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Russian Presence Near Undersea Cables Concerns US (nytimes.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the sean-connery-hasn't-defected-over-it,-so-we're-probably-OK dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times reports that the presence of Russian ships near important, undersea internet cables is raising concern with U.S. military and intelligence officials. From the article: "The issue goes beyond old Cold War worries that the Russians would tap into the cables — a task American intelligence agencies also mastered decades ago. The alarm today is deeper: The ultimate Russian hack on the United States could involve severing the fiber-optic cables at some of their hardest-to-access locations to halt the instant communications on which the West's governments, economies and citizens have grown dependent.
...
Just last month, the Russian spy ship Yantar, equipped with two self-propelled deep-sea submersible craft, cruised slowly off the East Coast of the United States on its way to Cuba — where one major cable lands near the American naval station at Guantánamo Bay. It was monitored constantly by American spy satellites, ships and planes. Navy officials said the Yantar and the submersible vehicles it can drop off its decks have the capability to cut cables miles down in the sea. What worries Pentagon planners most is that the Russians appear to be looking for vulnerabilities at much greater depths, where the cables are hard to monitor and breaks are hard to find and repair.

9 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. Military funding to thwart this threat? by rmdingler · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Sounds like a money grab. It seems unlikely the Russians would risk peacetime exposure of such an act of sabotage, only to risk the full measure of the American retaliation process, unless the two nations were at war.

    Scouting mission? Sure. Possibly.

    But Putin's grandstanding is likely more about restoring key pieces of the old Soviet Empire and regaining a foothold in the Middle East, not in confronting the Americans head on.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:Military funding to thwart this threat? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

      Now's a great time for Putin to grandstand. We have a sissy, water-balloon for a President (Obama). And it only gets worse down the pike.

    2. Re:Military funding to thwart this threat? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The Americans haven't been in peace time mode since 1945 unless I missed history classes.

      You missed some classes. The US was at war, continuously, throughout the 1920s and 1930s, with American soldiers fighting to prop up dictators in Nicaragua, Haiti, Honduras, etc.

    3. Re:Military funding to thwart this threat? by aaaaaaargh! · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No, Putin is probably really kind of 'crazy', at least that's what the public evidence indicates. He's a psychopath who almost entirely lacks empathy and only thinks in the strategic terms of an aged intelligence operative, and that's a problem, not that he also acts in the interest of his country like any other leader does. He's also kind of a loner.

      Crazy and rational are not mutually exclusive terms, they easily go hand in hand.

  2. What concerns me is why US and Israel support ISIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Russia is a backward and awful country.
    But they since decades they did not mass murdered any people.
    Unlike ISIS sponsored and trained by US and Israel.
    Who should we really look closely at then?

  3. Data theft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    While I don't trust Russia either, I am far more worried about the US presence near undersea cables, as there is actual documented evidence that suggests they sabotage undersea cables to wiretap overseas communications.

  4. An old German saying by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It loses a bit in translation, but essentially it says "The knave thinks others are as he is, and expects likewise from them".

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  5. Re:Bullshit by mrvan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The police are keeping you in a protected witness facility because the mob is out to get you, and you start thinking the police might not be as bad as the mobsters --- that's not really Stockhold symdrome territory yet :)

    In other words, US supremacy is the worst thing that can happen to the world, apart of course from nazi german supremacy, Chinese supremacy, Putin or Stalin russian supremacy, and good lord just imagine EU supremacy. Death by a thousand red tapes, that one...

  6. Occam's razor principle by Max_W · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Occam's razor principle: Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    It is a scientific ship. It is doing a scientific research. We know less abut ocean bottom than about Mars surface.

    Here is Russian submarines research the bottom of Geneva lake: http://www.spiegel.de/internat...

    But not to cut some ridiculous cables, but for science: biology, geography, history, etc.