Russian Boat Implicated in Norway Cable Sabotage Mystery (bloomberg.com) 28
In a perplexing turn of events that has raised concerns about the vulnerability of critical undersea infrastructure, Norway's Institute of Marine Research is reconfiguring its sophisticated underwater observatory after a mysterious incident left a section of its seafloor cable cleanly severed. The Lofoten-Vesteralen Ocean Observatory (LoVe), an advanced array of sensors designed to monitor marine life and environmental conditions off Norway's rugged coastline, unexpectedly went silent in April 2021, prompting an investigation that would uncover more questions than answers.
As the institute's acoustic engineer Guosong Zhang delved into the mystery, he meticulously traced ship movements in the area, uncovering a curious pattern: a Russian trawler had repeatedly crossed the cable's location at the precise time the outage occurred, a coincidence that seemed too striking to ignore. Despite this compelling lead, subsequent police investigations proved inconclusive, leaving the institute grappling with the unsettling possibility of deliberate sabotage.
The incident, compounded by similar damage to a communications cable serving the remote Svalbard archipelago, has cast a spotlight on the potential vulnerabilities of submarine assets in an era of heightened geopolitical tensions, with some experts pointing to the possibility of Russian intelligence activities targeting Norway's undersea infrastructure. In response to these challenges and the unresolved nature of the cable damage, the Institute of Marine Research has made the difficult decision to adapt its approach, opting to replace the compromised cable section with wireless modules -- a solution that, while sacrificing some data transmission capacity, aims to enhance the security and resilience of this vital scientific installation in the face of evolving threats beneath the waves.
As the institute's acoustic engineer Guosong Zhang delved into the mystery, he meticulously traced ship movements in the area, uncovering a curious pattern: a Russian trawler had repeatedly crossed the cable's location at the precise time the outage occurred, a coincidence that seemed too striking to ignore. Despite this compelling lead, subsequent police investigations proved inconclusive, leaving the institute grappling with the unsettling possibility of deliberate sabotage.
The incident, compounded by similar damage to a communications cable serving the remote Svalbard archipelago, has cast a spotlight on the potential vulnerabilities of submarine assets in an era of heightened geopolitical tensions, with some experts pointing to the possibility of Russian intelligence activities targeting Norway's undersea infrastructure. In response to these challenges and the unresolved nature of the cable damage, the Institute of Marine Research has made the difficult decision to adapt its approach, opting to replace the compromised cable section with wireless modules -- a solution that, while sacrificing some data transmission capacity, aims to enhance the security and resilience of this vital scientific installation in the face of evolving threats beneath the waves.
In a *predictable* turn of events.. (Score:3)
"In a *predictable* turn of events" - FTFY
In a *predictable* repetition of past events . . . (Score:2)
Re:Reagan had it right (Score:5, Informative)
Even Churchill saw the need to attack Russia after the armistice [telegraph.co.uk].
And yet, here we are.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
And yet, the same US conservatives who put Patton on a pedestal are now Vladimir Putin's best, most reliable friends.
Re:Reagan had it right (Score:4, Insightful)
I think those are the *old* conservatives. The *new* conservatives (see the VP pick) would consider Patton a "globalist" and a "traitor".
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
LOL. I do believe you have a point, my friend!"
Re:Reagan had it right (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't help but notice right wing cancel culture is out in force, objecting strenuously to my accurate observation that the same conservatives who idolize General Patton are now snuggling up to Vladimir Putin.
It's ironic, because in the immediate aftermath of WWII, both Churchill and Patton wanted to take down the USSR. They saw the signs. They knew Stalin was a monster. Today, sensible people understand that Putin is no less a monster than Stalin, but his choices are more limited. He has nuclear weapons he dare not use and a military he's discovered is a lot stronger on paper than in the field. Russian generals have never cared how many soldiers they throw into the meat grinder. Their only real worry is wholesale US support for Ukraine. The Europeans can supply Ukraine with some good weapons, but nothing can compete with US war technology, and that's what Putin fears most. Russia might have a hundred tanks to Ukraine's five, but US weapons can level that playing field.
Re: (Score:3)
Europe can easily compete technology wise, but not in quantity.
Re: (Score:3)
They also starved for natural gas for a while earlier. So yes they have made some mistakes, and have learnt the hard way they were pretty big mistakes. They went through a year of pain because the gas was cut off. That problem is fixed it now. It going to take a lot longer than that to build the arms factories [reuters.com], but after decades of letting themselves atrophy it appears they have learnt the lesson.
The USA found itself in a similar position [reuters.com]. It has lets it conventional artillery systems atrophy, and now
Re: (Score:3)
Good point. One observation: Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the US HIMARS rocket artillery system was better than anything similar, and proving to be a bit of a game changer.
Re: (Score:2)
sensible people understand that Putin is no less a monster than Stalin
Putin has a very long way to go to rival ol' Papa Jo. He has yet come close to the est. 3.9M deaths by deliberate, policy induced starvation of the Holodomor, or to match the roughly 1.5M citizens he had executed, disappeared or imprisoned in order to consolidate his power. Putin is evil enough, there's no need to exaggerate.
Trawler trawls and snags a cable (Score:2, Insightful)
There, I fixed it for you.
It's not like it's an NSA submarine cutting an internet backbone to insert monitoring equipment into it.
So much nonsense reporting :)
Re:Trawler trawls and snags a cable (Score:4, Informative)
USN Jimmy Carter isn't the only game in town in that field. Russians have Belgorod among other older subs designed for that work.
http://www.hisutton.com/Belgor... [hisutton.com]
But nowadays, it tends to be cheaper to deploy underwater drones for that kind of work, as mothership doesn't need to loiter over the cable any more. Instead it can maneuver in the general area granting significant plausible deniability. So it's much more plausible to covertly use surface ships for this today than it was a decade ago, when Jimmy Carter and it's less capable older non-US cousins were the main stars of the geopolitical game of damaging and tapping undersea cables.
Re:Trawler trawls and snags a cable (Score:4, Insightful)
Trawler trawls and snags a cable after repeated attempts.
Fixed it for you.
Re: Trawler trawls and snags a cable (Score:2)
Nice clean break for a trawler too.
Re: (Score:2)
No, seriously. Have you?
I used to watch them form the deck of the rig, trawling left-to-right (you can tell they've got trawls trawling because you can see the wake of the wires behind the vessel) as I'm going to collect a rock sample, and 20 minutes later when I go for the next sample, they're going right-to-left. Trawling across an area of seabed, with minimal missed seabed, and minimal double-trawled seabed.
This description is exactly how trawlers oper
Another historical example... (Score:5, Interesting)
From over 100 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Thanks, I learnt something. (no mod points today)
Re: (Score:3)
The difference here is that Putin is too cowardly to openly declare war on the rest of the world. Come on guys, it's just a "limited" military operation.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Tit for tat (Score:2)
If it had been a false flag, itâ(TM)s conceivable any government could have been behind it. But it is unlikely that Western European government agencies would be involved. The US would have weighed the destabilization of Russian cash flow versus the economic uncertainty such an energy source attack would cause. We can confidently say that Russia didn't do the attack, because it offered little advantage and they never were able to exploit that slim advantage to pin it on Ukraine or the US. (Except in th
Northstream (Score:2)
We seem to have forgotten about the sabotage of the northstream gas pipelines very quickly...maybe because we don't want to know the answer
Re: (Score:2)
Goddamned Russians (Score:2)
Nothing more need be said. Why would they DO something like that?
How fast attribution works (Score:2)