French Police Probe Multiple Cuts of Major Internet Cables (apnews.com) 44
French police said Friday they're investigating multiple cuts to fiber-optic cables in France's second-largest city. Operators said the cables link Marseille to other cities in France and Europe and that internet and phone services were severely disrupted. From a report: The disruptions in Marseille were a taste of what analysts warn could be far larger problems in other cases if cables are systematically attacked. The vulnerability of fiber-optic cables, especially those underwater, and other key infrastructure was highlighted by the sabotage last month in the Baltic Sea of natural gas pipelines from Russia. The damage in the city in southern France also appeared to resemble suspected acts of sabotage to other cables in the country earlier this year. French cable operator and internet service provider Free said its repair teams were mobilized before dawn Wednesday to deal with "an act of vandalism on our fiber infrastructure." It said the attacks were simultaneous and on multiple spots of its fiber network near Marseille. Photos that Free published on Twitter showed multiple cables completely severed in their concrete housings buried in the ground. It said the cuts led to major disruptions to its network and phone services in the Marseille area.
the Russians are coming! (Score:2)
the Russians are coming!
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Re:the Russians are coming! (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing to see here. These were just a passing fisherman, like the one in the two separate cable cuttings in Shetland within a week of each other. In France, a fisherman just dragged his boat through the concrete housing containing the cables and accidentally cut the fibre optics.
Meanwhile, Norway is arresting Russians [washingtonpost.com] for flying drones over Svalbard, an island that had its own cable mysteriously cut 10 months ago. Putin's crony's kid probably wanted to do some Arctic "fishing."
Authorities also disclosed the arrest of a dual Russian-British national who stands accused of flying a drone over Svalbard, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, allegedly violating a rule that bars Russian citizens from flying drones in the country.
The man, Andrey Yakunin, 47, is the son of Vladimir Yakunin, a former president of Russian Railways and a confidant of Putin. The elder Yakunin was sanctioned by the United States in the wake of Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea.
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> Nothing to see here...fisherman just dragged his boat...accidentally cut the fibre optics.
But he was wearing Russian-made boots when it happened!
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These boots were actually made in Iran.
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"I put the boots on, then I Ran"
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I think you missed the sarcasm in the GP post. Also kind of impressive to trawl though four different pipeline that are specifically build to be resistent to that, and 100 km appart.
cable probes YOU! (Score:2)
civil disobedience (Score:2)
French people always seem to be on the edge of protesting, ready to riot at any moment. I'd guess this is some kind of civil disobedience. Next up burning cars in the middle of town and trucks clogging the streets.
Re: civil disobedience (Score:2)
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the Russians are coming!
Open your mouth!
Time for some fines!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Time to fine American high tech companies, for not preventing these cables from being cut!!
Re: Time for some fines!! (Score:2)
It really is disruptive (Score:5, Interesting)
Far from any (declared) war zone, this was happening to us in Fremont, CA. (tesla-land). Twice in a month my Internet, Phone, and TV service went full dark, as it did for a few thousand other customers of Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T. Down for about 14 hours starting from somewhere around 4AM.
A short walk away and found about 15 utility repair vehicles centered around the damage. Turns out it takes about 30 seconds to take out 300-600 fibers going up a utility pole. About 12 hours to splice them all back, then a couple of hours to reconfigure all the network gear.
The local P.D. caught the guy after the second event. Turns out to have more than a few screws loose. He was trying to deactivate the nanobots that Comcast had put in his body to control him.
The moral of the story is that we are a lot more vulnerable than we think we are due to this type of attack. A nut job is bad enough but a professional team could have done enough damage that it would take months to repair. Your business over the Internet might not recover. 911 service can't be reached when you need it.
Serious stuff.
P.S. 5G service through your mobile device doesn't cut it. The cell towers can be taken down too (although weren't in this case). You are actually more secure with a Starlink node.
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professional road construction workers can fuck it (Score:2)
professional road construction workers can fuck it up as well.
Once they cut an fiber cable then it got fixed just for them to cut the same cable again the next day.
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Re:It really is disruptive (Score:4, Funny)
> He was trying to deactivate the nanobots that Comcast had put in his body to control him.
Makes sense, Comcast put nanocharges in my bill.
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The moral of the story is that we are a lot more vulnerable than we think we are due to this type of attack. A nut job is bad enough but a professional team could have done enough damage that it would take months to repair. Your business over the Internet might not recover. 911 service can't be reached when you need it.
Remember the 2013 San Jose substation snipers? [wikipedia.org] I wouldn't be surprised if local nutters get a push from a hostile government, but sometimes it really is professionals.
Article 5 (Score:2, Interesting)
go to defcon 2! (Score:2)
go to defcon 2!
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Funny, but recently an old movie is popping up again. "Fail safe." [imdb.com]
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Gulf of Tonkin and USS Maine seem very relevant here.
first Shetland island (Score:2)
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What makes you think that France is an ally of today's Russia? You might have heard that far right politicians in France have accepted loans from Russia, but they are not in power; far left in France is against supporting Ukraine (due to increased cost of living resulting from the situation of war), but is not in power. I am VERY concerned about the Presidential election in 2027 when the candidates will likely be far left and far right, but for now the current government is certainly not a supporter of Russ
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taking a more independent foreign policy
Yeah ok, but being independent really does not mean being ally with someone... For a while in the 2000s France tried to remain neutral with Russia, and that stopped with the annexation of Crimea.
therefore the closest Russia has to having an "ally" in the EU
You can look up for a list of Pro-Russian political parties in EU https://ecfr.eu/article/commen... [ecfr.eu] . They are in left-wing extremists and right-wing extremists, the left-wing because they view positively some part of the Russian style of politics (as in "all residents see themselves as servants of the State" senten
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There is a large gap between being allies and being enemies. There is still today Russian oil flowing through Ukrainian pipelines towards Europe, and Russia is paying a toll to the government of Kiev for that (there was a break on 8 August due to payment issues), it does not mean Ukraine and Russia are allies. There has been Russian oil flowing towards Europe in the entire Cold War, even nuclear fuel rods (a major export of Russia). Trading speciality products does not make you allies.
China is a major trade
Has somebody raised cable-tv or Internet rates? (Score:2)
Has the French gov't raised cable-tv or Internet rates or forced carriers to do so? Asking for a friend.
The Internet was designed resilient against Nukes (Score:2)
Terrorism only respects effective violence (Score:1, Troll)
Harden up, relearn the only logical way to view Russia (as existential enemy of freedom, not people "just like us" with a temporarily dysfunctional government), and take out their terrorists with force not weakling law.
Russia is an enemy society whose of millions of murdered victims are irrefutable proof the empire should be freed from the Kremlin yoke. Everyone advocating for Russia is an enemy. Russian subversion never stopped (and works on simple normals, if you're intelligent you are far from normal and
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Definitely. Poke out all their eyes. It's in the bible. Nothing ever goes wrong.
Not Russian sabotage... (Score:2)