There is provided an apparatus that determines the location of an
impermissible tamper on an object, such as an impermissible attempt to
gain access to a manhole system or an attempt to steal a work of art,
includes a housing disposed adjacently to the object. A fiber optic cable
runs through the housing. The object includes a portion that cooperates
with internal components of the housing to maintain the fiber optic cable
in a non-attenuated state. Upon the impermissible tamper, that portion of
the object no longer cooperates with the internal components of the
housing. An elastic force internal to the housing cooperates with more
internal housing components to create a microbend to the fiber optic
cable. Using known optical time domain reflectometer technology, the
location of the microbend along the fiber optic cable is readily
discerned.