Slashdot Mirror
Millions in Middle East Lose Internet
Shipwack writes "Tens of millions of internet users across the Middle East and Asia have been left without access to the web after a technical fault cut millions of connections.
The outage, which is being blamed on a fault in a single undersea cable, has severely restricted internet access in countries including India, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and left huge numbers of people struggling to get online.
Observers say that the digital blackout first struck yesterday morning, with Egypt's communications ministry suggesting it was caused by a cut in a major internet pipeline linking it to Europe."
Russian subs used to employ a cutting device on some of their submarines designed to cut the cables used in undersea sonar nets... I'm thinking it wouldn't take too much to start a war these days given how much we rely on these underwater communication cables. That said, it's more likely that a ship's anchor snagged it.
There is simply too much glass..
Cutting cables merely temporarily deprives your opponent of his ability to use that cable. Far better to tap the cable and monitor everything that's being sent across it without your opponent knowing that you're listening in. It also has the added bonus that cable traffic is not typically encrypted as radio transmissions are.
That is not TCP, but rather BGP (Border Gateway Protocol). TCP handles data transmission and congestion control. It doesn't do routing.
Would you pay 2 time the price to prevent a one-day outage once every year ? Military does. Consumers don't. Yet.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Internet split into two independent networks due to broken cable
Europe and America cut from the internet
That's what I thought. This probably isn't a case of "Middle East Loses Internet", more a case of "Millions in Middle East Now Using One Fibre Connection Instead Of Two".
Like when a major motorway gets closed due to an accident, and every road within a hundred mile radius is choked for the rest of the day.
There's no redundancy because people do not demand it. Why is it that military communications don't ever fail like this? Simple, because the customer understands the importance of fault-free operation and is willing to pay for it.
Sometimes this is the case. But you also get the likes of soldiers borrowing phones from journalists because they work better than military radios.