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The Men Who Fix the Internet
An anonymous reader writes "Remember all those undersea cables breaking? PopSci.com introduces John Rennie, who '... has braved the towering waves of the North Atlantic Ocean to keep your e-mail coming to you. As chief submersible engineer aboard the Wave Sentinel, part of the fleet operated by UK-based undersea installation and maintenance firm Global Marine Systems, Rennie — a congenial, 6'4", 57-year-old Scotsman — patrols the seas, dispatching a remotely operated submarine deep below the surface to repair undersea cables.' The article goes on to outline the physical infrastructure of the Internet, including some of its points of vulnerability."
I suggest we leave them that way. It will reduce spam, and make Dell hire locally for their call centers.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Grounds keeper Willie of the undersea cables, at your service.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
WTF are people dragging anchors around for? I would presume (and could be entirely wrong, as usual) that shallow water cable runs wouldn't be located next to anchorages. Do these sea going vessels have to stop for lunch or something?
And why to we even allow fisherman to drag crap along the sea bottom? I thought industrial level trawling went out years ago?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Because anyone can still whoop Aquaman's butt.
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
Upon being advised that the North Atlantic cable had been cut by another fishing boat, Rennie exclaimed "I dinna cry when me own father was hung for stealing a pig. But I'll cry now!"
While there is loads of critical data that goes through these cables, I feel bad when these guys are working their asses off to make sure that 4chan or youtubes of a chimpanzee riding on a segway gets to its proper place.
Aren't there enough satellites up that we wouldn't need undersea cables anyway?
On the internets?
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
This is yet another example of the jobs which we rely on everyday but don't give much thought to. Also, this make me really think there is a great job out there to fit everyone. (When the economy improves that is.)
Douglas Whitaker
I might be walking into a woosh here; but radio waves are (or rather carry) data that travels at the speed of light(plus, the speed of light is higher in a vacuum than in fiber). What really kills you with satellites is the distance.
Aye Captain, but I don't know if my poor cables will take more.
We know it's mammals, at least. Or we can hope...
... and the article couldn't even get that right.
Blech. For much more interesting reading, check out this classic:
Mother Earth Mother Board
Holy crap! The Internet *is* a series of tubes! Evidence:Image from TFA
Satellites are cost effective if you are either:
1. Reaching a broad audience with the same transmission.
2. A large government with cryptic and voluminous bookkeeping designed to hide that you are at a loss.
Just ask the satellite phone companies what happens when you have to listen to that broad audience too.
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
Oh forgot:
3. Have absolutely no other way to accomplish something.
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
Nope, it's sharks - sharks I tell you! With frickin' lasers on their heads.
What was once true, is no longer so
I actually subscribed to Wired at the time based on that article. Sadly, their regular content was nowhere near as good.
...is a cool article up on Wired (look for the printable link option so it's all on one page) detailing an interesting adventure around the world and some of the history of undersea cables. Definitely worth a read.
"The article goes on to outline the physical infrastructure of the Internet, including some of its points of vulnerability"
Sean Gorman mapped out the US fiber-optic telco fiefdoms.
Parts of his dissertation where "removed".
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/01/70040?currentPage=2
Getting back to the popsci 'news'
The part I find interesting is the use of 'hubs'
Are hubs (fiber locations?) for cost savings, lazy design, best design for a shareholder when burning tax payers re nation building, collusion between telcos, easy NSA access ?
What do other parts of the world do ?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Fixed? Isn't the internet perpetually broken and therefore needing more investment in hardware and expertise?
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
I'd swap with this man if job is somewhere in South Pacific. Present location is a bit too cool.
Everytime we have a connectivity hiccup I am flooded with calls from our users asking "Is the Internet broken?"
It takes everything in my power not to say "Yes. The Internet is, in fact, broken"
As I looked at the photo in the article of this brave warrior-engineer, I thought "So this is the man who keeps the porn flowing."
And I couldn't help but notice his underwater robot seems to have a mech penis. He even calls it "The Beast".
From TFA:
"If terrorists managed to gain remote access to a facility's command-and-control system, they could, for example, cause the generators to overheat and explode."
If you can make a generator explode on command, you really are doing it wrong. Backup generators may be able to be remotely started, stopped, switched in/out and checked but you should not be able to do the equivalent of burnouts with them.
Additionally, the article states that catastrophic failures would start to creep in after ~2 days of no human maintenance. WTF? Most exchanges and data centres I've been in are ghost ships 350 days a year aside from upgrades and config changes, how is it that such critical hardware can't tick over by itself for a month or so without going nipples skyward?
Hell, the average telephone exchange, if you nuked everything around it, would be giving dialtone and DSL to the skeletons for at least a week, probably more depending on how much diesel is in the tanks.
There is no music - home taping killed it.
Really cool article. I wish there were more ones like this one instead of "What features would you like in new Apple toilet brush" or "Microsoft is still being ghey".
I find it pretty amazing that it is possible to manage such complicated, global structure without any serious problems (yet). However, I still don't quite get it how they find where the cable got broken and how they fix it in the first place.
My Windows is NOT slow, it's special!
I have a shortwave radio, I use it.. sometimes.
Trouble is, BBC, radio netherlands, etc.. have pretty much stopped broadcasting to the the US, which means there are fewer english programs. (still a few) but I do get HAM operators, who, I trust, will relay anthing important.
If something critical should happen, I'll still be informed, shortwave works when cables AND satelites are down. (albeit, I won't be able to watch "youtube")
Indeed, 8 years ago, I had no tv or internet (hard times..) shortwave saved me from a lot of boring nights.. at least WBCQ, CBC (Canada) and the VOA are still on.
I guess this is why spies still use it, it's reliable. (and yes, I've heard a few spy transmissions.)
We depend too much on frail technology.
Makes me Fix the internet twice a week.
You are correct, grasshopper. The speed at which light or radio waves propagate in a medium is determined by that medium's index of refraction, which (as you stated) is 1 for a vacuum. A typical value for fiber is 1.47, so the signal in the fiber travels only 68% as fast as the radio wave in a vacuum. The distances involved with geosynchronous orbits, however, make up for that slower speed. In the time it takes the radio wave to reach the satellite (35,786 km / 300,000 km/s = 119 mS), the fiber signal could've circled the Earth 1.2 times (119 mS * 204,082 km/s = 24,286 km (Diameter of the Earth is approx 20,000 km).
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
"Who is the idiot who put the brits in charge of such critical infrastructure?"
Obviously not someone who drove a car with Lucas electrical systems...
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Oops - math typo. Diameter of the earth = approx 40,000 km, so in the time it takes the signal to reach the satellite the fiber has made it more than half way around. Alternatively, in the time it takes for the round trip to the satellite, the fiber signal has made it all the way around almost 1.5 times.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Not the diameter, the circumference.
The earth's diameter is more like 12000 km (40000/pi).
GPG 0x1B479C78
I agree. The electrical systems on British cars refuse to work when damp or even vaguely moist, so why are they in charge of something that has 10,000V running on it for the amplifiers and will be _submerged_ in seawater???
Grin 8-)
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
WTF are people dragging anchors around for?
They are doing it to piss you off and wreck your Internets. It has nothing to do with a ten thousand year old industry that feeds millions.
And why to we even allow fisherman to drag crap along the sea bottom?
Dammit, Aqua-TSA should be monitoring every meter of sea-bottom! Stupid Obama is soft on terror!
Don't take it personally, I'm just goofing on you.
Doh!!! Double math fail! Sorry about that. The number is correct, the label is incorrect. That was my frist psot of the morning - I'll wait for the coffee to kick in next time.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
...I've always wondered how they put large cables in the seas in the first place..? A transatlantic cable for example, do they have a really really really long one or connect many shorter? ..Or do they manufacture it on the fly as they go?
Anyone got a link with information about how these things work?
I thought Al Gore fixed it...