Slashdot Mirror
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.
they were Egyptian simply by the way they looked?
Who, at some point, hasn't gotten *that* tired of seeing stupid reddit memes?
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.
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
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.
Doubtful. The Muslim Brotherhood isn't isolationist like, e.g., the Taliban, nor do they have anything in particular against the West, as with Wahhabism. In other words, they don't necessarily see a conflict between modern institutions and Islamic life. They just have a really, really, really conservative opinion about how to live as a Muslim within a modern, technologically progressive nation-state.
They're more like what you'd get with Pat Robertson and his ultra-conservative compatriots controlling all three branches of the government. You could kiss the Constitution goodbye, but you'd still have some semblance of federalism, a free market, free-ish speech, etc.
They are not isolationist in the sense that they are happy to support foreign Jihadi organizations, like Hamas, CAIR, al Qaeda, et al. They are certainly isolationist when it comes to Western - read Infidel - influences on Egypt - that's a part of what those 'Arab Spring' revolutions were all about.
Really, the last thing that we need is apologists here for a Jihadi organization that's the parent organization of terror groups like Hamas and al Qaeda, and trying to paint them as being nicer than Wahabis or the Taliban. The only difference between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Wahabis is that the former believes in the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence, whereas the latter follow the Hanbalis. But to non-Sunnis, it's a distinction without a difference.
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.
Photos are included on The Register's coverage of the story.
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.
They were probably trying to steal the copper.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"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.
The Muslim Brotherhood isn't isolationist like, e.g., the Taliban nor do they have anything in particular against the West
Oh, well they don't sound all that bad...
They're more like what you'd get with Pat Robertson and his ultra-conservative compatriots controlling all three branches of the government.
OH GOD KILL IT WITH FIRE!
Israel IS the "world melting down".
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."