Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Fourth Undersea Cable Taken Offline In Less Than a Week

Posted by Zonk on from the bad-week-to-be-a-backbone-cable dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Another undersea cable was taken offline on Friday, this one connecting Qatar and UAE. 'The [outage] caused major problems for internet users in Qatar over the weekend, but Qtel's loss of capacity has been kept below 40% thanks to what the telecom said was a large number of alternative routes for transmission. It is not yet clear how badly telecom and internet services have been affected in the UAE.' In related news it's been confirmed that the two cables near Egypt were not cut by ship anchors." Update: 02/04 07:13 GMT by Z : A commenter notes that despite the language in the article indicated a break or malfunction, the cable wasn't cut. It was taken offline due to power issues.

14 of 499 comments (clear)

  1. Cue... by fyngyrz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...the bombs in 3... 2... 1...

    Seriously, is there anyone who doesn't think this is either a precursor to military action, or a direct attack on Iran's about-to-launch Euro-based oil market?

    4 cuts, as far as I am concerned, is no co-incidence. I literally expect to turn on the TV and see bombs falling any day now. Economy down, turn up the war machine. It really is a common historical sequence.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:Cue... by djdavetrouble · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You're not thinking outside of the tin-foil box.
      These are obviously failed attempts to tap internet traffic.
      The NSA has long been rumored to be able to live splice
      undersea fibre optic cables.

      --
      music lover since 1969
    2. Re:Cue... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I wish the US would stop trying to impose themselves on the rest of the world.

      I don't think this is the U.S. The U.S. would make sure to cut all the cables at once, therefore ensuring maximum disruption and surprise at the time of the attack. The way this is being done is slow and relatively uncoordinated. Which suggests either a probing maneuver or a lack of resources.

      The U.S. is fairly straightforward with its objectives. The brass doesn't like taking things slowly when it comes to war. The plan is to get in, blow stuff up, rebuild the critical infrastructure, then leave. It doesn't always work that way (e.g. Iraq), but it is the ideal scenario that every General and Admiral desires. Long and protracted wars are far too costly. Not just to the U.S. itself, but also on a personal level for the brass.

      Which raises the question: Who would gain from slowly cutting international Internet access in the Middle East? The myriad of plausible answers contrasted with the lack of any solid suspects scares me a hell of a lot more than any U.S. military operations. IMHO, it's in the best interest of the U.S. to find out what is going on NOW. Something big may be coming down the pipeline in the middle east. If and when it comes, it's not going to be pleasant.
      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    3. Re:Cue... by fredklein · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The idea is, you cut the cable at point 'A', and make it look like it was an accident (ship anchor, etc). Then, before they fix the cable, you trot on down the cable a few (tens of) miles to point 'B' and cut the cable there, too. But now you splice in a repeater that copies everything sent over that cable and sends it ...to you! When the cable is fixed at the original spot, comm traffic starts up, and no one is the wiser.

    4. Re:Cue... by flyingsquid · · Score: 5, Insightful
      The fucking irony here is that Iran is a lot more of a real threat than iraq was.

      Just as ironic is the fact that even though they didn't fight in Gulf War II, Iran won the war.

      The U.S. has lost because we have failed to achieve our major strategic objectives -to create a stable, Western-style democracy in Iraq and beat back Islamic terrorism- and instead we have been left weaker in every single way. We have no credibility and no allies, so we're weak on the diplomatic front. Our military is overextended and its readiness to fight another war has been reduced. We're poorer, by about a trillion dollars.

      Iran wins because two of their major strategic objectives have been achieved: the threat of Iraq and the threat of the U.S. have both been neutralized. Iraq is no longer a threat, because Saddam has been deposed, the military is destroyed, and the new government is Shiite, and too weak to stand up to Iran. The United States is no longer a threat: we can't use diplomacy against Iran, because even if we had proof they were up to something, no one will believe us, and few of our allies will back us up because we're so unpopular abroad. We can't use military force, because we don't have the troops to spare, and again it's unlikely we could get any other countries to assist in a military effort. We do have aircraft and cruise missiles, so in theory we could use airstrikes. But if we try anything, they can use the Shiite militias to attack our forces in Iraq and stir up the civil war there, so even a limited air war with Iran would be tough. Finally, any major conflict with Iran would threaten the oil supply, and with it, the world economy.

      So we won't attack Iran, because we can't. And Iran knows it. Their president is a belligerent idiot, they harass our destroyers with their gunboats, they kidnap British seamen, and they send arms to Iraqi insurgents, and they continue to pursue nuclear weapons, all because they know there's not a god damn thing the U.S. can do about it. These are not the actions of a country that is afraid of imminent invasion.

    5. Re:Cue... by pipatron · · Score: 5, Funny

      Their president is a belligerent idiot, [...] , and they continue to pursue nuclear weapons

      Hm, remind me again, which country are you talking about here?

      --
      c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
  2. The cable was not cut - Bad summary, bad! by AchiIIe · · Score: 5, Informative

    RTFA: The cable was not cut, it was taken offline due to power problems.

    > the problem is related to the power system and not the result of a ship's anchor cutting the cable, as is thought to be the case in the other three incidents.

    --
    Nature journal lied in Britannica vs Wikipedia Ask to retrac
    1. Re:The cable was not cut - Bad summary, bad! by SEWilco · · Score: 5, Funny

      Don't interrupt us with facts!

  3. Order of Battle by AtomicSnarl · · Score: 5, Informative

    From Sun Tzu (IIRC):

    1. Attack the plan - Futility
    2. Attack the alliances - Division
    3. Attack the resources - Frustration
    4. Attack the army in the field - Attrition
    5. Attack the cities - Destruction

    The costs increase with each step, which is why the cities are last. Good, proactive intellegence and operatives can prevent things from happening. If not, they can foul things up so they can't happen. Communications is a resource, so it looks like step 3 is on the table.

    --
    Pacifist paratroopers yell, "Ghandi!" when they jump.
  4. Re:[Citation Needed] --NT by fohat · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's the link that was on reddit.com on Friday regarding this info:
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=JES20080202&articleId=7980

    --
    Is there heaven? Is there Hell? Is that a Tuna Melt I smell?-Primus
  5. Cable Not Cut; Cable Merely 'Damaged' by n+dot+l · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The entire sentence you quoted from is:

    The cause of damage is not yet known, but ArabianBusiness.com has been told unofficially the problem is related to the power system and not the result of a ship's anchor cutting the cable, as is thought to be the case in the other three incidents. So it's really a question of what "damage" means in this case. Are we talking about a mundane problem that happens on a regular basis (which was only reported due to all the other links going down at around the same time) or did a component that almost never fails suddenly break down under mysterious circumstances?

    Not to run against the whole "this could mean only one thing" meme, but I think it's just as likely that some old hardware sitting at the ends of that cable got stressed past its breaking point because having the other links down finally pushed it past its limits.
  6. Re:deliberate? still don't think so by Stealth+Potato · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...it's not the U.S. government behind it. It would more likely be some incompetent, rogue group that doesn't know what it's doing.
    So, like the United States Government then? :-D
  7. Re:[Citation Needed] --NT by flyingsquid · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I agree that it looks mighty suspicious, but I have a hard time seeing how it could be a conspiracy. First, look at who's affected: Eygpt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Sri Lanka, even India. Don't get me wrong, I despise the White House and wouldn't trust anything Cheney said while his lips were moving, but I have trouble seeing why the United States would want to attack even one of these countries, particularly Saudi Arabia. Even if they do support and export terrorists, the Saudi leadership are close allies of the United States- we just sold them a shitload of JDAM satellite-guided bombs, after all, why would we then turn around and take out their internet access? And even assuming the U.S. or some other nation did want to attack one of these nations, why do it this way, which attacks the entire Middle East indiscriminately?

    As suspicious as it looks, I think it's just really, really bad luck. But then again, maybe I need to get with the times and be a little more paranoid.

  8. Re:[Citation Needed] --NT by F34nor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well for one thing you may be mistaking the culprit.

    Al-Qaeda's main enemy is not the US. It is Arab countries who are not conservative enough. 9-11 was about getting the US out of The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA,) not about freedom or anything a vague as that. If Al-Qaeda was able to cut off Internet service to the KSA, UAE, Qatar, and etc. that would be a huge coup for Al-Qaedi. What do they object to? They object to, anything that allows people to question their limited ultra-wahabi dogma. Currently UAE is the official named target of Al-Qaeda's wrath.

    Don't forget the largest US base in the region is in Qatar.