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Mediterranean Undersea Cables Cut, Again
miller60 writes "Three undersea cables in the Mediterranean Sea have failed within minutes of each other in an incident that is eerily similar to a series of cable cuts in the region in early 2008. The cable cuts are already causing serious service problems in the Middle East and Asia. See coverage at the Internet Storm Center, Data Center Knowledge and Bloomberg. The February 2008 cable cuts triggered rampant speculation about sabotage, but were later attributed to ships that dropped anchor in the wrong place."
dropped anchor in the wrong place.
As it turns out, that is a pretty serious offense ... the last time I dropped anchor in the wrong place, I ended up in the drunk tank at the county jail with both indecent exposure and drunk in public charges.
My work here is dung.
From TFA:
Gee, why would someone want business internet traffic rerouted through the US?
If they used an axe to cut the lines, would that be construed as illegal hacking of cable?
When I first read this, I too thought sabotage, and I think most of /. will end up thinking this too, but I want to remind everyone that this could be something else entirely, maybe there was a localized earthquake, or more boats dropped anchor retardedly. Who knows? Just don't jump to conclusions.
http://CryoLANparty.com/ A lan I'm staff on!
This reminds me of Captain Nemo's doings. Mysterious animal or a submarine?
Mind this, some secret submarine project will be revealed when time comes.
Shadowy American intelligence services recovering all of their snooping gear before Obama gets into office...damn shame.
All that hassle to cause commotion and outages by putting it there in the first place, and less than a year later they gotta get it back. Many years from now we will find its remains scattered across the ocean floor.
Besides the nefarious reasons, there is the simple matter of cost -- transit in the US is cheaper.
I wonder what the going rate is to have a ship drop anchor in the location of your choice? There must be somebody, if you ask around quietly, who would be willing to set up a grubby little shipping company with no real assets worth suing for and have their rusty crap freighter drag an anchor across whatever bit of seabed needs some accidental scraping.
I don't buy the original explanation that 2 ships were able to cut 5 cables in different locations.
One of the cables near Egypt that was cut had video footage and it showed no ships at the time it was cut.
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/02/04/egypt-ships-didnt-cut-internet-cable/
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
Most of the B to B traffic between Europe and Asia is rerouted through the USA.
How convenient for U.S. packet sniffers.
It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. --Hofstadter's Law
Cables going to very close shore landing points between similar destinations tend to be pretty close together, saves significantly on the survey costs.
The article's timing of the outages (SeaMeWe 3&4 within minutes, FLAG half an hour later) and the relative proximity of the cable courses suggests either anchor drag or someone who cares enough to make it look that way.
Chalk up another victory for geographically dispersed redundancy.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Sorry boss. Must not have gotten the email.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
"dropped anchor" is the new "weather balloon"
Someone managed to drop the anchor in the wrong place several times year ago, and now I'm confident that some big-jawed sea monster gnawed them. Nobody would be foolish enough to assume that the cables were cut intentionally, right?
So the best explanation we got so far is obviously wrong. Isn't there any other source of information about this, leaked documents, analysis based on the ship identification, pure speculations... Hell, even articles from conspiracy nuts would be better than what we already have.
The news that someone cut cables again struck me, but do we have any information about who did it and why? I'm quite more interested in this, than what it is linked.
There was a speculation about this here, our obvious options include sabotage and installation of spying equipment. But somehow I can't buy any of them.
So, whose ships were these?
All your secrets belong to us.
The article claims that India is "82% Out of serivce". Something that I've always been curious about through is smaller inter country links and Internet connectivity. That is to say, if minor yet not insignificant links exist between Indian Telecoms and Pakistani Telecoms, and also between Pakistani Telecoms and Iranian Telecoms, and so on and so on... Then is it still possible due to the capabilities of packet switching, that computers in India could still communicate with ones in the US via a very, very long and convoluted path through many, many local connections?
Would any Slashdot Internet guru's have insight into the capabilities of the global packet switched network in the event of major single data connections going down? Is the network really as robust as we think?
May the Maths Be with you!
"Sea Me We 3 and 4"
Sounds like two girls one cup. I suspect radical feminist sabotage this time.
Most of the alternative explantions were even more far-feteched, like the idea that the US would need to cut a cable in order to tap it (we have nuclear submarines built specifically for the purpose of not tipping our hand when we tap undersea cables).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"Once is an accident, twice is coincidence..."
Need I remind everyone what a third incidence would point to?
We do? Since when? You mean subs can go past 20,000 and not crush like eggs? We can't even retrieve the cables, we just lay new ones....
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Then why does the US pay so much for it's service?
what about the US just wanting to cut the cables to fuck over iran? that seams both possible and feasible
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
We dont have them.
As far as you know.
[citation needed]
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Apart from the fact that you'd have to have an unknown boat in foreign waters, I'd think it would be pretty easy to "fake a mistake". Drop your anchor in a place you know where the cable is, drag for about a quarter mile, wait for your contact monitoring the connection to send you a nondescript signal that it's down, then pick up and make a bead for international waters.
So how does a nation without a sophisticated coast guard figure this out? Is any western country going to care (that is, the ones who aren't in on it, if it is espionage?
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I knew it was called SEA-ME-WE for a reason. Dodgy...
You know too much. Go quietly with the men in black who will shortly be knocking on your door..... now.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
- Sherlock Holmes
If we have proof that there were no ships there at the time, then ships were not the cause. If the only remaining explanation is sabotage, then it was sabotage.
Whoosh!
Normally the fastest, easiest, cheapest route is the direct route through the Mediterranean. If somebody wanted to get the traffic flowing through the US (insert your favorite nefarious three letter agency here), one way to do it would be to "accidentally" cut those cables. Then when everybody in the middle east and Europe starts routing their data through the US, you intercept it, without the bother and expense of doing it overseas.
Not that I buy into that theory, but I think that's what he meant.
Maybe not
Did anyone notice on their map of the Med that Sicily is mislabeled as Malta?
Malta is a much smaller island that lies roughly south by southeast of the southeastern corner of Sicily, about 1/4 of the way between Sicily and Libya.
With maps like this, I think we can attribute the cuts to a backhoe operator digging where the map said to ;)
Cthulhu needed something to floss his teeth with.
Don't blame me, I voted for Cthulhu.
So I guess THIS is what the RIAA meant when they said they would get ISP's to agree to start cutting off user's Internet access rather than suing millions of people...
We have no motivaiton to mess with Iran *in that way* right now. At current oil prices the current Iranian government is certain to collapse. The best thing we can possibly do right now to mess with Iran is to make it as hard as possible for the current Iranian goverment to distract it people from internal problems by giving them an external enemy.
Iran's demographics favor a serious culture shift soon. The ruling theocracy has dealt with this repeatedly in the past by going to war, often wars so nasty that they killed off the majority of males in their 20s, directly changing the demographics. Iran can't attack Iraq right now, and is dependent on the governemnt handing out money like crazy. That's great when oil's $100/bbl, but totally unsustainable when oil's $50/bbl (I think Iran needs $85 to break enev on internal spending).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You mean subs can go past 20,000 and not crush like eggs?
Subs don't have to, the Mediterranean Sea is 5150m at its deepest point (~16900 feet) and averages 1500m deep.
Just cut the cable and the reroute takes the traffic through the US and through the NSA monitoring operation.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
No way, blame it on USS Jimmy Carter SSN 23 http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001397.html and http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/navy/ssn-23.htm
I agree with that. One of the more interesting and plausible theories at the time was that it was a sign that we may soon invade Iran (they were the worst cut-off from the internet at the time). Thankfully that wasn't true.
Seymour Hersh recently talked about Cheney wanting to dress up as Iranians and have them shoot at US ships.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/31/cheney-proposal-for-iran-war/
I can't say the real reason for them being cut, but the official story doesn't add up. The article explaining the two ships is interesting. The information on those ships is from Reliance Communications, which is very suspect.
Here is a press release from Reliance on December 21, 2007:
This step also paves the way to extend Yipes' services worldwide over FLAG's global next-generation network, creating significantly more value from our undersea network assets in the strongholds of India, the Middle East, and East Asia," said RCOM Global Business president Punit Garg.
It seems like this could be a case of industrial sabotage. I admit that I have no proof, but its a possibility. Extorting two ships in Dubai doesn't seem like it would be tough to do for a large company such as this.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
They're not stringing CAT5 along the ocean floor, are they?
If this keeps happening repeatedly, shouldn't they think about reinforcing the cables a little better?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We do?
Since when?
You mean subs can go past 20,000 and not crush like eggs?
Umm... just how deep do you think the Mediterranean Sea is?
Must be a big anchor, cause everything is big in Texas!!! Teheheheheh
It's hardly a big secret. There have been the USS Parche and the USS Jimmy Carter to name just two.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Might explain the *DRASTIC* reduction in spam the last couple of days?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
We do? Since when? You mean subs can go past 20,000 and not crush like eggs? We can't even retrieve the cables, we just lay new ones....
There's no need to go that deep, if your sub is stealthy enough to work undetected in water of a more reasonable depth. Operation Ivy Bells is an example from long enough ago that's it's public knowledge. I suspect the US would still be keeping even that secret, but Russia put the wiretap device on display in a public museum (the old KGB headquarters), so the cat was pretty much out of the bag.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
They wouldn't necessarily need to tap the cable there. As the first linked article says, "Most of the B to B traffic between Europe and Asia is rerouted through the USA." Where no doubt it could be eavesdropped on more conveniently.
Somewhere in there I see the plot of the next James Bond movie...
Where do you get your facts? Since the Islamic revolution Iran has fought exactly one war, which was started by Iraq.
Also, what is your personal interest in seeing the Iranian government collapse?
Free Manning, jail Obama.
Not really, because Iran would love nothing more than having it's populace even more cut off from news from the outside world, particularly if it came with free anti-Western propaganda.
Or is this one of those mega-super double conspiracy theories where secretly Iran is run by the jews and best friends with the US and they've done it to blame Israel because secretly Israel isn't actually a jewish state and is run by islamic extremists which the US hates or whatever?
I was piloting one of those new British subs with Windows on it and I kinda got spooked when Clippy popped up and fired a torpedo by accident right at the cable. Damned animated paperclip.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
So the cables were cut as part of a conspiracy by George Bush so that he can use the new anti terrorist laws in order to keep control of the country while secretly being guided by the Rothschild Illuminati, the under cover aliens who landed in Roswell in order to crash UFO's disguised as passenger jets into the World Trade Center as ordered by the intergalactic banking cartel?
Now that you've said that and I have read it on the internet, I'm shocked it wasn't blatantly obvious to me in the first place!
You forgot the reverse vampires.
Wait, wait.. I haven't heard anyone eliminate the possibility of sharks, lasers, or some villainous combination thereof. And that's not even beginning to account for causes of extraterrestrial origin.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Close, you left out that Bigfoot is the mastermind behind it all.
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
You know too much. Go quietly with the men in black who will shortly be knocking on your door..... now.
The flash of light you saw in the sky was not a UFO. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.
Exactly. An overt war with Iran would be stupid. They have a lot more people than Iraq and a lot more weapons.
We're better off doing things we did to them in the past like Operation Ajax or bankrupting them through the manipulation in the price of oil.
Seymour Hersh reported in 2005 that we've had special ops inside Iran since 2004.
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/1/18/seymour_hersh_u_s_conducting_covert
There definitely seemed to be an agenda to go after Iran since 2004, but thankfully it hasn't happened yet.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
Yes, because the ocean drops immediately to 20,000 feet deep approximately 50 feet from the coast of every nation that borders water.
Intelligence Submarines are supposed to be stealthy for a reason...that whole "violating the territorial waters of a sovereign nation" would be a bit of a problem.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
I don't buy the original explanation that 2 ships were able to cut 5 cables in different locations.
Neither do I. The cable was cut accidentally by 5 British submarines after they had the new 'Submarine Command System Next Generation' installed. Stay tuned for the 2009-01-19 news update, it will be a blast!
Tater - is that you? or are you Tater Tot?
There was a program on the History Channel several years back on a research effort to learn more about the Titanic disaster (at least, I think it was the Titanic) by studying the wreck closely. The US Navy volunteered their "research" nuclear sub to help out with the project. The researchers weren't quite sure where the wreck was on the ocean floor, but the Navy suggested that they have special-purpose sonar that's really, really good at finding lengths of cable, and would that help?
I remember laughing about that at the time. The program made no mention of *why* the sub would have that particular technology developed to levels unheard of by civilian shipwreck-finding experts.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Your on to something, I've noticed a HUGE lack of failed attempts to send spam e-mail through my server over the past few days. Usually, about 20-40 connections show up in /var/log/mail.log from hosts in Taiwan, attempting to send spam e-mail. Oddly enough, aside from a few typical failed script kiddie attacks (in the US), I see only 3 or 4 connections from hosts in Taiwan.
Obviously it was done by the RIAA to stop Iranian Fiel Sharing.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
The world can be far-fetched sometimes.
My current favourite is the far-fetched and still unexplained (good luck gettng Israel to own up to this one):
Israeli Art Student Mystery, when at the beginning of 2001, the American DEA were flooded by large numbers of fake Israeli art students.
They were Israeli but not really students, some carried classified information on USA agents and locations, some had large denominations of cash or evidence of having moved large denominations around (up to $180,000 over a couple of months in one case), many stayed in areas that were later found to be spots for the Arab terrorists of 9/11.
It is a bizarre case, and nobody has any idea why Israel did it. You should read the story - it's fascinating :)
Anyone who wants to tap any of these cables will do so on shore after paying a modest bribe. The Mediterranean is a shallow sea with lots of traffic. The cable operators route their cables close together near ports (because that's where they land) and are too cheap to plow them in. Thus it's easy for a dragged anchor to pull up a bunch of them.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
My personal interest? I don't think we can prevent them from developing nuclear weapons by bombing, and I think that nuclear wars are bad, even if I'm not the target.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"(we have nuclear submarines built specifically for the purpose of not tipping our hand when we tap undersea cables)."
Tap fiberoptic cables, too? Remotely, without splicing them?
"Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
Yes, we do. Try reading this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/006097771X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229720621&sr=8-3
Also, what makes you think that the cables are always in water that deep? They have to come ashore some time, so they always enter shallower water at some point. Ships don't carry 20,000 foot long anchor chains either. Regardless of how they were cut, these cables were cut in relatively shallow water.
Since when does the government inform the public of their newest technology?
THEY DON'T!
We'll find out about it after they have something better. And the cycle repeats.
"Lame" - Galaxar
Naw, I think it was just meth-heads stealing the cables. Why, they did that right in my own neighborhood a few months ago!
I meant nothing of the sort.
You hear me, sir? NOTHING.
Even though it never got reported on, the cable cuts were a serious nuisance to American troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq at the time too.
This is probably no different.
Do you seriously doubt that Iran has serious economic difficulties, and is proping itself up with oil money? Here's a recent cite; Google finds dozens.
Do you seriously doubt that the demographic shift in Iran threatens the party in power? Most of the links I could find had an axe to grind in American politics, but this one has lots of actual data.
Do you seriously think Iran's government could benefit by starting a war with America by attacking Iraq right now? It's not like we have a tripwire base there, like we did in Korea for so many years: we have most of our armed forces mobilized in Iraq, and regime change in Iran is still official US policy.
I'm sorry to puncture your conspiracy theory so thoroughly, but the idea that the US would be cutting data cables used by a large chunk of the world just to mess with Iran is simply not rational.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Business as usual, duh.
A typical manned sub can't go that deep because it's hollow on the inside. A robotic sub that's tethered to it can.
How deep do you really think the Mediterranean is, though? I'll give you a hint: it's less than 5,000 feet deep on average and shallower along the coastlines. The convenient thing about an undersea cable when you go to tap it is that it's connected to a communications building on land somewhere. We're not, as I understand it, interested in tapping the internal communications of deep sea colonies just yet. So perhaps, just perhaps, a submarine wouldn't have to go to the deepest part of the oceans to tap an undersea cable that is guaranteed to come above the water's surface at its endpoint.
I bet the coastline where the cable comes out of the water and onto land is shallower than that!
During the cold war the US used induction to tap undersea wire cables running to the Soviet Union. This worked great because the device was undetectable. It didn't require severing the cable, instead the listening device was simply placed next to the cable.
Unfortunately for the US spy outfits, fiber optics can't be tapped the same way, induction doesn't work. To tap a fiber optics cable, you have to literally cut it and insert the new device.
Off the top of my head, I'd say the best way to tap a fiber optics line would be to cut it once, move to another location, cut it again, and install the monitoring equipment at the second location before the first cut is patched. By the time the first cut is patched the equipment will be functioning pretty much undetectably.
Why not tap it when the fiber optic cables come ashore? Besides the political problems of trying to get host countries to agree, an above water tap would be much easier to detect during and after installation.
I'm sure someone will point out that fiber optics can't be tapped, just like encryption can't be broken, and Windows doesn't have a backdoor for the NSA.
Oops, wrong link on Iranian demgraphics. Here's the one I indended, though I was hoping for one more like the one I mistakenly linked.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
They need to briefly cut fiber optic lines when installing taps.
Damn, and I was waiting for Dan Brown's next book so patiently. Whatever will I read now?
We have no motivaiton to mess with Iran *in that way* right now. At current oil prices the current Iranian government is certain to collapse.
Why would Irans government collapse from oil prices returning to levels they had been at before?
Didn't the U.S. just have a practice Cyber Attack to see how well we can react (which was a failure) ? And now this happens. "puts on tin foil hat"
I bet someone got a kick out of having their obviously humorous name approved for the underground line running from Southern France to Northern Algeria. "I'd like to name the cable...SeaMeWe...*snicker*..."
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!
Their problems are getting worse over time. With sufficiently high oil prices, the government suddenly had a future. This returns it to significant (and growing) instability.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
No not confuse transit costs with ISP costs. The two are not comparable. But this is off topic, I guess...
As a US citizen, I can state with some authority that we do not wish to fuck over Iran, just the government of Iran. We accomplish this by supplying internet access, not cutting it.
Since every body of water is exactly 0 feet deep at the coastline, by definition, that last bit is pretty obvious.
Umm... just how deep do you think the Mediterranean Sea is?
Apparently 20,000 leagues.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
Hello, Basils phone here.
Basils phone has no coverage in this Mediterranean dump. So when Basils boss called to warn him about not dropping anchor, Basil didn't get it.
Now Basil gets to explain to his family why their packets are being dropped. Then shrug in futility as they reply about their packets already being at the market.
Shortly after the start of World War I, the British cut the cable going directly from Europe to America, so that all communications had to go via Britain. This allowed them to intercept the Zimmerman telegram (among other things), which was what caused the US to declare war in 1917.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Tapping a fiber-optic cable is dead easy, just skin the jacket off and bend it. You can probably buy consumer test equipment that does this.
Tapping an undersea cable is harder, of course (most cables have significantly lower pressure inside the armor), and a single cable has a number of strands, but on the difficulty scale of building nuclear submarines it's not really that impressive.
Inserting a repeater to allow man-in-the-middle attacks would be more impressive - I wonder whether we can.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It must have been reverse vampires!
I thought the internets ran through a series of tubes. Can someone clarify if its tubes, or pipes? Or maybe the first internet runs through a series of tubes, and the other internet runs through a series of pipes. These internets are so confusing!
I was in Iraq when the cables were cut last time. 90% of our internet connection was cut as well as significant portions of classified connections. I find it hard to believe we did that on purpose.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Darn Ringworld!
I drank what? -- Socrates
I suggest you read "Blind Man's Bluff", which explains how we used such a sub to tap a russian undersea cable to great effect.
Of course, when the russians finally discovered the breach and dug up the cable, they were somewhat amused to see the giant plaque on the side of the bug proclaiming it to be "Property of the United States of America."
Considering how old that technology now is, I'm sure that by now they have even more advanced toys to play with.
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
I ask you to substantiate these claims - they aren't what I am seeing (and I look beyond the wishful thinking of most western media).
Oil prices have nothing to do with whether the current Iranian government stands or falls - and its been through a lot worse in the past.
Thanks for that. From your explanation thoughn gather that there may be a pretty thin line between "skinning the jacket off and bending" a cable and breaking / clipping one while doing so, especially underwater. It would be something of a delicate operation.
This is not to say it's any evidence for tampering vs an inadvertent breaking by a ship's anchor, only that perhaps the tampering scenario is not altogether unlikely, either.
"Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
Nuff said.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Good post, but I think I can summarize it quickly for the typical /.er.
Shit happens.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Isn't this classical "act of terrorism" ? You can hardly think of more civilian infrastructure then Internet cables.
839*929
Remind me of the motivation to mess with Iraq again?
I've seen a lot of things, but I've never been a witness.
That's due to obscene profit on retail line provisioning, of course.
The obvious question here is Qui Bono? Who benefits? Who has the most to gain by disrupting communications with Iran? "Of course" I don't think that it would be someone that has been planning an attack on Iran for months, do you?
Control of enemy C3 is the most important part of warfare, other than boots on the ground.
Umm... just how deep do you think the Mediterranean Sea is?
Apparently 20,000 leagues.
20k leagues under the sea is not referring to the actual depth but to the distance covered during the trip.
-- Put crudely, the world is an extremely large problem instance. (Russel/Norvig Artificial Intelligence)
The Brittney Spears song maybe says it the best "Opps, I did it again".
I can't tell if this is real correlation with this event but I see less spam on my mail server. Not exactly at the same time my spam gone down just a little, not as much as when they took McColo down.
Durring the cold war tapping the otherside's undersea cables was worthwhile because the traffic wasn't always encrypted.
Well that explains the hot Iranian girls that arrived this semester. Now to find out if any want to stay here.....
For whom to mess with Iraq? Iran now, or us a while back?
If the latter, there were a great many reasons, largely beat to death in thousands of internet discussions, dug up again, and beat to dust.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
From Tansylvania!
It would be more accurate to say that the NSA was still better than the encryption used. Who knows, these days. Certainly most of the encryption used on the internet is susceptible to attacks on the certificate process (attacks that have been demonstrated).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
If we have proof that there were no ships there at the time, then ships were not the cause. If the only remaining explanation is sabotage, then it was sabotage.
That line of reasoning only works if you eliminate all but one possibility.
Also, Sherlock Holmes was a work of fiction. :P
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Wouldn't inserting a repeater capable of man-in-the-middle attacks introduce a change in latency that the ISP could notice?
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/02/07/cable-cut-fever-and-the-fifth-cut/
There weren't five cuts. This was known 10 months ago. You seem to be selective about what you read.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I refuse to believe this as there is no mention of Scientology.
There weren't even four cuts.
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/04/0158249
So we're down to three actual cuts, tops. Two explained already by satellite footage and I guess the one you say was videotaped and no ships appear.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The flash of light you saw in the sky was not a UFO. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Uranus.
Here, fixed that for you.
Heinlein's Razor - Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
If there is not proof that there were no ships there at the time, ships seems like the most likely explanation.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Last time I dropped my anchor in the wrong place, I got a big smack across the face, a door slammed, and my car stolen.. People really shouldn't make mistakes like this!!
Is your Google broken?
Seriously, this isn't exactly a controversial point. Iran has *huge* government subsidies for the poor, but its theocracy is not otherwise popular (and even if they just stop having elections, a government needs money to exist).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
There's a more credible explanation.
I bet the NSA welcomes the opportunity to inspect internet data that is forced to be routed through American cables...
How could you POSSIBLY ignore Hitler's Brain in the Jar Down in Argentina? He's been running this stuff for years.
The only advantage I see by cutting a cable is to stop people talking - so who benefits by stopping communications?
What if it's a way to stop terrorism? There is increased chatter, speculation that the final pieces are being planned over the 'net. So the quick and dirty method to stop it is to just turn it off. Only thing I could think of offhand...
No joke man. (from the original cuttings) http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/02/06/conspiracy-theories-behind-those-cut-undersea-cables/ The link is worth the click for the image alone.
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand this sig, and those that beat up people who do.
How many significant digits of latency measurement does the ISP care about? As an example, AT&T's Columbus III cable is 11,000 Km, and runs at 10 Gb/s. That means that if you measure latency in terms of bits "in the wire", this cable has 50 Mb worth of latency. I suspect you could store-and-forward a few Kb without AT&T noticing.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Whoosh!
Mods, can I do a "Wooosh!" here, please?
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
OSHI- you figured us out! We'll nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure!
Take off every "zig"!!
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Normally the fastest, easiest, cheapest route is the direct route through the Mediterranean.
From Europe to South East Asia? Nope. Undersea to NY/DC, and LA/SF to Japan/Singapore/Manila. That crosses one country. Going from London to Singapore via Asia/Africa either has a longer trip in the ocean, or crosses lots of land and lots and lots of countries, making the cost higher. Also, the US is one of the most "wired" nations, and thus has facilities close at hand for building/repairing anything that happens with the fibres. Now, if you are talking someone in "Europe" being Greece talking to someone in "Asia" being Turkey or Jordan or something, then yes, it would be silly to route it through the US. But my understanding is that much of Western Europe's traffic to Singapore and Australia makes it through the US because it's the cheapest and simplest route.
Learn to love Alaska
And soon to get much cheaper as the US dollar falls apart...
I'm sorry.. but I say this.. "It stinks."
'I don't always know the truth; but I know when I'm being lied to..' It feels like there is a truth somewhere and we get about 2% of what is the real truth.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
maybe it was a middle eastern country sabotaging their own internet connection. perhaps trying to limit the flow of information to their own citizens.
What about the Mole People?
The researchers weren't quite sure where the wreck was on the ocean floor, but the Navy suggested that they have special-purpose sonar that's really, really good at finding lengths of cable, and would that help?
What they should have been asking was why was the navy volunteering in the first place?
Yes, Fiel sharing must be stopped, it supports terrorism!
Regarding your sig: duly enjoyed.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
The whole event is quite likely intentional diversion in order to install optical cable spy technology. The process is to stage a cut somewhere and have the time to cut, install, resplice and test somewhere else a good distance away.
Sabotage ??? Perhaps the NSA wants access and if people won't give it to them nicely, it can be gotten other ways.
The first time it happened, it was "fishy" but it was fixed and we moved on. Now it is the second time in a relatively short time. The WORLD needs to investigate this and expose the perpetrators to the light of public media. If it was the U.S., I would like to know and why. If it was someone else, I would like to know who and why. This is stupid as hell and we shouldn't tolerate it!
...oh look at that on TV, another news story... what was I talking about again?
You can hardly think of more civilian infrastructure then Internet cables.
Roads? Water pipes? Power lines? Don't tell me what I can and can't think!
After all America is the expert in bankruptcy!
No Way !!! Tell me it is not true !!!
Why does everyone assume it had to be the US? Iran is not very popular in the region, you know. It could be Israel, it could be agents for one of the Sunni countries in the region, or hell it could just be a small anti-Iranian group wanting to make life in Iran suck a little more. But just because it smells of sabotage doesn't automatically mean the US did it.
We got too much crap going on trying to keep our economy afloat for it to be us IMHO. It just doesn't make any sense for the US to stir up shit there when we are stretched thin as it is and the price of oil is down so IMO the LAST thing we would be doing is trying to stir up more shit in the region which could cause oil prices to climb at a moment when it could hurt us the worst. so if it turns out to be sabotage we should be looking at who BESIDES the USA hates Iran and would like to see them hurt.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
From your description, I'm guessing it's a washing machine.
So they are back!
Great stuff!
But it's a bit unclear if the twin lasers are actually lasers. They could be spring mounted extensible cutting torches.
Seriously though, I wonder if high powered lasers have been tested in the ocean?
It would be a bit pointless if you went to all that trouble just to find that dispersion only makes it a short ranged weapon.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
that's frickin' unlikely
It's also interesting that the story, that they were searching for the Titanic, was just a cover for the fact that they were actually searching for a sunken sub. Russian if I remember. Those words are from the leader of the expeditions own mouth, after the security on the operation expired a year or so back.
Since taking legal action against individuals failed the RIAA's latest plan is to disrupt the internet to stop all that Bit Torrent traffic. This is just a test to see how effective it is at curbing piracy. This trial will be shown to reduce piracy by 20% o the RIAA can clearly show the internet is evil and lobby for it's closure.
actually the sub doesn't have to go that low. It just needs to drop a magnetic resonance listening device next to the cable. They have been doing it this way for quite some time. Of course this doesn't work with Fiber..
Most of the alternative explantions were even more far-feteched
I bang my head when I read statements like that. The US already has an established history doing exactly this type stuff against the USSR and other countries. Simply put, calling those "alternative explanations", "far fetched", is nothing but ridiculous. In fact, that statement in of it self is "far fetched."
Now then, this does not mean it has to be anything other than what is publicly known, just the same, given the US' history of doing exactly these types of operations against the USSR and other countries, it is borderline idiocy to outright dismiss such arguments; especially given the odds of such things happening. You do know ships these days have very nice GPS/LORAN systems which tell them exactly where they shouldn't go and/or drop anchor? In other words, the chances of the publicly disclosed story being 100% true are actually pretty slim.
I find it funny so many people are so willing to dismiss a more likely explanation with one which is far, far more unlikely. If you think about it, it is actually pretty funny.
Better than being routed thru countries like north korea, china or australia
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
I thought there was just the 1: Mr. Cheney's wallet. I mean it clearly wasn't WMDs, terrorism or Saddam.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
It' worse than that. The ringworld is unstable.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
But the basis for invading a country 5 years ago was rock solid and oh so well thought out.
No sig for you!!
At current oil prices the current Iranian government is certain to collapse.
They once had a parliamentary democracy of course, but the leader, Mossadegh, committed the heinous crime of trying to get a better oil deal for his country. This resulted in the US and UK backing a coup which installed the Shah of Iran, a dictator who would rule with an Iron fist for decades. His CIA-trained secret police (the SAVAK) tortured and murdered thousands. The inevitable backlash unfortunately resulted in a theocracy rather than the democracy the people we hoping for.
Iran's demographics favor a serious culture shift soon. The ruling theocracy has dealt with this [b]repeatedly in the past by going to war[/b], often wars so nasty that they killed off the majority of males in their 20s, directly changing the demographics.
Iran has not attacked another country for centuries. Iraq started the war with Iran and was supported by the US, UK and others. It was a devastating war but rather than trying to stop it, we poured fuel on the fire hoping that Saddam would win. The support for Iraq was so great that the US even tried to blame the Iranians for Saddam's chemical attack on Halabja. So we wreck one democracy and install a dictator. Then when he is overthrown we back the neighbouring dictator in a devastating war.
I haven't seen even one person throw out the idea that perhaps those in the Middle East that would prefer to return to the Stone Age would have any interest in cutting off access to the Internet...
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
We have no motivaiton to mess with Iran *in that way* right now.
The cut, if intentional, has rather to do with us, the common people, than Iran itself. If the US is going to attack they don't want the bad PR resulting from bloggers around the globe spreading photos and movies of innocent citizens burned or babies cut in pieces.
1000m is doable with current public nuclear missile submarines. 1500m isn't far-fetched, especially for a vessel specialized for this purpose. I once heard that the design for some repeaters in underwater cables is classified in order to allow the US a way to interface with them. I'd actually like somebody to confirm/deny that if they have any links. :)
Bloop!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Nothing is more far fetched than the "coincidence theory", the probability of 3 events that can happen in a range of some years to occur in the same hour is quite low.
It's like asking a guy where does the Pope live, get the answer "the vatican", and theorize he said a nation at random and got it right.
It's hardly a big secret. There have been the USS Parche and the USS Jimmy Carter to name just two.
Why the data-snooping sub wasn't named the Nixon, I'll never know!
You can't take the sky from me...
It is a method of laundering public money into non disclosed black op projects.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
it is also obvious. So it's a 50% probability:
1. USA wants to disrupt communications in the middle east (couple reasons spring to mind)
2. somebody else wants the world to think 1. is true.
It can get more convolute, but the probability stays the same:
3. USA does 1. and wants the world to think 2.
and so on...
As an act of terrorism is quite pointless if nobody says "we did it". Ditto for a false flag attack.
BTW this is not something in defense of the USA. If Iran used this episode as an excuse to attack the USA they would have more solid ground than what the USA used to invade Iraq.
We have no motivaiton to mess with Iran *in that way* right now.
That's never stopped you before...
You can't take the sky from me...
"If we have proof that there were no ships there at the time, then ships were not the cause. If the only remaining explanation is sabotage, then it was sabotage."
Time for some Optical Time Domain Reflectometer inspection of the cables, AssUming a tap would/might register.
Any OTDR geeks out there? I've only used the old-school units for shooting wires.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Just another Russian Mafia dodge to extort money any way they can. Their threat was ignored and this is the payback. Next time, they will have a payday.
1000m is doable with current public nuclear missile submarines.
What, you mean the general public is allowed to buy nuclear missile submarines, awesome!
I for one, as a major hosting company datacenter technician, am looking forwards, once more, to having nothing to do at work.
- satat
1,000 feet is the max operating depth of an LA class submarine
I hate to be presumptuous here, so I will say this: the incident was caused by dolphins with laserbeams ***** or ****** sharks with laserbeams.
Who said that the US gov. was rational ?
Gotta love it when some dumb shit (even one with a low UID like digitalunity) trolls just so that you have to post citations to back up what is well known by anyone who actually reads the news.
Dayum your ass is white!
Do you really believe the invasion of Iraq was done on a whim? Or do you belive there were rock solid, well thought out reasons that were different from the reasons communicated to the public?
After all, even if you think GWB invaded to get oil money, profiteering money, and revenge, he still had rock-solid, well thought out reasons. Personally, I think there was a compelling American interest (largely unrelated to the stated reasons), but that topic hardly needs more discussion on Slashdot.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Perhaps the sub is made of irony?
Program Intellivision!
Even so, that would have been a strong rational motivation. Persoanlly, I believe there was a compelling American interest that had nothing to do with WMDs, revenge for previous terrorism, or Saddam personally (killing any random dictator would do, though Saddam had some real credibilty in the region, so he was a good choice).
I really liked three initially stated reason of putting an end to a horrific, murderous regime, but I doubt it signified much in the actual decision-making process, given our lack of concern for e.g. Darfur.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
There's an interesting ZDNet article on the cable intercept submarines. I think it was actually on Slashdot years ago..ah yes, here we go.
That would be Hanlon's razor, though Heinlein borrowed it frequently.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Deeper, if you have any plans of getting under it.
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
If your going to put together a wild conspiracy story, at least spice it up with some aliens or something, or go the traditional route and blame it all on the Jews (or use the politicaly correct word "neocons"). Last time all the tinfoil hatters were *sure* it was the prelude to invasion.
Seriously, does "I don't know what's going on, but I'm sure the US is the villian" pass for rational thought where you are?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Or the mysterious hashing algorithm the NSA suggested and we all decided was a good improvement without any explanation from the NSA on why.
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
The article you are pointing to HAD a link to the images that would offer the proof.
Oddly, the images are no longer available.
Clearly this is proof that a conspiracy is out of the question... again.
Can someone fix the internet again so we can deny the next sabotage?
The third break will be cause by rabid sharks.
Look, the waves are already foaming.
Uh-oh, meme time:
INT. RESEARCH FACILITIES - CONTINUOUS
Stepping out of the elevator, they walk into a large state of
the art, sterile clean research facility. It is amazingly
well staffed and organized.
PRESIDENT
I don't understand. Where did all
this come from? How did this get
funded?
MOISHE
You didn't think they actually
spent ten thousand dollars for a
hammer and thirty thousand for a
toilet seat, did you?
That's funny, I was going to say the same thing until I realized that I honestly didn't know that. It turns out a league is 4 km (in the modern metric system at least). Even in Journey to the Center of the Earth they didn't go nearly that deep.
Isn't this classical "act of terrorism" ?
But reduced connectivity isn't really that terrifying, at least to us humans. Maybe if you were a distributed AI...
Since every body of water is exactly 0 feet deep at the coastline, by definition, that last bit is pretty obvious.
What about when the coastline is actually a sheer cliff?
Since when has US policy been rational? That's what scares me...
Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
I love how some of these reports describe the cut as "eerily" similar to the earlier ones. Doesn't seem eerie to me, just evidence you should keep your cable lines farther apart.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
The map of the linked article http://www.circleid.com/posts/20081219_undersea_cables_cuts_europe_asia/ names Sicily as Malta!
Copper cables could easily be passively tapped without cutting them, because they release EM.
These are most likely fiber bundles with hundreds of strands.
The transmissions are optical, not electromagnetic in nature.
Optical transmissions do not "leak" like EM transmissions do.
i.e. There is no way to to detect what's passing through the cable without putting a hole in the sheath and somehow inserting a sensor.
It would thus be necessary for them to cut into the cladding of the cable, causing a disruption, to place a tapping device inline to pickup light.
That doesn't explain the current situation.
If they were tapping it, they would have the cable back online within a minute or so, and noone would have been the wiser as to what happens.
If they introduced too much loss of light into the cable that caused links to fail, i'm sure their specialized tapping gear would figure that out, and apply appropriate light amplification within minutes, to avoid detection.
The longer a disruption, the more likely it is a thorough investigation would be done, and possibly full examination of the cable (detecting the device).
So they certainly wouldn't leave the cable cut. I believe that rules out the possibility of this being tapping.
They have much better methods: lawful interception.
They can compromise the providers involved, make a deal with them, or have access to the equipment.
Why waste money messing with the wire between devices, when you can get equivalent captures elsewhere with less effort?
If your surmise is correct, those cables will cling to the cutters' necks like a pair of Tiberian bats...
Everything is easy when you don't understand the problem.
Oh, I'd say it's always been rational, just not always in the best interest of the country. I suspect most of the US's crazier foreign policy moves were the result of someone (often CIA) advancing his career at any cost.
"The US" is not a person, after all, and doesn't make decisions like one.
Still, as bad as it's been (and the crazy shit has all been pretty minor post-Cold War), we *did* avoid nuclear war, even when the US and Russia were *competing* for crazy. Of course, Russia seems to want to get back in the crazy comtetition these days, but it's just not as scary without the nuclear brinksmanship.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
ACTUALLY... the last time this happened was RIGHT before Iran was to make the official announcement of the secondary oil bourse being converted from US dollars to Euros. The secondary oil bourse is used for indirect petroleum products like pharmaceuticals, tires, rubber, plastic and what not. Their (Iran's) plan was to trade secondary and eventually primary oil products on a fair trade market in Euros rather than US dollars. This little stunt does harm to the US green back as it devalues it but the Europeans don't have much of a problem with that! Coincidence that wire was cut RIGHT before this announcement? Maybe!
Finally! Somebody besides me has figured it out.
Please mod parent up as insightful.
Never heard of remotely-controlled "robot" subs designed to operate at extreme depths?
What is far-fetched is the idea that you could intercept photons from a fiber-optic cable without someone at either end noticing a signal drop in that part of the link. The only way you can do this is by either splicing in to the cable directly, or by bending the cable. It is infinitely easier just to syphon off the data at (at least) one of the termination points.
Aside from this, a submerged piece of kit gets its intelligence back to HQ how again? Nuclear submarines don't exactly make routine house calls to all their undersea intercept boxes to swap out hard drives. It's not like you could use a buoy equipped with a radio link either, that'd be too obvious and easily found by general shipping traffic, or by any one of 5000 spy satellites in LEO should it actually transmit.
This kind of intercept was possible on your average little person to person piece of fiber back in the day, but such things are a rarity in modern times, now you have quite a few gigabits per second to work with. The 3 letter agencies are not going to waste such huge amounts of money to put in a complex device just to filter out Mr or Mrs presidents email (be they president of a corporation, government, or whatever) There are cheaper ways to obtain the same information.
A league is 3 NAUTICAL miles, not 4 km, closer to 5.5 km.
20,000 leagues, is roughly 3 times the circumference of the earth. It's impossible to go that deep.
Every time they hack into the fiber optics there will be some disrupted service. I for one welcome our new dolphin overlords.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28315
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/michael_phelps_returns_to_his_tank
It's hardly a big secret. There have been the USS Parche and the USS Jimmy Carter to name just two.
Sounds like the USS Jimmy Carter is living up to its bumbling namesake.
You have failed to establish that the only remaining explanation is sabotage.
Nevermind the obvious absurdity of the statement. See also 'appeal to ignorance'. It's a fallacy.
I'm more worried because it raises the prospect of private nuclear missile subs. As though ones running Windows weren't bad enough.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
/me mods +1 whoosh.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
Did you think that the fiber is one long piece stretching right across the ocean ? Because it isn't. There are repeater modules every kilometre (IIRC) which boost the signal and send it on. If a few of those are more than just repeaters (ie splitters) then it becomes trivial to grab a copy of all data that runs through that fibre. If there is redundant fibre in the cable, then conceivably, every fibre carrying data has a copy which runs right to where the govt. wants it.
I used to work for Nortel, making these repeaters by the thousand. They don't have to splice anything into the cable because the taps were already put in during the construction phase.
Wait..
reduced connectivity isn't really that terrifying
you've never taken texting privileges away from a misbehaving teenager, have you?
Not to mention the fact that anchors are never dropped to such depths - a good rule of thumb is that length of the anchor cable must be three times the depth in order for it to hold. I doubt that any ships have anchor cables that are over 1000 ft / 300 m long and consequently nobody drops anchor in waters that are deeper than a third of that.
..at the time of the outage?
People are getting internet via cable in Iraq? Things sure have come along since I was working on it, everything was satellite just a few years ago. Certainly all the military stuff was, as the only terrestrial microwave links went through Jordan and Syria.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Reread what I said. No talk of conspiracy. You sound loony. When someone mentions fact and then someone else jumps on to the conspiracy waggon (or denial of conspiracy waggon), you sound down right insane, crazy, wacko - or simply ignorant at best.
Feel free to do some research rather than create posts which make you sound like an ignorant, crazy, hick. No conspiracies required.
And, if you have any reading comprehension at all, you'll note I did not assert one over the other. I only pointed out which one was more improbable.Seriously, think about the series of of HUGE errors which would be required to make things happen as reported. Yes, it could happen, but that's not the point. The point is, implying the unreasonably, far fetched explanation trumps reasonable assumptions based on historically supported fact, it ignorance at best.
Of course, probability, in of it self, does not make it so. And you certainly are free to believe the public explanation - but at least you can do so based on a balanced view. I'm actually undecided. Regardless, speaking of conspiracies only makes you sound ignorant and uninformed. Why do you condemn someone making others aware of historical fact? Doing so only makes you sound ignorant and scared. And frankly, that's more pathetic than speaking of conspiracies; especially when a conspiracy isn't even required. Do you consider all adds of spying and/or intelligence gathering conspiracy? Even way, it doesn't speak well of you once you ponder the conversation.
Are you even aware that my post is based on well documented FACT?!?!? If not, rather than wasting time posting your ignorance, make an effort and educate your self in the same period of time. There has even been documentaries on this stuff. Several have even appeared on PBS and the History Channel. It's hardly secret knowledge.
Are you in the US? No traffic from Taiwan to you would ordinarily use cables that were just cut; the Pacific route is much faster and cheaper.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
that cutting THREE cables is enough to cause serious problems throughout much of Asia? I would have expected ten layers of redundancy for something like this, at least.
And why do people suspect it was the US exactly?
Its the new low fat reality.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
Yeah, I was surprised to learn that too. But the effect was quite noticable as soon as it was cut, on NIPR, SIPR, and JWICS. I saw the briefing on what happened and some more detailed explanation of how much was lost on each network. Ironically, the MWR internet cafe was far faster than work because it ran solely on satellite.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
You think the US cut these cables, on exactly the same amount of proof as the theory that it was done by aliens: none.
You think this is more probable than the facts that not all ships have the latest technology (especially in the thrid world), and the last time this happened ships were being allowed to anchor in an area (near the cables) that they hadn't been allowed before.
But even though there's no evidence of foul play, and no evidence that if there *were* fould play that the US did it, and even though it doesn't help the US in any way, you're leaning towards the "US did it" theory.
Face it, you *started* with "US = bad guy", and are now fishing for facts to support your idea. That's *exactly* how conspiracy theories work. Every fact that seems a little odd becomes "proof" of your theory, despite the fact that it supports 1000 other unrealeted theories just as well.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The flash of light you saw in the sky was not a UFO. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.
Alex Trebek?
Israel has booted a UN Human Rights observer from their domain. Also, more saber rattling towards Iran. Are we in for a transition surprise?
Okay, you have us there. At least 4 cables have been cut, so we can assume that there are at least 4 countries that are spying on each other.
Sounds like an awful vast conspiracy to me. I mean, come on... FOUR countries spying on each other?
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
cite? (Not doubting you, honestly curious.)
Before you design for reuse, make sure to design it for use.
1,000 feet is the max operating depth of an LA class submarine
The Los Angeles class is no longer the latest 'n' greatest. The Seawolf class has been tested to 610 meters, e.g. about 2000 feet. Also, one of the Seawolf class, the Jimmy Carter, was specifically modified for "special underwater operations", putatively for SEAL team deployments and such, but who's to say...?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
It's hardly a big secret. There have been the USS Parche and the USS Jimmy Carter to name just two.
Why the data-snooping sub wasn't named the Nixon, I'll never know!
Wouldn't that be name of a sub designed to erase 18 minutes of data?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Where do you get your facts? Since the Islamic revolution Iran has fought exactly one war, which was started by Iraq.
Also, what is your personal interest in seeing the Iranian government collapse?
Theocracy == bad? Governments not (at least nominally) derived from the consent of the governed == bad?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
8 years ago, you would have stopped at 'Rothschild', and considered it wacky enough...
Actually, the only way Ballard got ANYthing done was by first using his equipment to find US nuclear subs (Thresher and Scorpion) that had gone missing. His team found them and then went to find the Titanic.
Ballard, in interviews I've seen, laughs at the journalists and other "passengers" on the Titanic journey who completely missed the fact that for many days they were pointing 90 to 180 degrees AWAY from North during the Search and Recovery part of the mission.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Titanic-Found-During-Nuclear-Subs-Search-87136.shtml
Ballard says that even the Navy Secretary knew of his plan to search the Titanic, "but the Navy never expected me to find the Titanic, and so when that happened, they got really nervous because of the publicity."
Do you seriously doubt that Iran has serious economic difficulties, and is proping itself up with oil money? Here's a recent cite; Google finds dozens.
You probably weren't being intentionally funny but in today's economy, if you're propping yourself up with oil money, you're not having economic difficulties.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
M.I.B.
And it would originally be a Napoleon quote.
--- My dad's political betting
so it was France!!!!I KNEW IT!
The US can spy on undersea cables without cutting them, or at least we've done it before.
I would think that anyone planning terst-agresshun these days would be smart enough to encrypt their communications anyway. Not sure what good tapping it would do.
I heard this discussed one time: They wanted to find 2 Russian nuclear subs which had gone down in the area to see if they were leaking radiation and if that radiation was harmful. The research angle was to see if undersea disposal of nuke waste was feasible, or if a nuke reactor needed to be cleaned up if it went down. The titanic was thought to have gone down somewhere in between the two subs, a perfect opportunity to find it without making the military's job any harder.
Iranian president has been elected by a popular vote.
But Ive missed 3 raids and numerous heroics on wow and im PISSED. Also note how all this rerounted traffic has crippled wow players even in the US
You mean subs can go past 20,000 and not crush like eggs?
Subs don't have to, the Mediterranean Sea is 5150m at its deepest point (~16900 feet) and averages 1500m deep.
Um, if it's plausible that a ship dropped anchor in the area where the cable was cut then the water is not more than a few hundred feet deep there.
Every conjecture starts at some position. A starting position of, "US = bad guy" is not required in the least. Only a starting position of, "US spies on the world" is required. The US has even been caught in recent times spying on the UK. The UK is one of the US' closest allies. There is no country the US will not spy on. Frankly you sound ignorant of the world you live in.
I started at a sound position on equal footing with the publicly provided explanation - historical fact. Refusal to accept such a position is narrow minded and foolish to say the least.
Based on YOUR required belief system, based on known FACTS, the US as evil as evil can get. You need to seriously adjust your compass and actually bother to learn more about the world in which you naively live.
You think this is more probable than the facts that not all ships have the latest technology
And I forgot to mention some other facts which continue to make you sound like a complete whack job. There is nothing "latest" required. Both LORAN and CHAYKA has been available for decades. The technology dates back to WWII. Aviation/Naval quality receivers can be had for less than a hundred US dollars - in the US. I imagine they can be had far, far cheaper in poorer nations. Charts costs ten to twenty bucks in the US. We even have something called GPS which also has been available for decades. Once again, aviation/naval quality receivers can be had for several hundred dollars.
To believe some cutting edge, expensive technology is required to prevent such accidents is stupidity at best. Few ocean going cargo ships today will not have at least a LORAN receiver.
And what about the rest of the government? Is the Ayatollah elected?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!