Here's a summary of the damage, not all of which involves cuts:
1. VSNL's SeaMeWe-4, 12.334 km from Alexandria, in the Mediterranean. Currently under repair, should be fixed by this weekend.
2. Qtel's cable from Haloul (Qatar) to Das (UAE), in the Persian Gulf. Probably not a cut, but damaged power system due to weather.
3. FLAG's Europe-Asia (FEA Segment D), 8.3 km from Alexandria, in the Mediterranean. Currently under repair, should be fixed by this weekend by cable ship CS Certamen.
4. FLAG's FALCON (FALCON Segment 2), 56 km from Dubai, in the Persian Gulf. Currently under repair, should be fixed by this weekend. This cut was due to a ship's anchor--an abandoned 5-6 ton anchor was recovered by FLAG at the site (see photo in FLAG's update, PDF)
5. FLAG's Europe-Asia (FEA Segment M), 28 km from Penang, Malaysia. Scheduled for repair on February 11 by cable ship CS Asean Restorer.
6. FLAG's FALCON (FALCON Segments 7a and 7b), two faults on the cable between Kuwait and Bandar Abbas, Iran, scheduled for repair on February 19.
Keep in mind that this is all occurring during extremely bad weather in the region.
None of the cut cables land in Iran, anyway. Iran has connectivity through (at least) TTNet in Turkey over terrestrial cable, and through a submarine cable from Kuwait that has not been cut.
Your claim that SeaMeWe-4 was cut near Marseille is incorrect. It was cut on its Marseille-Alexandria leg, while FLAG Telecom's Europe-Asia cable was cut on its Palermo, Sicily-Alexandria leg. Those two cables are right next to each other off the north coast of Egypt, and were both cut in the same incident by the same tanker.
There have been three cable cuts in two incidents. The first incident was the tanker anchor that cut FLAG Telecom's Europe-Asia cable and SeaMeWe-4 in the Mediterranean off the north coast of Egypt, on the route between Palermo, Sicily and Alexandria, Egypt. Those cables run in parallel from Palermo to Alexandria in the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea, then from Djibouti to Mumbai, India.
The second incident was a cut in FLAG Telecom's FALCON cable, which connects up with the Europe-Asia cable off the coast of Mumbai and goes north into the Persian Gulf past Oman, UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain, and lands in Kuwait. In the other direction, it rounds India and connects to Sri Lanka. That one was cut between Oman and UAE.
None of these cables lands in Iran. There is a subsea cable from Kuwait to Iran; the impact to that was indirect.
Note that in December 2006 there were *nine* cable breaks in Asia as a result of earthquakes. Submarine cables (like terrestrial cables) break all the time due to natural and man-caused accidents, which is why every cable operator contracts with cable laying and repair fleets to repair breaks.
I don't think there's anything suspicious here. I've discussed this in similar detail at my blog, which includes a link to Telegeography's submarine cable map.
Slashdot never was a common carrier, but neither are they necessarily liable for everything posted on the site.
The ONLY major case in which taking some editorial steps led to additional liability was Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy, which has been overturned both in the courts and with additional legislation that explicitly says that taking reasonable steps of policing does NOT make you liable for all content.
See Zeran v. AOL, Aquino v. Electriciti, the
eBay cases, etc. We're back to something closer
to the Cubby v. CompuServe case, except that now
there's some explicit enacted law that covers some
situations (e.g., the last remaining piece of the CDA for defamation, which says outright that online providers are not liable for what their users say; and the DMCA, which grants safe harbors for online providers that register with the Copyright Office and follow certain fairly simple policies).
Demon's situation has no bearing whatsoever on U.S. law.
Slashdot never was a common carrier. A common
carrier is an FCC-regulated provider of telecommunications services that is required to
sell bandwidth to all comers, provide universal
service, etc.
ISPs (unless they are also telcos) also never are and never have been common carriers. Under FCC regulations, they are enhanced service providers, not common carriers.
Slashdot would be much better off being a *publisher* than a common carrier. And that's essentially what they are.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's a summary of the damage, not all of which involves cuts:
1. VSNL's SeaMeWe-4, 12.334 km from Alexandria, in the Mediterranean. Currently under repair, should be fixed by this weekend.
2. Qtel's cable from Haloul (Qatar) to Das (UAE), in the Persian Gulf. Probably not a cut, but damaged power system due to weather.
3. FLAG's Europe-Asia (FEA Segment D), 8.3 km from Alexandria, in the Mediterranean. Currently under repair, should be fixed by this weekend by cable ship CS Certamen.
4. FLAG's FALCON (FALCON Segment 2), 56 km from Dubai, in the Persian Gulf. Currently under repair, should be fixed by this weekend. This cut was due to a ship's anchor--an abandoned 5-6 ton anchor was recovered by FLAG at the site (see photo in FLAG's update, PDF)
5. FLAG's Europe-Asia (FEA Segment M), 28 km from Penang, Malaysia. Scheduled for repair on February 11 by cable ship CS Asean Restorer.
6. FLAG's FALCON (FALCON Segments 7a and 7b), two faults on the cable between Kuwait and Bandar Abbas, Iran, scheduled for repair on February 19.
Keep in mind that this is all occurring during extremely bad weather in the region.
None of the cut cables land in Iran, anyway. Iran has connectivity through (at least) TTNet in Turkey over terrestrial cable, and through a submarine cable from Kuwait that has not been cut.
s/Marseille-Alexandria/Palermo-Alexandria/
Both cables land in the same places...
Your claim that SeaMeWe-4 was cut near Marseille is incorrect. It was cut on its Marseille-Alexandria leg, while FLAG Telecom's Europe-Asia cable was cut on its Palermo, Sicily-Alexandria leg. Those two cables are right next to each other off the north coast of Egypt, and were both cut in the same incident by the same tanker.
There have been three cable cuts in two incidents. The first incident was the tanker anchor that cut FLAG Telecom's Europe-Asia cable and SeaMeWe-4 in the Mediterranean off the north coast of Egypt, on the route between Palermo, Sicily and Alexandria, Egypt. Those cables run in parallel from Palermo to Alexandria in the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea, then from Djibouti to Mumbai, India.
The second incident was a cut in FLAG Telecom's FALCON cable, which connects up with the Europe-Asia cable off the coast of Mumbai and goes north into the Persian Gulf past Oman, UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain, and lands in Kuwait. In the other direction, it rounds India and connects to Sri Lanka. That one was cut between Oman and UAE.
None of these cables lands in Iran. There is a subsea cable from Kuwait to Iran; the impact to that was indirect.
Note that in December 2006 there were *nine* cable breaks in Asia as a result of earthquakes. Submarine cables (like terrestrial cables) break all the time due to natural and man-caused accidents, which is why every cable operator contracts with cable laying and repair fleets to repair breaks.
I don't think there's anything suspicious here. I've discussed this in similar detail at my blog, which includes a link to Telegeography's submarine cable map.
The ONLY major case in which taking some editorial steps led to additional liability was Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy, which has been overturned both in the courts and with additional legislation that explicitly says that taking reasonable steps of policing does NOT make you liable for all content. See Zeran v. AOL, Aquino v. Electriciti, the eBay cases, etc. We're back to something closer to the Cubby v. CompuServe case, except that now there's some explicit enacted law that covers some situations (e.g., the last remaining piece of the CDA for defamation, which says outright that online providers are not liable for what their users say; and the DMCA, which grants safe harbors for online providers that register with the Copyright Office and follow certain fairly simple policies).
Demon's situation has no bearing whatsoever on U.S. law.
Slashdot never was a common carrier. A common carrier is an FCC-regulated provider of telecommunications services that is required to sell bandwidth to all comers, provide universal service, etc. ISPs (unless they are also telcos) also never are and never have been common carriers. Under FCC regulations, they are enhanced service providers, not common carriers. Slashdot would be much better off being a *publisher* than a common carrier. And that's essentially what they are.