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Mediterranean Undersea Cables Cut, Again
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Dec 19, 2008 04:11 PM
from the cut-me-twice-shame-on-you dept.
from the cut-me-twice-shame-on-you dept.
miller60 writes "Three undersea cables in the Mediterranean Sea have failed within minutes of each other in an incident that is eerily similar to a series of cable cuts in the region in early 2008. The cable cuts are already causing serious service problems in the Middle East and Asia. See coverage at the Internet Storm Center, Data Center Knowledge and Bloomberg. The February 2008 cable cuts triggered rampant speculation about sabotage, but were later attributed to ships that dropped anchor in the wrong place."
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Undersea Cable Cut Circumstances Examined 79 comments
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Wired has a good review of all the recent undersea cable cuts and why it's suspicious, but unlikely to be a conspiracy. So far, there are only four cut cables (the 'fifth' was weeks ago) in two different locations. Of course, a cable is damaged once every three days, on average, and there are 25 ships that do nothing but repair them. While the timing and locations are a little odd, Iran has been online the whole time, even if some of their routers weren't, and none of the conspiracy theories really add up. In a recent interview, TeleGeography Analyst Eric Schoonover said, 'I think that this is more along the lines of coincidence.'"
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Satellite IDs Ships That Cut Cables 186 comments
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GWMAW writes "A robotic submarine searched beneath the Mediterranean on Sunday for damaged communications cables, two days after Web and telephone access was knocked out for much of the Middle East.
Telecommunication providers from Cairo to Dubai continued Sunday to scramble to reroute voice and data traffic through potentially costly detours in Asia and North America after the lines running under the Mediterranean Sea were damaged Friday." According to the article, "Once found, the cable ends will be pulled to the surface and repaired on deck — a process that could take several days."
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An anonymous reader writes "Remember all those undersea cables breaking? PopSci.com introduces John Rennie, who '... has braved the towering waves of the North Atlantic Ocean to keep your e-mail coming to you. As chief submersible engineer aboard the Wave Sentinel, part of the fleet operated by UK-based undersea installation and maintenance firm Global Marine Systems, Rennie — a congenial, 6'4", 57-year-old Scotsman — patrols the seas, dispatching a remotely operated submarine deep below the surface to repair undersea cables.' The article goes on to outline the physical infrastructure of the Internet, including some of its points of vulnerability."
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Re: Dropping Anchor (Score:5, Funny)
dropped anchor in the wrong place.
As it turns out, that is a pretty serious offense ... the last time I dropped anchor in the wrong place, I ended up in the drunk tank at the county jail with both indecent exposure and drunk in public charges.
Re: Dropping Anchor (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the alternative explantions were even more far-feteched, like the idea that the US would need to cut a cable in order to tap it (we have nuclear submarines built specifically for the purpose of not tipping our hand when we tap undersea cables).
Parent
Re: Dropping Anchor (Score:5, Interesting)
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
- Sherlock Holmes
If we have proof that there were no ships there at the time, then ships were not the cause. If the only remaining explanation is sabotage, then it was sabotage.
Parent
Re: Dropping Anchor (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: Dropping Anchor (Score:5, Funny)
We dont have them.
As far as you know.
Parent
Re: Dropping Anchor (Score:5, Funny)
You know too much. Go quietly with the men in black who will shortly be knocking on your door..... now.
Parent
Re: Dropping Anchor (Score:5, Informative)
You mean subs can go past 20,000 and not crush like eggs?
Subs don't have to, the Mediterranean Sea is 5150m at its deepest point [msn.com] (~16900 feet) and averages 1500m deep.
Parent
Re: Dropping Anchor (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: Dropping Anchor (Score:5, Interesting)
There was a program on the History Channel several years back on a research effort to learn more about the Titanic disaster (at least, I think it was the Titanic) by studying the wreck closely. The US Navy volunteered their "research" nuclear sub to help out with the project. The researchers weren't quite sure where the wreck was on the ocean floor, but the Navy suggested that they have special-purpose sonar that's really, really good at finding lengths of cable, and would that help?
I remember laughing about that at the time. The program made no mention of *why* the sub would have that particular technology developed to levels unheard of by civilian shipwreck-finding experts.
Parent
Re: Dropping Anchor (Score:5, Interesting)
We do? Since when? You mean subs can go past 20,000 and not crush like eggs? We can't even retrieve the cables, we just lay new ones....
There's no need to go that deep, if your sub is stealthy enough to work undetected in water of a more reasonable depth. Operation Ivy Bells [specialoperations.com] is an example from long enough ago that's it's public knowledge. I suspect the US would still be keeping even that secret, but Russia put the wiretap device on display in a public museum (the old KGB headquarters), so the cat was pretty much out of the bag.
Parent
Re: Dropping Anchor (Score:5, Interesting)
Even though it never got reported on, the cable cuts were a serious nuisance to American troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq at the time too.
This is probably no different.
Parent
Soooo (Score:5, Funny)
Oblig. (Score:5, Funny)
All that hassle to cause commotion and outages by putting it there in the first place, and less than a year later they gotta get it back. Many years from now we will find its remains scattered across the ocean floor.
Hmm. (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like anchor drag to me. (Score:5, Informative)
Cables going to very close shore landing points between similar destinations tend to be pretty close together, saves significantly on the survey costs.
The article's timing of the outages (SeaMeWe 3&4 within minutes, FLAG half an hour later) and the relative proximity of the cable courses suggests either anchor drag or someone who cares enough to make it look that way.
Chalk up another victory for geographically dispersed redundancy.
Re:Looks like anchor drag to me. (Score:5, Funny)
The article's timing of the outages (SeaMeWe 3&4 within minutes, FLAG half an hour later) and the relative proximity of the cable courses suggests either anchor drag or someone who cares enough to make it look that way.
Or Godzilla
Parent
Re:Looks like anchor drag to me. (Score:5, Funny)
Or Godzilla
Godzilla? Do you have no faith in science at all? ...noting the location it is far more likely to be a kraken.
Parent
New conspiracy theory (Score:5, Funny)
"dropped anchor" is the new "weather balloon"
So THIS is what the RIAA meant! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So THIS is what the RIAA meant! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
No tinfoil hats needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who wants to tap any of these cables will do so on shore after paying a modest bribe. The Mediterranean is a shallow sea with lots of traffic. The cable operators route their cables close together near ports (because that's where they land) and are too cheap to plow them in. Thus it's easy for a dragged anchor to pull up a bunch of them.
Re:Reroute? Hmmmmm.... (Score:5, Informative)
Besides the nefarious reasons, there is the simple matter of cost -- transit in the US is cheaper.
Parent
Re:Now hold on (Score:5, Funny)
Just don't jump to conclusions.
I just bought my new mat though....
Parent
Re:Now hold on (Score:5, Informative)
Arr.
It be Sammy the Sea Sucker, a giant whale that has been legend for hundreds of years. He can sink down to the bottom of the ocean, and when Ol' Sammy sees something he don't like, he eats right through it.
And let me tell ya', Sammy don't like cable.
Parent
Re:As the old saying goes... (Score:5, Funny)
"Once is an accident, twice is coincidence..."
Need I remind everyone what a third incidence would point to?
A trincidence?
Parent