" "You are Number 6." "I am not a number...I am a free
man." "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha..."