Egyptian Forces Capture 3 Divers Trying To Cut Undersea Internet Cable 166
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."
Plausible deniability and/or something to hide (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
It's more like a grudge against the Western world (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re:Can't get off this ride (Score:1, Interesting)
You can't do that by shipping them weapons.
Could be some dumbass thieves (Score:4, Interesting)
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.