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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."
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
That's due to obscene profit on retail line provisioning, of course.
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.
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.
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.
But the basis for invading a country 5 years ago was rock solid and oh so well thought out.
No sig for you!!
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...
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?