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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."

5 of 329 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Dropping Anchor by lgw · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  2. Re: Dropping Anchor by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "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.

  3. Re: Dropping Anchor by lgw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  4. Re: Dropping Anchor by lgw · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  5. Re: Dropping Anchor by Xaositecte · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.