'Massive' Transatlantic Data Cable Landed On Beach In Bude (bbc.com) 106
Thelasko shares a report from the BBC: A new "massive" undersea transatlantic communications cable has been brought ashore on a beach in Cornwall. The Google data cable, called Grace Hopper, was landed in Bude on Tuesday. Once operational, it would have the capacity to handle "17.5 million people streaming 4K video concurrently," Google bosses said. The cable has been laid between New York in the United States, Bilbao in Spain and Bude over several months, and is expected to be operational in 2022. It was part of a "new generation" of lines that "connect continents along the ocean floor with an additional layer of security beyond what's available over the public internet," Google said. The tech giant has named it Grace Hopper after the American computer scientist and United States Navy rear admiral. It is about 7,000km (4,350 miles) long and is the company's fourth privately-owned undersea data cable, which transport 98% of international internet traffic around the world.
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This is why we need a new high speed link to Slashdot servers in the US, to close the frosty piss gap.
Why land in Bude? (Score:5, Insightful)
www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/what-really-goes-gchq-intelligence-2440000
Re:Why land in Bude? (Score:5, Insightful)
so that the GCHQ can tap it :-D
Re:Why land in Bude? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why it's so important to encrypt everything. It's not a perfect defence, they can still do a lot with encrypted data and metadata, and can probably crack a lot of it given some time, but encryption does prevent a lot of mass surveillance and increases the cost to a point where hopefully they have to target their resources.
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Right. For those who don't know. Spy central is in Bude. Saw the sat dishes myself. "All the infra needed is there". Good hint.
"Can handle more traffic than everything else combined." Read: copy of everything goes straight to the US.
Re:Why land in Bude? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, you see Americans aren't allowed to spy on their own citizens....
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Well, you see Americans aren't allowed to spy on their own citizens....
deifinately true \ https://beetvapp.me/ [beetvapp.me]
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So what? It never stopped the NSA before [wikipedia.org].
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And with Americans, appearances are everything.
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It is not merely appearance. Illegally-obtained evidence cannot be used in court. So, in order to convict someone — or to even obtain a search-warrant — law-enforcement must find other evidence or engage in "parallel reconstruction" [wikipedia.org], which is a hassle...
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So?
Obviously, they're not intending to use it in court.
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Then the activity is not much different from that of Alan Turing during the War, for example.
Re:Why land in Bude? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder how many people clicked on the "I'm OK with cookies" button while reading that URL in horror at surveillance...
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I never accept cookies, because cookies go great with milk but I'm allergic to dairy.
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Coffee and/or tea are also acceptable with cookies if one can't tolerate dairy .
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I'm okay with cookies. When I close the browser they get erased.
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Re:Why land in Bude? (Score:5, Informative)
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"nor the Irish Sea, both of which are shallow and fraught with shipping"
Yeah the Irish Sea is so shallow you can drive a Cadillac across it.
Well Paul said he could anyway.
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Most of it is, except for the part Boris Johnson want to dig a tunnel through, which is oddly the deepest part [wikipedia.org] and full of WW2 bombs and nuclear waste.
Make of that what you will.
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The story that link points to is well worth a read. Leave it to Neal Stephenson to write an engaging novel about the history and current practice of submarine cabling.
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Ha! Love your handle. Are you sure you're Neal S. himself?
I remember reading that article way back in the day when I subscribed to Wired Magazine. Sounds really dry but like you said it's really good. I tossed all my old Wired Magazines decades ago -- except for that one. Still have it in a box out in the garage. Have always thought I would go back and read it again someday.
That article turned me on to Cryptonomicon, and then other of Neal's books. Thanks for bringing it up.
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That story inspired my handle, as it described perfectly the sort of holidays I like to take.
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I was wondering why they didn't use the 'traditional' landing point at Porthcurno instead.
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There is an English proverb about eggs and baskets.
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> The location of Bude was chosen because it was "an ideal, nicely protected beach and adjacent to a lot of the terrestrial infrastructure needed", she added.
I wonder if GCHQ help out with the commercial success of such a cable? I'm sure they could put their own covert tap on it out at sea somewhere, but why bother if you can pay the owner to send you the data anyway?
Besides that, I'm unclear how google makes any money off this. Do they just sell bandwidth to other ISPs, or does this cable remain entirel
Insecurity - 5 Eyes (Score:1)
So unfair (Score:5, Funny)
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Not, you idiot. It's because cocktail wieners are not allowed on the beach.
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They played The Twist. So I did The Twist.
They played Macarena. So I did the Macarena.
They played Come On Eileen. That's when I got thrown out.
Conversion for units? (Score:2)
Re:Conversion for units? (Score:5, Informative)
How do I convert 4k_video/person to something useful?
Well, first divide it by 2 because 4K video is really 2K but that's what happens when you let industries define their own terms (see also: USB)
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but that's what happens when you let industries define their own terms
So that’s why my vacuum says 6hp on the label but runs on a 115V 15A circuit.
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They don't have any choice. Do you have any idea how massive a truly 6HP vacuum would be? And it would leave shit all over the place instead of cleaning shit up, too.
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but that's what happens when you let industries define their own terms
So that’s why my vacuum says 6hp on the label but runs on a 115V 15A circuit.
Have you ever seen a horse try to suck? They can snort/blow quite well, but they are terrible at sucking. Hence it takes a lot of horses to be equivalent to a modern day vacuum. Or so I was told.
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Have you ever seen a horse try to suck? They can snort/blow quite well, but they are terrible at sucking. Hence it takes a lot of horses to be equivalent to a modern day vacuum. Or so I was told.
Oh thank god. I was afraid the extra power was coming from demons who literally drained the souls of any unwary enough to actually use it.
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would that make your vacuum a suck-ubus?
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Being as it's Google we assume they are talking about YouTube 4k video, which is typically in the 60 mbps range (YouTube states 52-68 mbps variable).
So 60 * 1.75M = 105 terabits per second, or about 13 terabytes per second.
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How do I convert 4k_video/person to something useful? Also, "massive" is now 32 fibers. Considering the difficulty of running the cable in the first place, why is the fiber count so low?
There really is no need for more fibers. Usually about half will be spares anyways. You can get a lot of channel though one fiber by multiplexing on color. The amplifiers are basically analog and do not care.
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How do I convert 4k_video/person to something useful?
47 Kilolibrariesofcongress per second.
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Glad they homered Admiral Hopper (Score:2)
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yes, except it was a nanosecond. 30 cm.
Is it hardenned for Carrington events? (Score:1)
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It's about time that the possibility of a Carrington event was factored into the design of cables and the accompanying electronics.
It's an... undersea.... fiber optic... cable bundle.
You have no idea what a Carrington event actually entails, do you?
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Well, what about the following article? https://arstechnica.com/scienc... [arstechnica.com]
Abdu Jyothi seems to think undersea cable operators don't know how to shut off the power. They're powered by up to 15 kV of DC potential. It's unknown what voltages were developed in telegraph lines during the Carrington event, but undersea fiber optic cables are powered by a copper sheath. That sheath can be grounded at each end during a Carrington event, preventing buildup of damaging voltages. Service will be interrupted but there will be no damage.
Every assessment I've ever seen of possible damage f
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You are aware that fiberoptic cables this long have electronics? Every 50 km or so, a repeater is installed. This is powered from the cable endpoints via a copper wire or sheath in the cable.
Clickbait (Score:3)
When reading the title, I immediately assumed some fisherman accidentally dragged an existing cable to the harbour. (has British spelling because of Cornwall)
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Referring to everything in the past tense was weird.
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Massive... (Score:2)
...data siphoning.
It's coming and there's nothing to prepare for. (Score:2)
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I don't think humans are any danger to the planet. We are just a bit of scum on the surface of the rock.
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The planet will exist for quite a while with or without us. It's the state of the biome that will fluctuate and/or end depending on what we do in the next few years / decades. We're the only species on the planet that has the ability to completely destroy the biosphere. And apparently we're determined to keep throwing our weight around until we do.
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I entirely agree. This motivates the idea of stewardship. That is, because humans have so much power, we have responsibility for our actions, far more than other creatures, such as whales, chimpanzees, or magpies. This is not a new concept. I think Genesis in the Bible is based on the idea of stewardship. But we don't need a God to tell us to take care of the world. The world is a nicer place to live in if nasty things don't happen. Impossible dream, but worth aiming for, instead of just being a selfish bas
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I have been practising for years to be a bloody nuisance. Professionally, I Do Useful Things, and I get paid to do that. In my spare time, I contemplate the human condition, make horrible music, insult politicians, and do all of the things that nurture a healthy democratic society. I have yet to come across an AI algorithm that can take the piss out of Boris Johnson. I think a computer taking the piss out of Donald Trump is feasible, but I haven't got the funding yet.
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For you yanks... (Score:2)
It's pronounced b-you-d....not bood.
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-Quick search places Bude in the UK. Ok.
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Editor's really shouldn't assume anything with an International audience.
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Based on your use of apostrophes, it seems like you'd be quite at home in the UK [thoughtco.com]!
Dang, when did ./ stop accepting anonymous posts?
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Great, so where is Cornwall? :D
There are lots of them in Mitchell, South Dakota (USA)
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Beauty is a French phonetic corruption of a short, cloth neck ornament currently in resurgence.
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Actually, it's 6 syllables (don't forget about Beast).
But seriously, it's 1 syllable. The "you" was supposed to indicate it was a long "u" instead of an "oo".
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What additional layer of security are they talking about?
The one marketing fantasized into reality.
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There are stickers every 10km that say "Please do not hack". That should prevent both cutting of the cable and computer hacking.
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17.5 mil people streaming 4K video concurrently (Score:2)
How many terabits per second would that be?
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And all of that data is being slurped by Google just so that they can deliver targetted ads to you just when there is a critical moment in the video...
How long before they prioritise their own streams over others?
Cynical? You betcha.
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0.15 Qbits per 47 meter-years.
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Wow, Grace Hopper got laid? (Score:2)
I'll see myself out.
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I spit out coffee on that one.
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Makes you think (Score:2)
So, 17.5 million 4K streams simultaneously, eh? I'm old enough to remember a time when the high school math teacher in charge of the school's PDP-11/44, IMSAI 8080, and TRS-80 Model 1's would ream you out for using them for what he considered frivolous stuff e.g. playing or even writing games. He's probably rolling over in his urn seeing the immense volume of frivolous bandwidth usage. Use your imagination for examples.
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She looks like a freak in the bedroom [slashdot.org]
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Don't be so harsh, my friend. After all, we are programmers. It's either something completely, or it's not at all.