Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Satellite IDs Ships That Cut Cables

Posted by kdawson on from the busted-from-the-sky dept.

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."

3 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. I hate to say I told you so... by Grym · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  2. Re:Coverup by tumbleweedsi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Be nice, sponsor me: http://jailbreak.ragabonds.org.uk
  3. Re:Man, are those guys good, or what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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