Satellite IDs Ships That Cut Cables

1sockchuck writes "Undersea telecom cable operator Reliance Globalcom was able to use satellite images to identify two ships that dropped anchor in the wrong place, damaging submarine cables and knocking Middle East nations offline in early February. The company used satellite images to study the movements of the two ships, and shared the information with officials in Dubai, who impounded the two vessels. The NANOG list has a discussion of where Reliance might have obtained satellite images to provide that level of detail. Google News links more coverage of the developments."

Comments

Coverup

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Yeah. Some private carrier finally analysed this - months later!

Oh! Look! It was Iraq and North Korea! Look! Look, Jane! See North Korea run!

The intels who did this don't even bother with subtlety anymore.

Re:Coverup

[Anonymous Coward]

It says a "Korean shipping company." Not North Korea.

My guess is that it was a South Korean shipping company. But that doesn't make for as much rhetoric.

Re:Coverup

[WaltBusterkeys]

It was Iraq and North Korea!

Except the second ship was South Korean, our ally. North Korea only has a handful of blue water ships. South Korea, electronics manufacturer to the world, has many.

When in doubt, "Korean" mean South Korean.

Re:Coverup

[eli pabst]

I think the tinfoil hat is cutting off circulation to your brain. If it's a South Korean ship (article doesn't specify) and an Iraqi ship, then they're both U.S. allies.

Re:Coverup

[tumbleweedsi]

The last report I saw into this suggested that it was the US because Iraq and Israel (the two main friends of the US in that region) were not impacted. This could either have been a test run for something else or a crafty excuse to re-route traffic from that region via the US (as actually happened) where the authorities have more chance of snooping on it. The reports into this were also pretty specific that sat data that was analysed at the time showed no vessels in the area of the break for 12 hours either side of the break.

Re:Coverup

[pipatron]

My guess is that it was a South Korean shipping company.

That's quite likely, since South Korea build the most ships in the world.

Re:Coverup

[WaltBusterkeys]

I actually retract my statement above. It's not clear whether the ship is North or South Korean at this point. The only entry in the international ship registry matching an MT Ann ("Merchant Transport Ann") is a North Korean vessel.

5105 7320069 ANN HMZE6 Oil Products Tanker 22600 1973 12 Korea (North)

However, there's an "Ankuk" on the same list that's a South Korean ship that would also match:

5090 8130033 ANKUK NO. 7 Oil Products Tanker 2474 1982 06 Korea (South)

I'm no expert on ships, so it's possible I'm looking in all the wrong places. Or that there's a translation problem from Korean to English. Maybe somebody else has a better lead?

Re:Coverup

[smittyoneeach]

Dude:
Were they not to "even bother with subtlety anymore", they'd have come out with this information much sooner.
God forbid a tiny amount of fact-checking before an accusation is made.
If this were Tuesday, I'd hand you Occam's Razor and some Burma Shave.
You are the boy who cried wolf (Blitzer).

Re:Coverup

[coinreturn]

If it's a South Korean ship (article doesn't specify) and an Iraqi ship, then they're both U.S. allies.

Iraq is only a U.S. ally because they were forced to be one.

Re:Coverup

[pklinken]

Sounds very interesting, can you post references ? (not trolling, you just piqued my curiosity)

Re:Coverup

[Zencyde]

You got TWO +5 Informatives by saying something and then retracting it? Oh wise one! Please teach me your ways.

Re:Coverup

[tumbleweedsi]

It was from a idefence report I got a few months back. It's not online but may still be available to buy from Verisign.

Re:Coverup

[eli pabst]

Won't disagree with you about that, but I doubt we'd fake this incident in order to start bombing Iraqi Ministry offices inside the Green Zone over it.

Re:Coverup

[Afrosheen]

Hahah...yeah it's amazing how many people will act friendly and go along with your plans when you press a loaded gun into the small of their backs.

Re:Coverup

[gr8scot]

My guess is that it was a South Korean shipping company. That's quite likely, since South Korea build the most ships in the world. Where the US media are concerned, any mention of "Korea" that does not specify "North" always means "South Korea," absolutely every time, and I doubt it's any different in Australian, European, and South African "news" publications.

Re:Coverup

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that it was a South Korean shipping company.

That's quite likely, since South Korea build the most ships in the world.

That's false logic. You are confusing "build" and "operate". Just because I sell the most bicycles in my town doesn't mean I ride them all.

Now all we need...

[Eevee1]

All we need is a photon beam that can cut cables instead of relying on ships.

Re:Now all we need...

[HTRednek]

You have to watch out for those photon beams.... we don't want another swath cut through Florida. That expanse was a mess, always tripping over spheres... did I mention I don't like reptiles?

Re:Now all we need...

[Eevee1]

You aren't going to vote into the election then, going by the fact you hate reptiles.

Re:Now all we need...

[MichaelSmith]

You aren't going to vote into the election then, going by the fact you hate reptiles. It won't make any difference because everybody votes for the lizards, in case the wrong lizard gets in.

Re:Now all we need...

[Megane]

All we need is a photon beam that can cut cables instead of relying on ships.

And a Selachimorph to mount it on.

Sorry, a fricking Selachimorph to mount it on.

weird, huh?

[ILuvRamen]

Kinda odd that they'd have taken a picture clear enough to ID ships of that remote part of the world the same day, or possibly even within a couple hours of the ships being there. And two cables cut by unrelated ships within such a short timeframe? This is soooo conspiracy inducing. I think it was all one big test to see what would happen if someone cut the cables. At least now we know all we have to do is drag and anchor to disrupt the communications infrastructure of entire countries. And we thought we needed EMP! Silly us.

Re:weird, huh?

[phantomfive]

And two cables cut by unrelated ships within such a short timeframe? This is soooo conspiracy inducing. Is it? have you even checked the likelihood of that happening? As a matter of fact, in an average year, around 50 undersea cables are broken. Given that there are 365 days in a year, what is the chance of two breaking in 'such a short timeframe?' It doesn't happen every day, but it's not really out of the ordinary. Check these things before you try to dream up a conspiracy.

Seriously, when it comes to technology slashdot is collectively pretty intelligent; but when it comes to paranoia and politics, slashdot collectively drops down to the IQ of a two year old.

Re:weird, huh?

[dunezone]

Well you finally solved it...

1. Create Paranoia on Slashdot
2. Make and Sell Tinfoil Hats
3. Profit

Re:weird, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, when it comes to technology slashdot is collectively pretty intelligent; but when it comes to paranoia and politics, slashdot collectively drops down to the IQ of a two year old.

The average 2 year old has an IQ of 100.

Re:weird, huh?

[CustomDesigned]

Applying the standard birthday paradox math, the probability that at least 2 of 50 cuts in a year fall on the same day is 97%. So the weird part is why these particular same day cuts were news. The odds of two cuts on the same day affecting the same country group are lower. It is harder to quantify "country group", however.

Re:weird, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, when it comes to technology slashdot is collectively pretty intelligent; but when it comes to paranoia and politics, slashdot collectively drops down to the IQ of a two year old.

AM NOT!!!! I'm telling Mom!

Re:weird, huh?

[fazookus]

For what it's worth, your basic two year old is breathtakingly smart, just not in the IQ sort of way. It's when they've gotten older and stupider that they become able to contribute to Slashdot.

Re:weird, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Such a short time frame ?

This is slashdot .. of course you understand the 'Birthday paradox'.If not , go look it up. after about 50 or so 'events' per year you are almost assured that two such events will happen on the same day.

Re:weird, huh?

[0111 1110]

For what it's worth, your basic two year old is breathtakingly smart, just not in the IQ sort of way You obviously haven't spent much time around children. Didn't Alex the African Grey parrot test as well as the average 2 year old human? Or are you talking about emotional intelligence?

Re:weird, huh?

[catbertscousin]

But do they come in black?

Re:weird, huh?

[MtViewGuy]

I think you're forgetting that both the Ikonos and Quick Bird satellites have one meter resolution, good enough to identify fairly closely the type of ship at that anchorage. And it will get even better when a new satellite going up soon with twice the resolution comes online later this year.

Re:weird, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've paid $Xmil to put a satelite in orbit, you might as well have it record 24x7 in case you have a chance to sell the imagery later to offset costs. And you dont need to read the name on the stern to ID a ship, you can look at the cargo on the desk, the length, width and height above water of the ship, location of the bridge tower, etc and identify it against the list of ships in the area.

Re:weird, huh?

[MrNaz]

So when people say "Slashdotters are a bunch of 2 year olds!" it's actually praise for the community?

Re:weird, huh?

[MrNaz]

I think he's talking about their incredible capacity to assimilate vast quantities of new information into a growing body of knowledge, and apply it almost instantly. The older people get, the lower is their capacity to learn and apply new knowledge. The phrase "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is a pithy expression of this almost* universal observation.

* Some people appear to retain a greater capacity for learning than others as they age, were I to guess, I'd guess that it was a result of keeping the brain active and exercising it with new learning tasks as often as one can. Like a muscle atrophies with disuse, so too does brain plasticity decrease with idleness.

Re:weird, huh?

[Zencyde]

But do they run Linux?
There. Fixed that for you.

Re:weird, huh?

[kabocox]

Is it? have you even checked the likelihood of that happening? As a matter of fact, in an average year, around 50 undersea cables are broken. Given that there are 365 days in a year, what is the chance of two breaking in 'such a short timeframe?' It doesn't happen every day, but it's not really out of the ordinary. Check these things before you try to dream up a conspiracy.

Seriously, when it comes to technology slashdot is collectively pretty intelligent; but when it comes to paranoia and politics, slashdot collectively drops down to the IQ of a two year old.

It's also a conspiracy that my trash isn't collected right when I put it out. Those black op trash collectors only pick up the trash like once a week!

Re:weird, huh?

[couchslug]

http://www.geoeye.com/products/imagery/geoeye1/default.htm is an example of commercial imagery. Pretty good, and good enough combined with a records check to identify ships.

"At least now we know all we have to do is drag and anchor to disrupt the communications infrastructure of entire countries."

Radios and landlines and satellites don't count?

Re:weird, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

But if you're paranoid enough to use a tinfoil hat, you'd also be paranoid enough to not trust someone else to make it for you. ;)

Re:weird, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

The odds of two cuts on the same day affecting the same country group are lower.

Wasn't it four cuts over the span of a week?

I hate to say I told you so...

[Grym]

And here I was being made to feel like a regular fool for not being 99.99% positive (as "proven" by Bayes' theorem, no less) that the U.S. government (or others) were intentionally disrupting internet services to presumably stop the Iranian Oil Bourse.

I'll never understand how a technical-minded group such as slashdot that prides itself on objectivity and generally mocks blind faith can, at times, get so easily carried away.

-Grym

Re:I hate to say I told you so...

[Architect_sasyr]

I'll never understand how a technical-minded group such as slashdot that prides itself on objectivity and generally mocks blind faith can, at times, get so easily carried away. Remember the child-hood comment "takes one to know one" when someone called you an idiot? Same idea, except most of us aren't willing to admit it.

Re:I hate to say I told you so...

[pembo13]

Well if you want to talk objectivity, then how do a few pixels prove anything to you?

Re:I hate to say I told you so...

[LaskoVortex]

Yes, that was me. Thank you for making me famous, or perhaps infamous.

Anyway, before, when the cable cutting phenomenon was brand new, this assumption was stated:

Considering that historically these cables are cut or disabled only once a year

If you go back and read my posts carefully, you will notice that I calculated odds based on that assumption. Now, in the post above by phantomfive, he stated a different, and perhaps more accurate number for the rate of undersea cable cutting:

As a matter of fact, in an average year, around 50 undersea cables are broken

I would have calculated different odds with the latter number. I'm still not sure which is correct. However I calculated the odds with the best numbers I could find. You certainly never provided a better number yourself, nor did any one else at the time. If you like, I can redo the math with the knowledge of 50 cuts per year. This will indeed drop the likelihood of correlation between the events and consequently our expectation that the events are the result of malicious activity.

Now, the question remains: was I right? Well, I stand by my ability to do arithmetic, so I am confident my math was right. Of course, considering your excitable and non-scientific nature, I'm wondering what meaning you are going to ascribe to my confidence in my math.

Re:I hate to say I told you so...

[Anonymous Coward]

Using history this way is a decent way to get Vegas odds for really bored gamblers before the fact, but it doesn't represent a rigorous analysis or present any kind of confidence interval. You need to get over yourself, seriously.

Re:I hate to say I told you so...

[CmdrGravy]

Reading the previous posts linked to you said your figure of 1 cable cut a year was a well sourced figure even when it was pointed out how remarkably unlikley that was.

So to the question of were you right, almost certainly not - regardless of how good you may be at maths.

Re:I hate to say I told you so...

[maxume]

Slashdot is only barely, tangentially a group. Mostly, you can't rely on the same people posting to or even reading the same stories. Add as few as 100 yahoo's to that, and you end up with half assed, half baked posts about anything and everything. Like this one.

Re:I hate to say I told you so...

[Artuir]

Can you blame them? Look at the happenstance. Those kinds of things (and just the sheer odds) don't happen all in a week. Besides - do you think that if people from our country were going to disrupt anything like that, that we'd be out there in a boat that says "LOL USA!!"? Just because the boats were owned by companies and piloted by the proper people doesn't necessarily prove someone else wasn't behind what happened.

Re:I hate to say I told you so...

[Kijori]

I've just had a read through those posts. I can't fault your maths (haven't even checked it) but I do have one question: why does the fact that your Bayes' theorem result is a high percentage probability point to malice? You said

In conclusion, the same math that runs your spam filter predicts (99.967% likely) that someone is up to something disabling all of these cables. .
Surely the only conclusion you could draw is that something unusual has probably happened - you've shown that it's highly unlikely that this is a result of the normal day-to-day life of the cables, but that doesn't indicate malice. I don't know what happens to damage cables - maybe a rogue shark thought it was a piece of licorice - but surely you can only conclude that something happened, not that it was a conspiracy?

Re:I hate to say I told you so...

[ScentCone]

Those kinds of things (and just the sheer odds) don't happen all in a week.

Read the damn information. These things do happen every week. Often MORE than once a week. That's the whole point, here. You're just really, really desparate to find a villain where you really want to find one. Just because the facts of the matter, and the statistical history of these very common failures and damage events don't end up fueling the narrative you prefer doesn't mean you should still be leaning towards the conclusion you're drawing. If you're not going to take basic facts into account, then why is your urge to synthesize a conspiracy any more rational than someone else's urge to say that you, personally did the deed? Or that it's guerilla marketing for the upcoming episodes of Lost? Yeesh.

Re:I hate to say I told you so...

[Anonymous Coward]

With all due respect, doing the arithmetic right doesn't imply the math was right. If your numbers and assumptions are bogus, it doesn't really matter if your calculating ability matches a $5 calculator or not.

Re:I hate to say I told you so...

[Anonymous Coward]

there were more than two cables cut, and do you really think if they were being cut intentionally they'd have big "We're the US military" flags on them? Military have been using civilian boats for operations for decades.

captcha: federals :)

Re:I hate to say I told you so...

[phantomfive]

I believe the problem (besides people just being bizarrely paranoid.....side effect of the Iraq war, I guess) was the way you stated your results. If you had said there was a 99.99% chance that two cuts would happen like this on accident, it would have sounded a lot more reasonable. Whereas, it doesn't matter how likely it is, that still doesn't disprove malicious intent: ie the chance that someone will die tonight is 99.99%, but that doesn't mean they weren't murdered. OK that's a bad example, but you get the point.

Re:I hate to say I told you so...

[LaskoVortex]

Malice could be the only explanation given those assumptions (which we now know were wrong) because the cutting happened in places greatly separated in geography. Outside of coincidence (which had a finite likelihood given my assumptions), the only explanation for such hugely separated events would be human, and hence malice. Also, "conspiracy" is two or more people working together secretly and illegally, so its a loaded word. Cutting cables would be illegal and I reckon it would take more than one person to cut them, so any malicious cable cutting would be a conspiracy by necessity. But, on /. you can get labeled a conspiracy theorist just by defining the word, so you have to be careful how you use it.

Jerks...

[stendec]

The cable was damaged because of jerks and force of the ship, the official said.

JERKS!!!!

Re:Jerks...

[franl]

Isn't the first derivative of accelleration with respect to time called a jerk?

Re:Jerks...

[Wannabe Code Monkey]

The cable was damaged because of jerks and force of the ship, the official said.

JERKS!!!!

I always knew Gary Larson was onto something with that comic.

Reminds me ..

[s74ng3r]

Reminds me of the old joke where the system administrators were puzzled that their servers went down almost every night at around 12mn and restarted 30 minutes after. Turns out, the janitor had to unplug the servers to plug in the vacuum during that time. :)

Re:Reminds me ..

[19thNervousBreakdown]

I've always wondered about that; who the hell puts a server in a carpeted room?

Re:Reminds me ..

[CowboyNealOption]

More importantly, who doesn't have dedicated circuits for servers and who allows the janitor access to the machine room?

Man, are those guys good, or what?

[capnkr]

Just think - the CIA/NSA/current administration somehow managed to purchase foreign-flagged ships of the line from arguably 'enemy' countries, hiding said purchases from both those governments, our own goverment, and the rest of the world, and then they somehow managed to get them to drop their anchors in just the places needed to cut the proper cables lying submerged on the seabed. They pulled all this off successfully - until YOU managed to figure it out.

Brilliant!

Huh? Occam who???

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Phase 1: Wait until ship stops near cable

Phase 2: Send stealth submarine to cut cable

Phase 3: Blame ship, produce satellite images for proof

Phase 4: Profit

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[edwardpickman]

Phase 1:Wait until ship stops near cable.

Phase 2: Send in laser armed sharks to cut cable.

Phase 3: Blame ship, produce satellite images for proof.

Phase 4: Geek points!

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[buildguy]

Phase 1: Wait until ship stops near cable.
Phase 2: We get signal!
Phase 3: Blame ship, produce satellite images for proof.
Phase 4: All your base are belong to us.

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[kylehase]

1) Paint big flag on the surface of ship.
2) Cut cable with ship in #1 above.
3) Record evidence of "act of terror".
4) Wage war against evil country.
5) Profit for Halliburton.
6) Rest of US economy fails.

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[buildguy]

7. Hyperinflation.
8. Buy a micronation sized chunk of the former United States.
9. Dystopian Cyberpunk Future!

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[Kamineko]

Phase 4: Write about it in your global newspaper before anybody knows about it.

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's:

1) Send a submarine to wait at a cable
2) Send by a ship that "accidentally" damages the cable, a couple of miles away
3) While the cable's broken, cut it AGAIN with the submarine and install a tap while nobody will notice the outage (since there's already one, anyway)
4) When the cable company repairs the breakage caused by the ship, your tap's installed
5) Spy^H^H^H Profit

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[F34nor]

1) Send a submarine to wait at a cable
2) Unwrap cable & bend so light leaks out
3) Jimmy Carter!

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[amirulbahr]

-5 Not Funny!

There was no ??? phase.

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[Viceroy Potatohead]

Don't be silly!

The correct step three is:
Build a fake Earth in New Mexico with a little model ship on it, and take a picture of it with a normal camera.

Satellites? Pfft. You've bought into the hoax that we've actually sent things into orbit.

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[wish bot]

Has anyone actually been able to do this? Last I heard it was given up on because it was just too damn hard. That was a while ago.

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[blind monkey 3]

WRONG!!
There are no real enemy countries. There are no terrorists. It is all made up to keep the people in line, the "enemy" is a fabrication to keep the working class in check. Any underground movement is actually set up by the ruling class to capture troublesome workers - Bin Laden as everybody knows, was trained by the CIA... he is still working for the CIA!

Thank you MR Eric Arthur Blair.

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[alx5000]

Someone set us up the anchor!

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it works fine. We do it all the time. NSA

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[Guysmiley777]

Has anyone actually been able to do this? Last I heard it was given up on because it was just too damn hard. That was a while ago.
US Navy whistles quietly in the corner.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[JonTurner]

Or so the Illuminati would have you believe.

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[infonography]

Or so the Illuminati would have you believe. I was really expecting a golden submarine, the Leif Ericson to be responsible. But I would guess Hagbard Celine to be too clever to be spotted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagbard_Celine

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[kabocox]

Just think - the CIA/NSA/current administration somehow managed to purchase foreign-flagged ships of the line from arguably 'enemy' countries, hiding said purchases from both those governments, our own goverment, and the rest of the world, and then they somehow managed to get them to drop their anchors in just the places needed to cut the proper cables lying submerged on the seabed. They pulled all this off successfully - until YOU managed to figure it out.

Brilliant!

Come on, it would make more sense for a few simple black ops where your Seals or whatever are tasked with boarding said ship and planting a simple device on it and returning undiscovered. The said device would automatically lower the anchor by either remote control or when ever the ship was within certain spots.

For extra credit, have the black ops seal team remove said device after ship lowers anchor where you need it.

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[couchslug]

Ships aren't made with a cookie cutter, and do fun stuff such as stop at ports while leaving a trail of interactions with port authorities and customers.

Granted, the NeoCons have replaced Satan and the Illuminati as the Unified Source of World Evil (more comforting that multiple Evil sources combined with the Shit Happens factor) so you might be right. :)

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[MiniMike]

With the luck they've been having, the anchor would have landed on the submarine.

Maybe the cable was cut by a jagged chunk of sub hull...

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[LS]

The grandparents theory is silly I agree, but Occam's Razor has nothing to do with human endeavors. It's about choosing between to SCIENTIFIC theories in absence of any difference in explanatory power. It's not about human behavior. Humans are quite well known to do things that are not logical or effecient or straightforward.

LS

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[austin987]

You forgot a step: Phase 3: Blame ship, produce satellite images for proof Phase 3.5: ??? Phase 4: Profit

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[2short]

Don't be ridiculous: a "ship of the line" is a large age of sail era warship. The only one left is the HMS Victory, and it's in drydock. Then again, it's a commissioned warship of a US ally, and nobody would ever expect it...

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[2short]

Occam's Razor is about the relative likely hood of any theories about anything. Of two theories that explain something, the one that requires fewer assumptions is more likely to be correct.

"The cables were cut by the anchor of this ship, which was in fact anchored over the cables when they were cut." is a perfectly good theory. There are any number of more complicated theories one might have, and Occam's Razor tells us they are less likely to be true.

Occam's Razor can be applied to any theories you like. The catch to note is that it never proves anything; it just tells you which way to bet in the absence of other evidence. Which is, frankly, what science is all about.

Sure, humans do illogical, inefficient, non-straightforward things, just like any other animal. That's no reason we can't form theories about what they did and asses them scientifically.

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[iamhassi]

All your undersea cables are belong to us

You are on the way to no internet access

You have no chance to network make your time.

Ha Ha Ha Ha ....

Re:Man, are those guys good, or what?

[lusiphur69]

"Besides - do you think that if people from our country were going to disrupt anything like that, that we'd be out there in a boat that says "LOL USA!!"? Just because the boats were owned by companies and piloted by the proper people doesn't necessarily prove someone else wasn't behind what happened."

Indeed. I guess /. has not heard of false-flag operations.

Some more details coming in now....

[superash]

Indian officer held for undersea cable damage

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/indian-officer-held-for-undersea-cable-damage/63234-3.html

Re:Some more details coming in now....

[ColdWetDog]

Wow, according to TFA, the Korean (unclear North vs. South) vessel owners had to pay the wopping sum of 60K. The smoking gun:

During police interrogation, the official of the Korean ship admitted that the vessel was passing through the area and agreed to pay damages.

The Iraqui ship is expected to cough up 350K. This after:

Dubai Police will refer the Indian chief officer and a Syrian chief engineer to Dubai Public Prosecution by next week. The captain of the ship, who is an Iraqi, was not on board the vessel when it was impounded.

I would think (and with no actual knowledge of maritime law nor particular interest in obtaining it at the moment), that it would take a court of some jurisdiction to handle this before handing over the cash. Curiouser and Curiouser.

Re:Some more details coming in now....

[CrimsonAvenger]

I would think (and with no actual knowledge of maritime law nor particular interest in obtaining it at the moment), that it would take a court of some jurisdiction to handle this before handing over the cash. Curiouser and Curiouser.

A ship isn't a high margin operation. It usually, if you'll pardon the pun, barely makes enough to stay afloat. Hiring lawyers to defend against lawsuits in several countries is WAAAAAAY more expensive that 60K. Or 350K.

Sometimes (actually, almost all the time), it's cheaper to pay the legal blackmail than to contest it and win.

And it doesn't matter much whether you did it or not, when making the calculations - getting off when you're guilty is more expensive than paying the fines, proving you're innocent when you're innocent is more expensive than paying the fines.

And in this case, NOT KNOWING whether you're innocent or guilty (I'm betting neither captain/owner actually knows whether he broke the cable or not, just that he was in the area, and dropped anchor at about the right time) makes paying the fine way cheaper than defending against the lawsuit.

Re:Some more details coming in now....

[RiffRafff]

"The captain of the ship, who is an Iraqi, was not on board the vessel when it was impounded."

So the captain of the second ship wasn't even on board...wait...what?

Re:Some more details coming in now....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's always easier to impound a ship while in port.

Re:Some more details coming in now....

[ColdWetDog]

A ship isn't a high margin operation. It usually, if you'll pardon the pun, barely makes enough to stay afloat. Hiring lawyers to defend against lawsuits in several countries is WAAAAAAY more expensive that 60K. Or 350K. Sometimes (actually, almost all the time), it's cheaper to pay the legal blackmail than to contest it and win.

Perhaps, it's still an interesting jurisdictional question. There are other parties who potentially could claim a loss in the cable cut and 60K (or even 350K) doesn't seem like a lot of money compared to the wailing and rending of garments that accompanied the break.

It would be interesting to know more of what typically consipires after one of these, apparently common breaks. I would doubt that satellite imagery would be successful in the majority of cases and it would just be another insurance claim, but I don't really know...

Re:Some more details coming in now....

[Anonymous Coward]

They'd better hope he doesn't go all Geronimo on their asses!

Re:Some more details coming in now....

[CrimsonAvenger]

it's still an interesting jurisdictional question.

It is that. If I were the Korean captain (or shipowner), I'd think twice before I docked at any of the places that MIGHT have a legal claim relating to the breaks. I doubt the Iraqi captain (or shipowner) has that option, since he's registered in one such country.

SURE, SURE....

[TheSpengo]

We believe ya, right guys? :P

Just refuse

[ArIck]

I just refuse to believe in any story which does not has the theme of international conspiracy in it. This is /. There can be no man made mistakes!!

here is another coverup, please view

[Anonymous Coward]

we never landed on the moon

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1376152848542315216&hl=en

keep dreaming suckers...

Re:here is another coverup, please view

[Merusdraconis]

oh geez not this shit again.

The odds that the moon landing was faked are about as high as my not submitting this post. And the odds that the American government is successfully running a conspiracy are about as high as the odds that the American government can run anything else competently.

Re:here is another coverup, please view

[Anonymous Coward]

The odds that the moon landing was faked are about as high as my not submitting this post. what post?

Re:here is another coverup, please view

[somersault]

In Soviet Russia, government runs country! And moon lands on you!

Re:here is another coverup, please view

[StarfishOne]

That's no moon!
(sorry, obligatory..)

Re:here is another coverup, please view

[buildguy]

It's a trap! (sorry, also obligatory...)

Re:here is another coverup, please view

[Anonymous Coward]

ahh.. so what you're saying is that the US government incompetently conspired to cut these cables?

All I want to know is did they have the help of The Reverse Vampires?

Re:here is another coverup, please view

[Immortal Poet]

Bart Sibrel was actually punched in the face by Buzz Aldrin while filming this documentary. Apparently this guy has a long history of stalking and harassing astronauts. Hooray!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=related&v=mQKxAqpjroo

Re:here is another coverup, please view

[BlackSnake112]

The one thing that stands out as strange about the moon landing was the dirt/dust. The people seemed to be lighter and float a little, the golf cart/car thing seems to be lighter, but the dust/dirt just went right back down. The moon is smaller and has less gravity then on Earth. Wouldn't the dirt/dust also float a little bit?

Re:here is another coverup, please view

[OldeTimeGeek]

Wouldn't the dirt/dust also float a little bit?

As I remember, it did. But I would think (and, no, I haven't done the math) that the lack of air resistance on the light dust/dirt might cause it to fall a bit faster than one would expect to due to lesser gravity.

Re:here is another coverup, please view

[StarfishOne]

And you're telling me that it's a trap now that the sharks with lasers have us in their sight??!?

Save thy self!

Re:here is another coverup, please view

[Merusdraconis]

Like most strange things about the moon landing video, it's the result of a complete lack of atmosphere. There's no resistance on the dust. When we kick up dust on Earth, most of it goes up into the air as the amount of force air movement provides is more than the pull of gravity. Remove the air, and it just goes plop.

Somehow it must be Israel's fault

[TheMiddleRoad]

The conspiracy nuts are pitiful. I used to think they were all on the right, but now I know there are just as many if not more on the left.

Re:Somehow it must be Israel's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, there are non-partisan conspiracy nuts as well. They are so kooky they've been disowned by both sides of the spectrum!

Re:Somehow it must be Israel's fault

[Squalish]

There are more conspiracy nuts on the opposite of whichever side has systematically abused their power for sinister gain, dissolving long-held protections, destroying systems and bucking customs for their own confusing purposes in direct opposition to the obvious right thing to do, or the interests of their employers (us). When they do it openly in many different areas without explaining themselves, and there is a well-funded, small group of idealogues behind them, who insist on an absolute right to their own secrecy(they claim the entire Executive Branch may choose whether to testify to court or Congress), and secrets keep leaking out (like suspending the 4th amendment in 2002) from disgruntled ex-employees...

It's very difficult to have ANY sort of imagination, not just the tin-foil hat kind, and avoid wondering about at least the possibility that the current administration is involved in several large, sinister conspiracies which the public doesn't know about yet. We have literally dozens available that are already in the public sphere.

This is why 9/11 conspiracy nuts will never die, even if they can't convince skeptics like myself who pick at the technical details. The thing their stories agree on - that those presently in power either caused or could have prevented the attack - fits like a glove into what we know about the administration's goals pre-attack and their actions post-attack. If the Democrats used an attack(cause unknown) to drastically change the country, get rid of all the constitutional rights you hold dear, fulfill a bullet point in preexisting plan to grow the military industrial complex, wage an aggressive war longer than WW2, set us up for at least the possibility of the destruction of our democracy, steal elections, and generally act like a bad Disney villain, there would be a hell of a lot of Republican conspiracy theorists after 8 years as well.

Your political beliefs should not inform your reasoning, it should be the other way around.

Re:Somehow it must be Israel's fault

[moxley]

Well I will tell you this much - it's only a true fool who believes that "conspiracies never happen" and everything govt/intel says is true.

Indeed, conspiracies happen all of the time - any time more than one person gets together with another and plans to do something. It's also one of the msot common criminal charges in the US.

I still think that the odds of how this happen with so many cables in such a short time span is suspicious. Does that mean it wasn't an accident? Anything is possible, but some things are more likely than others and keep in mind that those groups or agencies who do these sort of things specialize in damage control, cover stories, and manipulation of the public.

All I am saying is that you really don't know, and for people to act like it's "case closed no questions remain" over this press release is kind of short sighted. It really doesn't change a thing. If this was done intentionally there would be a cover, likely a couple of layers of cover.

Re:Somehow it must be Israel's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Conspiracy theorists are laughable mostly out of process of elimination. This is because the ones who're proved correct cease to be called conspiracy theorists and instead become "quick thinkers," "brave whistle blowers," or even, on occasion, "heroes." That leaves the ones who're wrong, who we call, "crackpots.", and those are the ones we hear the most about.

Yeah, I know, many CTs really are pitiful crackpots who refuse to recognize the truth even when it's rubbed in their face. It does not follow that folks looking for meaning in an unusual event, like lots of undersea cables to a particular country going dead all at once, fit that category. I'll bet most of these folks when faced with the facts just said, "oh, I didn't know that these were so frequent," and just drove on with their day. Deriding them as "pitiful" misses the point of their important contribution. Isn't if more useful to have skeptics who are proved wrong than to have no one being skeptical at all?

Re:Somehow it must be Israel's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

W

Indeed, conspiracies happen all of the time - any time more than one person gets together with another and plans to do something. It's also one of the msot common criminal charges in the US. in reality , the groups don't even need to know who the other is to 'conspire'

Re:Somehow it must be Israel's fault

[CmdrGravy]

True but as someone once said you don't want to keep such an open mind that your brain falls out which would appear to be a necessary pre-condition for the vast majority of popular conspiracies.

Re:Somehow it must be Israel's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Fail on one point, this is the one I choose to pick on :P

WWII was 8 years long it started in 1937 with the "Second Sino-Japanese War" even if you do not like this fact, it start in 1939 with the Germans invading Poland. It ended in 1945, that is 6 years even by new math standards. The Iraq war began in March of 2003 so that gives us 5 years and 1 month.

Yes my spelling and grammar are horrible I know :)

Re:Somehow it must be Israel's fault

[TheMiddleRoad]

That's like being so hip, your bum falls off.

Re:Somehow it must be Israel's fault

[bcdm]

I think the GP meant "America's involvement in WWII", which was only about 3.5 years. But there's no way that America pulls out of Iraq before January 2009 (which is virtually impossible anyway, no matter who wins the election), so it'll be at least 5.75 years before the war ends. Invasion of Poland to collapse of Germany was 5.67 years.

Re:Somehow it must be Israel's fault

[CmdrGravy]

Not really, it's more like being so willing to believe absolutely anything at all so you become party to the cool, forbidden and secret truth of the universe that you suspend all critical facilities and engage in any number of convuluted justifications for why your particular conspiracy isn't total nonsense.

Paraguayan conspiracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop censoring us, you damn paraguayan government!!

Re:Paraguayan conspiracy

[buildguy]

Stupid censor bars blocking my view.

Thank you Mr. Expert

[TheMiddleRoad]

Is it your years in the CIA or your years in the conspiracy nutjob section of the bookstore that make you so knowledgeable?

Re:Thank you Mr. Expert

[couchslug]

"Is it your years in the CIA or your years in the conspiracy nutjob section of the bookstore that make you so knowledgeable?"

Yes.

Sattelite images make sense to me

[TheMiddleRoad]

When cables get cut, wouldn't you, as a service provider, want to know what ships are in the area? Might not intelligence services take a gander with their satellites to see what is happening in the area?

Turn your spam filters on conspiracy, Mr. Spock!

[TheMiddleRoad]

Whatever my spam filters catch must be true. No matter the evidence presented, I know my penis will grow and Mr. Nabuti will give me half of his no-longer frozen assets.

Nanog Thread

[Rufus211]

GMane is a *far* easier interface to read than whatever nanog's official archive uses:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.operators.nanog/54752

Re:Nanog Thread

[TubeSteak]

GMane is a *far* easier interface to read than whatever nanog's official archive uses: No offense, but neither of them are easy to read.
Am I the only one who uses the nested view on /.?

As for "where Reliance might have obtained satellite images to provide that level of detail"
Who says they need anything better than the avg 1 or 2 meter resolution pictures?

It isn't all that hard to track the movements of a commercial boat back to its last port of call and make a phone call to find out who was there.

Re:Nanog Thread

[maxume]

Nested view user here.

The true beauty of gmane is that it does nntp (at news.gmane.org). The original pick-your-interface forum, rather than any of the thousands of poor reinventions.

george bush

[timmarhy]

Some how i know this is george bush's fault. i don't care what the evidence says!

Re:george bush

[trongey]

Some how i know this is george bush's fault. i don't care what the evidence says! Hey, thanks for clearing that up. I was having a hard time figuring out how global warming could have cut those cables.

I am sorry,

[Anonymous Coward]

What interest does the US have in accusing its own puppet government (Iraq) and one of it's best allies, South Korea, of sabotage?

Oh, that's right, none. STFU, troll.

Re:I am sorry,

[Anonymous Coward]

Never heard of taking one for the team? Or that it's much easier to bribe someone who looks favourably on your cause? The only troll I see is you, my anonymous friend.

Hmm, never thought I'd say that to myself....

Your subject

[Anonymous Coward]

You definitely don't hate to say I told you so. If you did you wouldn't have bothered to post at all.

Caused By Jerks

[BryanL]

The article says the damage was caused by jerks. So, if those jerks would watch where they drop anchor these things wouldn't happen. I think jerks are the cause of most of the worlds problems, so the news here comes as no surprise.

I know where they got the satellite images!

[Xest]

It's obvious, the NSA let them have them because they realised people guessed it was them that cut the cables so to pretend it wasn't they did a double bluff and gave out the images to say "look we're the good guys here!"

It's all part of the coverup!

Next week on Internet Conspiracies.com we bring you details of the sharks with laser beams that cut the other cables.

Seriously though, where did they get satellite imagery capable of seeing ships? well erm, seeing as you can just about pick out people on Google earth I wouldn't imagine it was too much of a challenge being able to see big god damn ships. I'm sure plenty of companies and nations with an interest in finding out which muppet cut their net access can provide such imagery?

Re:I know where they got the satellite images!

[tuxicle]

Except that the few places on Google Earth that you can see high levels of detail are through aerial photography, not satellite.

Re:I know where they got the satellite images!

[buildguy]

You know the NSA only analyzes data, it doesn't actually have your classical CIA type "agents in the field".

Re:I know where they got the satellite images!

[CrimsonAvenger]

seeing as you can just about pick out people on Google earth I wouldn't imagine it was too much of a challenge being able to see big god damn ships.

I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked at N'Awlins with Google Earth, you could see the ships along the industrial canal quite clearly. They are, after all, considerably large than your average house.

Cutting cables like nuclear war

[daBass]

It is so incredibly easy to cut cables and once someone does it, everybody will and everybody loses.

MAD: Mutually Assured Disconnection

Hence, nobody does it.

A cable gets cut by accident every week of the year. So this time there were a couple grouped a bit closer both in time and geography. Big Deal.

Re:Cutting cables like nuclear war

[Anonymous Coward]

A cable gets cut by accident every week of the year. So this time there were a couple grouped a bit closer both in time and geography. Big Deal. If I were a conspirator... knowing that the cables are cut occasionally, and assuming that the cutting wasn't time critical - just harassment.... then I would wait for an accident, or closely spaced accidents before giving 'operation cable cut' the green light. Then just cut one strategically and allow the accidental outage confound my opposition.

Cite your sources

[Hecatonchires]

As a matter of fact, in an average year, around 50 undersea cables are broken. I'd like to know more about this

Re:Cite your sources

[Anonymous Coward]

It's lame to demand that people cite things that are easy to find on your own.

google "how often are undersea cables cut, on average" yields a bunch of sources that say once every three days.

The whole "cite your sources" thing is generally meant to stifle conversation instead of enhance it. Unless you're actually asking for something that is tough to find or unlikely or contentious, then you're being silly.

Re:Cite your sources

[WaltBusterkeys]

Your wish is the community's command. Here's ZDNet on cable statistics

According to one paper presented at last year's SubOptic conference in Baltimore, Maryland, rates of cable fault in water over 1km deep are less than 0.1 faults per year, per 1,000km of installed cable. This implies around 50 deepwater repairs per year, globally. At depths of less than 1km, failure rates hovered between 1-2 per 1,000km in the 1990s, but have been steadily declining. According to a SubOptic 2004 paper, the rate in 2003 was 0.2 fault per 1,000km.

In other words, that's 50 deep-water cuts per year, in addition to some more shallow-water cuts per year.

Another expert puts it this way:

He said there are approximately 50 cable cuts a year, 65 percent of which are due to fishing trawlers dragging heavy nets and 18 percent of which are due to shipsâ(TM) anchors. âoeThey donâ(TM)t even track terrorism,â he said. âoeCable cuts are a routine part of the business.â

These statistics don't include power failures and other problems with cables that arise from the land side; if a switching station goes down then the cable goes dark, even if it's still intact.

Re:Cite your sources

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to my lecturer

Re:Cite your sources

[HoppQ]

He said there are approximately 50 cable cuts a year, 65 percent of which are due to fishing trawlers dragging heavy nets and 18 percent of which are due to shipsâ(TM) anchors. âoeThey donâ(TM)t even track terrorism,â he said. âoeCable cuts are a routine part of the business.â

A møøse once bit my sister's cable...

Re:Cite your sources

[electrictroy]

>>>"It's lame to demand that people cite things that are easy to find on your own."

No it isn't. It's the responsibility of the Claimant to back-up his claim with references/citations. (Example: A reporter on CNN should provide his sources.) Likewise any responsible reader or viewer has the right to say, "Show me your proof, else I will reject your statement."

It's not lame.

It's verifiability. And you had none. You had a claim, but no source in your original posting, and it's entirely reasonable to be suspicious of strangers making unbacked statements. (Perhaps if all people did that, they'd not be scammed by nigerians. Instead they'd demand proof & catch the scammer in the act.)

Re:Cite your sources

[phantomfive]

No it isn't. It's the responsibility of the Claimant to back-up his claim with references/citations. (Example: A reporter on CNN should provide his sources.) Likewise any responsible reader or viewer has the right to say, "Show me your proof, else I will reject your statement." I'm not going to annotate all my posts on slashdot and add footnotes. Sorry. Some of the burden is on the reader if he/she cares that much, because I just don't.

You had a claim, but no source in your original posting, and it's entirely reasonable to be suspicious of strangers making unbacked statements. True, I would be concerned if people did believe me blindly. However, if you actually care enough to complain, you should also care enough to do a 30 second google search. This isn't an encyclopedia, it is a public discussion board. But since you asked, I got my statistic from wikipedia. Enjoy.

Re:Cite your sources

[Drakantus]

>>It's the responsibility of the Claimant to back-up his claim with references/citations.

Do you have any sources to back up this claim?

Re:Cite your sources

[Anonymous Coward]

A møøse once bit my sister's cable... and whitey is on the net...

Why aren't those ships in the registry?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Korean ship 'MT Ann' and Iraqi ship 'MV Hounslow' "

Can you locate those ships, here's the Korean shipping register.
http://www.krs.co.kr/eng/index.html

And here's an assembly of the worlds shipping registers.
http://www.e-ships.net/index/M1.shtml

I can't find either of those ships. It's not that I'm a conspiracy nut, it bothers me when I'm presented with information that immediately draws a blank when it should be trivial to look up.

Re:Why aren't those ships in the registry?

[WaltBusterkeys]

Not all ships owned by Korean companies are registered as Korean flag vessels.

Look at US cruise lines -- most US-owned cruise liners are registered in other countries (usually the Bahamas).

See flag of convenience for a list of countries that are the most frequent places to register vessels. There are Korean-owned vessels registered in Belize, Cambodia, Cyprus ... etc.

Re:Why aren't those ships in the registry?

[dave420]

Don't include the M/T or M/V when looking up a vessel :)

M/V Hounslow: 6801951, a waste disposal vessel, flag unknown
M/T Ann: 7320069, an oil products tanker, flying under a North Korean flag

Buy?

[Colin Smith]

Huh? Occam who??? Nah. All you'd have to do is bribe someone...

How's that for Occam? Hmm?

Re:Buy?

[c6gunner]

Nah. All you'd have to do is bribe someone... How's that for Occam? Hmm?

Horrible. There's still no motive, not to mention that said someone would just turn around and sell you out at the earliest opportunity. You seem to have applied a generous portion of Occam's Shaving Cream, to avoid all those nasty cuts and scrapes.

not NSA, NRSA maybe

[codecracker007]

Considering the power that the Reliance conglomerate wields in India, I would not be surprise if it was NRSA that provided the satellite data.

bah.

[apodyopsis]

oh way to go. ruin a perfectly good conspiracy theory!

Hounslow and Ann

[Anonymous Coward]

Thing is I can't find it, even in the conglomerated list. I also check places like Panama individually, Cambodia I don't have the list for.

Can you find it?

As soon as they said 'Hounslow' and 'Ann' those immediately struck me as English names, so I want to confirm the story, but can't find the ships.

Are we all filmed 24/7 at this resolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

What seems incredible is that video footage of that resolution was available for those particular places at that particular time. It looks like we are all filmed 24/7, everywhere in the world. Which requires an incredible amount of resources (sattelites, cameras, bandwith, etc.). Or was it by chance that these spy sattelites were pointed to these areas? Or is it something like 1 photo/hour/place in the world?

Re:Are we all filmed 24/7 at this resolution?

[hey]

Good question.
Certainly the area in question is more likely to be photographed.

Re:Are we all filmed 24/7 at this resolution?

[franl]

It wasn't video. Satellites take still pictures. Even weather satellites give you pictures of clouds at best every few minutes -- they're stitched together into pseudo-video for the TV weatherman to show you.

Re:Are we all filmed 24/7 at this resolution?

[t33jster]

Or was it by chance that these spy sattelites were pointed to these areas?
Probably not 'by chance'. In case you haven't heard, there are some US troops in the region. The US government, at least on some level, may actually be interested in protecting the lives of these soldiers. One of the results of this is a concentration of spy satellites to help keep tabs on the situation. Chances are that the images we're seeing are not from the precise moment that the cables were cut, but given external data, such as the origin and destination of ships in the area, the spooks could track down who was responsible.

This revelation nearly blew my tinfoil hat right off my head. I mean come on, if the government can read the newspaper sitting on my sidewalk, what's to prevent them from being totally evil? Maybe they're just regular folks doing the best that they can.

I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

Re:Are we all filmed 24/7 at this resolution?

[CompMD]

What, you didn't know that Denzel Washington movie where there was a secret government time warp machine that could look into the past was a documentary?!?

Not a subscriber

[tsotha]

Bah, this is the one time I wish I were an actual /. subscriber. Then I could go through my history and find the nutjobs who were expecting war with Iran "any day now" when the cables were cut. And publicly point and laugh at them. I suppose I'll have to settle for truthers on Digg.

Re:Not a subscriber

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll have to post AC because I already spent around 7 or 8 mod points on this thread, but I'd like to inform you that Google is your friend in this case. Just google for your user name with site:slashdot.org. I think you can even put paths after the TLD for the site: predicate on Google, but I'm not sure.

Images might not have to be that sharp.

[F34nor]

If you take the layout of the deck and then compare it to ships in port at known times and locations it would be easy to ident. ships even with a meter resolution. The color and organization of shipping containers has got to be nearly as good a fingerprint even form space.

That's some impressive technology...

[KeyThing]

And, yet, they can't seem to find those people on "Lost"...

Then do it.

[bondsbw]

You say you can plug in the real numbers and make it work, so go and do it. Post it right here. If you are so sure of yourself, back it up instead of saying "I stand by my ability to do arithmetic."

I don't care if you can do math on the wrong numbers; do it on the right numbers, and prove yourself not to be so politically motivated that you would make up numbers to prove a point.

Re:Then do it.

[LaskoVortex]

politically motivated

If you had even one single brain cell up in your thick Neanderthal skull, you would have realized that I didn't say anything about "who". So basically, you are an idiot.

Then don't because you were wrong

[hassanchop]

Seriously though, if this article is somehow "proof" to you that your opinion was correct, then all those who were questioning your intellect were correct to do so.

Re:Then don't because you were wrong

[Grym]

Well, first of all, one of the ships' anchors was found caught on one of the damaged cables. But I think the best proof lies in the fact that one of the companies in question paid for the damages to the cables. Unless there is a better explanation presented or more evidence to the contrary, I think it's reasonable to assume that the mystery is solved, no?

The truth of the matter was that I had no idea what happened and, thus, no real opinion either way. I was merely skeptical that a conspiracy was responsible, which I think is an entirely reasonable position in this context. Plus it irks me when people mis-apply scientific/mathematical principals principals in everyday discussions to disingenuously infer a false appeal to authority.

-Grym

Re:Then don't because you were wrong

[LaskoVortex]

Plus it irks me when people mis-apply scientific/mathematical principals principals in everyday discussions to disingenuously infer a false appeal to authority.

You mean "disingenuously imply a false appeal to authority". One who speaks or write things "implies" things, those reading or listening "infer". To use the term correctly, for example, one would correctly say that you consistently infer a lot of meaning where there is none. Along with writing more carefully, I strongly suggest you go back and read my posts carefully. If you compare yours to mine, you will see that I give all of my assumptions and quantify them and repeatedly ask what assumptions you would make. You never gave any. Worse yet, you use this thread to propagate some dichotomy wherein the impounding of a couple of boats "prove" you "right" and me "wrong". Now, just because I know it gets under your unusually thin skin, I still assert my math was correct. The assumptions may have been wrong, but I defended those with the best knowledge I could find. You, on the other hand, lazily made assertions and did not offer any alternative assumptions in any quantitative way. You never provided a number. Go look and see. That's lazy, and, in my opinion, disingenuous.

Re:Then don't because you were wrong

[Grym]

You mean "disingenuously imply a false appeal to authority". One who speaks or write things "implies" things, those reading or listening "infer". To use the term correctly, for example, one would correctly say that you consistently infer a lot of meaning where there is none. Along with writing more carefully...

LOL Okay, I mistakenly used the word infer rather than imply. Got it.

If you compare yours to mine, you will see that I give all of my assumptions and quantify them and repeatedly ask what assumptions you would make. You never gave any.

I didn't give you values to input into your model because the entire purpose of my post (and I thought I was clear on this) was: (1) the premise behind your analysis was flawed (2) that it was an inappropriate context to try and apply Bayes theorem, and (3) that, even still, the values you chose were not based upon any hard, observable data but rather what you assumed to be reasonable numbers.

Worse yet, you use this thread to propagate some dichotomy wherein the impounding of a couple of boats "prove" you "right" and me "wrong".

No, I'm only attempting the latter. The GP was questioning my judgment, so I responded with other news articles containing more detailed information.

I can't be proven "right," because I never claimed to know what happened to the cables. In fact, I proposed a number of alternative hypotheses other than commercial ships. The essence of our disagreement comes with my skepticism as to the methods and supposed certainty of your prediction.

I still assert my math was correct.

Okay.

The assumptions may have been wrong

It's interesting that you say your assumptions are the cause of your flawed result when, at the time, you dismissed such concerns right off the bat as negligible.
"At this point, it doesn't really matter too much what the prior is, just that we have one. We'll see that after a few rounds of calculations, this prior washes out pretty quickly."

I defended [my assumptions] with the best knowledge I could find.

Did you? From what I can tell you just went to wikipedia and, from the hodgepodge of data there, made some calculations. The funny thing is now you're mad at me for pointing out earlier that that just isn't good enough (when it wasn't), especially as a basis for basically asserting with virtual certainty a highly controversial and admittedly unlikely event.

Re:Then don't because you were wrong

[Grym]

Oops.. hit submit instead of preview earlier.

Regardless, I just wanted to add that back-of-the-table-napkin math is fine in my book. Expecting everyone to reference journals or primary sources for non-profit, non-academic purposes would be silly. But, the results of such calculations should always be treated with skepticism and prefaced with uncertainty--you did neither and even further claimed an extraordinary amount of precision. The faith that you have in your model (even now, after the hysteria has faded) is troubling. Do you really think that if you had just gotten the "right" numbers that such an analysis would successfully predict the likelihood of said events? Have you even considered the possibility that any organization sophisticated enough to cut undersea cables could simply choose to avoid creating such patterns?

Please, don't respond. Those were just rhetorical questions; food for thought. Perhaps you'll settle for me admitting that because I came up with a few unlikely explanations that, in the end, we were both wrong, okay?

-Grym

Re:Then don't because you were wrong

[LaskoVortex]

It's interesting that you say your assumptions are the cause of your flawed result when, at the time, you dismissed such concerns right off the bat as negligible.
"At this point, it doesn't really matter too much what the prior is, just that we have one. We'll see that after a few rounds of calculations, this prior washes out pretty quickly."

I see now--you never even bothered to understand the math. Go back and see exactly *which* prior I was talking about. Or is such quoting out of context a mainstay technique of your crude rhetoric?

Nice job using my post to get yourself a +5 insightful, though.

cutting on the cheap

[v1]

The one ship that did get released only paid 60 grand to get out of hock. I can't imagine that covering the cost to repair the cable, let alone the loss incurred by the cutting of the cable.

I wonder how much that cost the internet providers... one would assume that whoever they leased the pipe from had to be given an alternate service, paid for by the company owning the cables that were cut, since they were likely under contract to provide the service. That can't have been cheap. Unless they used another line they owned, but still you'd think they would have to compensate their customers somewhat for the severe degradation of services and the downtime?

Re:cutting on the cheap

[gartogg]

I would assume that for governmental fines, the goal isn't to compensate the owners, it is to penalize the perpetrators. This is true because the government is simply trying to disincentify these behaviors. If people stop cutting the cables, the problem is solved, therefor the fine should be in proportion to profit margins in the shipping industry to dissuade them, not in proportion to the damage caused, unless negligence or malicious intent can be presumed a priori.

The difference can be paid in civil court, if the owners of the cable wish to pursue it.

Re:cutting on the cheap

[bugs2squash]

To my mind, one could argue that such a delicate and important thing as an internet link had no place on the ocean floor, which ships have plowed up with anchors for centuries. The cable is at least partially unsuited to the environment undersea and ship owners should not be forced to up their insurance to cover breaking it. Instead a more robust cable design, or a better way of laying it are required.

None

[hassanchop]

Of course, considering your excitable and non-scientific nature, I'm wondering what meaning you are going to ascribe to my confidence in my math.

None. Math on the wrong numbers is useless, no matter how impressed you are with its accuracy.

Oblig

[Mr. Underbridge]

I find your ideas intriguing. I would like to purchase stock in your "tinfoil hat" company.

Topics read hard

[bdraschk]

I had to read that topic about five times, before i understood what it was trying to tell me. "IDs" is just a very bad choice for a verb. I mean, every noun is verbable, but "IDs"? Why put those two letters in upper case, like in DVDs, or CDs? What's wrong with "identify"?

I was going to mod you Funny...

[GameboyRMH]

...but a Google search for "define selachimorph" turns up nothing. No moderation for you!

8 cables were cut

[Anonymous Coward]

this is were it gets interesting. sure two cables might be a coincidence, but five, on different sides of the country (there was cable cut south and two to the east of iran as well)?

check the link if you feel sceptic:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/02/fourth_undersea.html
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:XFoAFg-U_A8J:www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/02/fourth_undersea.html+http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/02/fourth_undersea.html&hl=sv&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=se&client=firefox-a

+++ATH

[Pinback]

Welcome to the USS carrier NO CARRIER.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Who says it still wasn't the U.S government?

[rastoboy29]

I'm no conspiracy nut, but I am a critical thinker.  The fact that they found the ships that caused the problem in no way exculpates the U.S. government from responsibility.  Nor does it exlude Kermit the Frog.

I'm just saying--of course there were ships involved.  If our gov't wanted to do it, do you think they'd use an aircraft carrier?  Or a destroyer?  Hell no, they'd use some friendly cargo ship.

Frankly, the fact that they are Dubai flagged could conceiveably be an indication that it was indeed done at the U.S. request.

Or Dubai's!