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I would like to point all the conspiracy theories who think everything in the world that goes wrong is to be laid at the feet of someone or something to a sobering article and some facts (yes I know facts are hard to comprehend when you're the type of person who thinks steel has to completely melt into a liquid for a building to collapse, but please, stick with me).

First, let's start with a reference:

http://www.iscpc.org/publications/About_Cables_in_PDF_Format.pdf

Page 34 is a good place to start, coupled with page 13. The fact is that there are hundreds of these cables across the world and many covering local areas are kept close to each other as can be seen on the map. Now look at page 34 and realise that the following can cause cable cuts:

Anchors, Trawlers, Sharks, Earthquakes, Landslides, Fault lines, Currents, Waves, Extreme weather, Ice bergs (not in the middle east though I'd hope!).

Many other human activities can be responsible too of course (sinking ships, cargo/litter being dumped off ships etc.)

Now check here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/08/seabed_cable_break_fix_forecast/

Where it's noted that about 2 cables a week break on average.

So really, when there's so many cables (sometimes close together), when there's so many hazards for the cables, and when two cables a week requiring repairs is the norm does it really have to be an "OMG they're out to get us" drama, when instead of the average 2 cuts a week we have the oh so above average 3?

Finally, last time this happened, the boats responsible were caught via satellite and brought to justice:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/14/undersea_cable_cut_ships_nabbed/

Sorry guys, as much as I myself think making George Bush president twice is probably one of the worst things a population can ever do conspiracy theories about America trying to cut off Iran or whatever simply don't cut it (pun not intended). This is neither an odd occurance, nor is it a coincidence unless it's a coincidence that it happens every god damn week.

There is no reason a single trawler pulling big heavy nets along the ocean floor couldn't be responsible for damage to the whole lot, the cables are all shown as very close to each other, and despite the summary suggesting all 3 cuts happened within 5 minutes of each other, they didn't, the SeaMeWe cables were cut within 5 minutes of each other and FLAG about half hour later- that sounds very much like an anchor or trawler at play.

For all the anti-religious sentiment on Slashdot, many people here aren't half prone to believing in some rather far fetched ideas when it comes to stuff like this. Personally, I prefer to at least be consistent and believe that it's all a load of crap which usually it seems it is!

Newsflash: any undersea cable damage that causes a partial or complete outage is called a "cut". Most undersea cable "cuts" are not caused by ships, and most don't represent a cable being completely severed. They're caused by water currents, age, underwater pressure, kinks, geologic movement, natural phenomena, power failures, equipment outages, and a whole host of other issues. That's why there is an undersea cable failure, or "cut" in industry parlance, once every three days, on average, and why there are a fleet of 25 ships that do nothing but repair undersea cables.

Okay...

"Cable cuts happen on average once every three days," Beckert said. There are 25 large ships that do nothing but fix cable cuts and bends, [Stephan] Beckert [of TeleGeography Research] adds. [...] "Only the first two cuts had any serious impact on the internet." [...] Once those failures sensitized a conspiracy-happy net, it was natural that other cable failures would be found to feed the frenzy, because they occur all the time. [...] "Its difficult to tell what the motive would be: is it just to annoy people?" [Todd] Underwood [, a vice president at internet analysis firm Renesys,] said. "If it were targeted, the targeting is bad. The loonies on the American left say this was us targeting Iran. If this is us targeting Iran, we are much worse than I thought we were. [...] Are we really targeting India or Pakistan?" Underwood asked incredulously.

I love how conspiracy theories can explain away everything. If oil traders were really afraid of using the Iranian bourse because they think they're going to get on the US's bad side, and have made that decision because of the cable failures, you'd be able to find at least one person -- indeed, many -- saying that. Also, even though it would be in Iran's interests to finger the US for trying to stop the bourse, you claim that Iran is instead trying to hide that, because they are afraid it would scare people away from using the bourse. Iran was barely affected by this, so how can they be assumed to be the target? Even that can be explained away as, "Well, the US didn't want to make it too obvious, and knew that potential bourse clients would 'get the message'," all while everyone remains miraculously silent?

Look, I know you and others may want to believe this was deliberate US action against Iran. Unfortunately, the facts just don't support that claim. Even the fantasies people have come up with don't support that claim. This whole Iranian Oil Bourse plot is nothing more than a figment of the blogosphere's overworked imagination. The bourse is here, and, as everyone except Iran's state-run press predicted, it has been met with a lukewarm reception.

It would appear even shark and fish bites can break the cables:

http://www.iscpc.org/publications/About_Cables_in_PDF_Format.pdf

But they are also prone to breaking from bad weather such as storms. So it would seem there's any number of possible causes for a cable to break, ship anchors are only one such reason.

According to this very PDF in shallow waters less than 100m less than 10% of cable breaks are the result of natural activity, whilst at depths over 1000m the faults are more often caused by natural hazards. It seems most faults are the result of anchoring and fishing - 70% worth but of course 30% of faults are still caused by natural hazards.

It's reasonable in this case that the two areas effected were hit with two separate incidents, one could reasonably be a trawler for example causing two cuts in the Persian gulf whilst some natural event could've caused the breaks near Egypt or vice versa.

When you get all the facts it really doesn't seem so unreasonable that this really is just coincidence and not some big conspiracy theory. I'll admit I was beginning to feel it was a pretty big coincidence, but only when I didn't have all the information and only when I was also being fed false information (i.e. the lies about Iran being cut off from the net). Now I've got more information I think it's pretty reasonable to believe there's no conspiracy here, particularly as there isn't a conspiracy theory regarding the situation yet that doesn't actually make sense when you look at the overall picture yet.

According to an acquaintance who works for an ISP, the weird thing isn't that these cables are broken, it's that all of a sudden it's news. There are always issues with submarine systems. That is why we have so many repair ships in the global fleet:

list of ships

According to an acquaintance who works for an ISP, the weird thing isn't that these cables are broken, it's that all of a sudden it's news. There are always issues with submarine systems. That is why we have so many repair ships in the global fleet:

list of ships

And also here. Specifically, it was a "[t]elegraph cable from La Perouse, Sydney, Australia to Wakapauka, New Zealand (landing site moved to Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia in 1917) ... In-Service: 1876, Out-of-Service: 1932, Years of Service: 56 yrs"

If you think your Internet bandwidth and latency sucks, spare a thought for those using telegraph wires. The first transatlantic telegraph was sent from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1858: the message was 98 words long, and it took over 16 hours to send!