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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?
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"
Just don't jump to conclusions.
I just bought my new mat though....
"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?
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.
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.
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?
From TFA:
"A first appraisal at 7:44 am UTC gave an estimate of the following impact on the voice traffic..."
So the 82% applies to voice phone service, not computer data. Voice can still be packet-switched, sure... but usually isn't.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
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
Arr.
It be Sammy the Sea Sucker, a giant whale that has been legend for hundreds of years. He can sink down to the bottom of the ocean, and when Ol' Sammy sees something he don't like, he eats right through it.
And let me tell ya', Sammy don't like cable.
The Internet is generally stupid
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
And let me tell ya', Sammy don't like cable.
I can sympathize with the poor bastard, he's probably a Time Warner customer too.
The enemies of Democracy are
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)
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.
From your description, I'm guessing it's a washing machine.
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.
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.
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...
Perhaps the sub is made of irony?
Program Intellivision!
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.