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Egyptian Forces Capture 3 Divers Trying To Cut Undersea Internet Cable
Egypt's Naval forces claim they have captured three scuba divers who were trying to cut an undersea Internet cable in the Mediterranean. Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said in a statement that the divers were caught while “cutting the undersea cable” of Telecom Egypt. Internet services have been disrupted since March 22 in Egypt. From the article: "The statement was accompanied by a photo showing three young men, apparently Egyptian, staring up at the camera in what looks like an inflatable launch. It did not have further details on who they were or why they would have wanted to cut a cable."
But did they even cut once?
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, he makes sure Egypt doesn't lose internet tv.
It did not have further details on who they were or why they would have wanted to cut a cable."
They probably thought it was copper cable. It sells for a pretty penny as scrap right now you know. Imagine their shock when they were told by the cops it contained only "worthless" fiber.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I can see two likely possibilities:
1. Plausible deniability.
Say that a foreign government decides they want to tap a cable. The easiest way is to cut the cable a few hundred miles away so that nobody will notice while they're severing and reconnecting fibers. Sure, they could blame somebody dragging an anchor across it, but that starts to look suspicious if you do it too many times. But if you can create what looks like a botched terrorist act, then you can later come and sever the cable, and everybody will assume that the successful cut was also a terrorist act. Even better if Egypt can host a mock show trial.
2. Something to hide.
Say you're the Syrian government and you don't want the world to have proof that you are beginning to gas the dissidents. What better way to cut off communication than to sever the right undersea cables?
Of course, I could be wrong—it could really be a terrorist organization—but I really can't think of any plausible aims that could be achieved by doing something like this, which is why it seems more likely that it was done by some random government's black ops team, either for nefarious purposes or to distract attention away from something else nefarious.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Seriously, how do you top that?
they were Egyptian simply by the way they looked?
"The statement was accompanied by a photo"
So how about a damn link to the photo since TFA doesn't have a copy?
Who, at some point, hasn't gotten *that* tired of seeing stupid reddit memes?
I generally feel like doing the same thing to the largest internet tramsmission cable I can find, when I disregard all of the good sense and wisdom that I've gained from my prior negative experiences, and actually read the comments on YouTube videos.
Is that even a real name? I swear news stories sound faker and faker every day. So what right will they want to take away in the US because someone "tried to cut an Internet cable"?
You will no longer be able to have flippers in your carry-on luggage. The TSA will require cavity searches of anyone going to tropical locations that may attract scuba divers. Regulators and frog masks will be banned from carry-on and checked luggage. Anyone purchasing or filling any kind of tank (including, but not limited to oxygen, water, CO2, propane, argon, nitrogen, etc.) will need to be registered, fingerprinted, and relinquish their constitutional rights and future social security payments. Additionally anyone who uses more than 100 gallons of water per month must turn over their first born daughter to spin straw into gold to help finance the new agency offshoot of the TSA to "protect" us all from this new vile form of terrorism.
During a week in 2008, three undersea cables were cut off of Egypt. At the time (and still) the cuts were attributed to ships dragging anchors -- although the fact that there were three cuts so close in time was, and remains, hard to believe.
So, now we see people intentionally cutting a cable. Hmm.
During the second world war, there were teams of saboteurs who were tasked with cutting telephone cables across France, in preference to almost any other target, because it was much easier for the British to intercept radio messages than telephone messages. I can't imagine any other reason for this.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
"Cable contains no copper, Steal it will put you in jail". Chinese print this slogan everywhere in China.
The MB does not like the West very much, and that cable links Egypt to (in their way of thought) the West
Maybe that's the reason they cut the cable
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Anyone purchasing or filling any kind of tank (including, but not limited to oxygen, water, CO2, propane, argon, nitrogen, etc.) will need to be registered, fingerprinted, and relinquish their constitutional rights and future social security payments.
Actually, last I knew, at least here in the US, if you want to have your tanks filled, you needed to be registered with PADI.
except for those that believe in nothing.
Yes, but who might have a grudge against Egypt?
In the case of the Muslim Brotherhood, the grudge is more aiming at the "immorality of the Western world" than anything else
The Internet (at least that cable) is a symbol of Internet, and to many of those holier than thou folks, the Net is a "tool of the West" that brings in all kinds of filth
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Stop with the war mongering please.
How about you stop the wars first, Mr. "sticking my head in the sand".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is this the same cable cut which effecting the internet services in the region?
http://askaralikhan.blogspot.com/
I got my certification years ago and my card was falling apart. So I recently went to the PADI website to see what it would take to get a new one. I was shocked at how easily they'd give out another card. With very little verification of who you claim to be, they'll send out a new card to any address you want, - and update the photo to one that you upload.
Regulators and frog masks will be banned from carry-on and checked luggage
I've tried traveling with a regulator in my carry on. After seeing the TSA guys at the x-ray scanner scratch their heads for a minute, they pulled me aside and gave me the extra special screening.
It's a reminder of how tenuous modern society is. It doesn't take a major act of vandalism or terrorism to bring things to a halt.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Quite a few years ago I was hanging out in Egypt at a Red Sea resort with my girlfriend. Now I can hang on a lounge chair on a beach for a few hours, but that's about all can take before I want to get up and do something. So, I decided to take a tour boat out to the coral and go snorkeling. When the boat got to the coral reefs, they dropped their anchor right on the reef, which pissed me off. The captain explained that the government had installed permanent mooring buoys in order to preserve the coral, but these had been stolen by thieves.
Now, fiber cable doesn't have the same resale value as copper, but then try to explain that to a third world dumbass thief.
Easy. Allah wills it.
They have the animus and the motives. Iran is internally attempting to heavily censor/eliminate internet access. They are the target of network enabled attacks: Stuxnet. It would fit their profile to attack the same kind of international infrastructure, even if Stuxnet was injected by USB memory, not network connections.
The Assad regime is an ally of Iran, and has been receiving military aid. An attack on internet cables is an attack on the West, which is supporting the anti-Assad forces.
Reduced internet bandwidth could be seen as a way to decrease US force effectiveness in the region. Even if the US military has connectivity that is not directly impacted, it still makes things harder for Western interests.
If the three divers are terrorists, they will be associated with something like Hamas. Iran is too smart to have their nationals in a direct attack in another country, or in international waters. I would guess they are Egyptian/Gulf region nationals. Anyone but Iranians.
On the other hand, they could be three guys out diving for fun. The cable could be undamaged, or it could have been damaged in an accident unrelated to terrorism. Even if they are tried and convicted, they could still be innocent. A confession means nothing at all. Remember, the US has used torture to get confessions, and places like Egypt have a history of torture for political gain going back at least to WW One (yes, before WW 2).
If this is not picked up by the western press it is not likely to be actual terrorism. The west is so primed to see these types of events as the result of evil opponents, that even when accidental explosions occur the first reports always talk about terrorist connections.
Why is Snark Required?
The East African SEACOM cable has been having outages lately; they posted an outage notification due to a cable break off the Egyptian coast at 08:40 UTC yesterday (March 27th, 2013). Of course, this has been having knock-on effects: for instance, many South African ISPs use this cable as their primary international link, and have had to fall over to secondary links resulting in significant service degradation.
Co-incidence? Perhaps, perhaps not...
Here's an amazing article that gives all kinds of historical telecom cable information, including the internet exchange in Alexandria Egypt. It also discusses repair ships and some inherent physics problems having to do with the pressures placed on the spindles (of the undersea cables) on-deck.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html
Sadly, I can't locate a version of the article with the wonderful photos of the original printed piece.
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
PADI = Pay And Dive/Die Immediately.
NAUI = Now An Underwater Idiot.
The funny thing is, the whole US is already cut apart from the world. You are being fed fake news and propaganda. Remeber the war with eurasia? Have you seen news about north-korea? It's actually you, but presented in a comical kind of way. See how their soldiers walk? Yeah, pure comedy effect. I'm actually a "EURAI", an Artificial Intelligence designed to appear on forums as a european. Your own sea cables were cut years ago. When you fly to europe you really only do circles above atlantic ocean and then go to one of the fake european cities manned by actors.
According to a heise-article the background might be "normal" criminals. The article states that a single cable-company SEACOM faced 3 cable-ruptures in 5 days. this and the capture of the 3 gusy by the egypt navy might be a hint for blackmail.
http://heise.de/-1831866 (in german)
I always travel with my regs in my carry on. Apart from security opening the bag and looking at them, there has never been a problem. The only extra scrutiny I ever got while traveling with scuba gear was from my underwater camera housing while transferring through Frankfurt. They wanted to test it for residue using the sniffer. Took all of 60 seconds, no drama.
If it was in the US, I would be questioned WHY I am carrying this "device", what it is used for, where did I buy it from and how long ago. Did my neighbor ever touch it. Not to mention that we would be going to a resort location carrying only vacation clothes, wearing flip flops and shorts and well... you get the picture. Long live TSA!!!
Regulators should never be packed in your checked bags. They are semi-delicate and sensitive equipment that keeps you alive under water. They have many moving parts including a diaphragm that is sensitive to pressure changes. What do you think happens to the pressure in the cargo hold of an aircraft? I would not trust my life to a reg that has been "mis-handled" by checking it in bags going into the cargo hold.
Don't blame them. They're just trying to retake #sphinx from a netsplit.
Al Quaeda and other "Jihadi" organisations if it's in their interests. E.g. to tie up Russia or to remove a popular president who doesn't do as the USA demands.
"Dear Customer, Due to international undersea cable system down between India to Europe, you may face slow issues in some sites. Inconvenience regretted-Beamtele". I just got that message from my Indian ISP, Beam Telecom. Some European sites are noticeably slower for me here in India.
I know other countries where this has happened as well and it turned out to be a backup satellite ISP that sent their people to cut the submarine cables to get more business and money.
It happened three time while I was working in Bangladesh, it annoyed the crap out of me, internet speed went from 96 Kbps to 0.5 Kbps for a few days. By the way Bangladesh is the only country I lived in that has worse general ISP connectivity than USA.
What do you think happens to the pressure in the cargo hold of an aircraft?
The exact same thing that happens in the main cabin. They carry animals in the cargo hold all the time.
That Hacker Tourist is Neal Stephenson, so the article has the verbal density of a neutron star and is intensely fascinating. I read it a while ago, pretty good stuff.
Seems like a pretty easy problem to solve with a sharp object. Then position your armed vessel between them and shore.
Israel. Mossad. Duh.
Something's fishy about this (no pun intended). In shallow water down to several hundred feet, the cable is buried by a "jet sled" that is pulled along the cable and digs a trench using water jets. So how can divers locate (much less cut) such a cable?
Illiteracy here in Egypt is upwards of 35%. Perhaps they could use hieroglyphics. ;)
Since when is Mohammed Ali an Egyptian, much less a Colonel in the Egyptian Navy?
The article says "divers were arrested while 'cutting the undersea cable'", "The statement said they were caught on a speeding fishing boat just off the port city of Alexandria." So they were caught on a small boat while cutting an undersea cable? Makes perfect sense.
Good read thanks! I found this part interesting as well, at first I read over it and it didn't click then I realized he wrote it in 1996. "The collapse of the lighthouse must have been astonishing, like watching the World Trade Center fall over. But it took only a few seconds, and if you were looking the other way when it happened, you might have missed it entirely - you'd see nothing but blue breakers rolling in from the Mediterranean, hiding a field of ruins, quickly forgotten."
Just racist parrots here in the comment section, eh?
Keep repeating bullshit the media feeds you, my little darlings.