New Baltic Data Cable Plan Unfolding 65
jones_supa writes "Details are shaping up of a plan for a new government-backed high capacity data cable between Germany and Finland, routed through the Baltic Sea. The project to significantly upgrade Finland's international data transfer capacity has long been high on the government's list of priorities. It could improve the country's competitiveness in ICT technologies and digital services. Following a meeting of the cabinet's economic policy committee on Wednesday, Pekka Haavisto, the minister responsible for state ownership steering, told the press that the state will take part in the venture as a partial owner. The estimated cost of the undersea data cable project is around 100 million euros. Haavisto said that roughly one third of the costs could be paid by the state, another third by institutional investors and the remainder by private companies. So far, all data transmission to Finland has taken place via the Øresund Bridge, that is through Denmark and Sweden."
Re:Does it secure Finland-Geman comms from NSA/GCH (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course they can tap underwater links, we even know the companies that do it, but can they do it without the Germans detecting it, and will the Germans encrypt the link anyway?:
Glimmerglass make a range of covert taps and software interception equipment:
http://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/docs/glimmerglass/275_transparent-signal-access-and-monitoring.html
http://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/docs/glimmerglass/274_electronic-blitz-intelligence-ops-are-poised-to-gather-move.html
http://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/docs/glimmerglass/55_glimmerglass-cybersweep.html
That bridge route traverses Sweden which is one of the countries compromised by NSA surveillance, CIA political shaping. So Finland probably won't trust the Swedes to be loyal to Europe more than the US.
See 'Britain and Sweden block EU investigation into NSA spying":
http://www.dailydot.com/news/britain-uk-sweden-block-spying-investigation/