Sabotage or Accident? American and European Officials Disagree On What Caused Cuts to Two Undersea Cables (cnn.com) 20
CNN reports that investigators "are trying to crack the mystery of how two undersea internet cables in the Baltic Sea were cut within hours of each other." But there's now two competing viewpoints, "with European officials saying they believe the disruption was an act of sabotage and U.S. officials suggesting it was likely an accident."
The foreign ministers of Finland and Germany said in a joint statement that they were "deeply concerned" about the incident and raised the possibility that it was part of a "hybrid warfare," specifically mentioning Russia in their statement. Their assessment was not plucked out of thin air. Russia has been accused of waging a hybrid war against Europe after a string of suspicious incidents, arson attacks, explosions and other acts of sabotage across multiple European countries were traced back to Moscow. And the disruption to the cables came just weeks after the US warned that Moscow was likely to target critical undersea infrastructure. This followed months of suspicious movements of Russian vessels in European waters and the significant beefing up of a dedicated Russian secretive marine unit tasked with surveying the seabed...
But two US officials familiar with the initial assessment of the incident told CNN on Tuesday the damage was not believed to be deliberate activity by Russia or any other nation. Instead, the two officials told CNN they believed it likely caused by an anchor drag from a passing vessel. Such accidents have happened in the past, although not in a quick succession like the two on Sunday and Monday.
Cloudflare's blog also reminds readers that the two cable cuts resulted in little-to-no observable impact
Cloudflare attributes this largely to "the significant redundancy and resilience of Internet infrastructure in Europe." (Their Cloudflare Radar graphs show that after the Sweden-Lithuania cable cut "there was no apparent impact to traffic volumes in either country at the time that the cables were damaged.") Telegeography's submarinecablemap.com illustrates, at least in part, the resilience in connectivity enjoyed by these two countries. In addition to the damaged cable, it shows that Lithuania is connected to neighboring Latvia as well as to the Swedish mainland. Over 20 submarine cables land in Sweden, connecting it to multiple countries across Europe. In addition to the submarine resilience, network providers in both countries can take advantage of terrestrial fiber connections to neighboring countries, such as those illustrated in a European network map from Arelion (formerly Telia), which is only one of the large European backbone providers.
Less than a day later, the C-Lion1 submarine cable, which connects Helsinki, Finland and Rostock Germany was reportedly damaged during the early morning hours of Monday, November 18... In this situation as well, as the Cloudflare Radar graphs below show, there was no apparent impact to traffic volumes in either country at the time that the cables were damaged...
Telegeography's submarinecablemap.com shows that both Finland and Germany also have significant redundancy and resilience from a submarine cable perspective, with over 10 cables landing in Finland, and nearly 10 landing in Germany, including Atlantic Crossing-1 (AC-1), which connects to the United States over two distinct paths. Terrestrial fiber maps from Arelion and eunetworks (as just two examples) show multiple redundant fiber routes within both countries, as well as cross-border routes to other neighboring countries, enabling more resilient Internet connectivity.
See also Does the Internet Route Around Damage?
But two US officials familiar with the initial assessment of the incident told CNN on Tuesday the damage was not believed to be deliberate activity by Russia or any other nation. Instead, the two officials told CNN they believed it likely caused by an anchor drag from a passing vessel. Such accidents have happened in the past, although not in a quick succession like the two on Sunday and Monday.
Cloudflare's blog also reminds readers that the two cable cuts resulted in little-to-no observable impact
Cloudflare attributes this largely to "the significant redundancy and resilience of Internet infrastructure in Europe." (Their Cloudflare Radar graphs show that after the Sweden-Lithuania cable cut "there was no apparent impact to traffic volumes in either country at the time that the cables were damaged.") Telegeography's submarinecablemap.com illustrates, at least in part, the resilience in connectivity enjoyed by these two countries. In addition to the damaged cable, it shows that Lithuania is connected to neighboring Latvia as well as to the Swedish mainland. Over 20 submarine cables land in Sweden, connecting it to multiple countries across Europe. In addition to the submarine resilience, network providers in both countries can take advantage of terrestrial fiber connections to neighboring countries, such as those illustrated in a European network map from Arelion (formerly Telia), which is only one of the large European backbone providers.
Less than a day later, the C-Lion1 submarine cable, which connects Helsinki, Finland and Rostock Germany was reportedly damaged during the early morning hours of Monday, November 18... In this situation as well, as the Cloudflare Radar graphs below show, there was no apparent impact to traffic volumes in either country at the time that the cables were damaged...
Telegeography's submarinecablemap.com shows that both Finland and Germany also have significant redundancy and resilience from a submarine cable perspective, with over 10 cables landing in Finland, and nearly 10 landing in Germany, including Atlantic Crossing-1 (AC-1), which connects to the United States over two distinct paths. Terrestrial fiber maps from Arelion and eunetworks (as just two examples) show multiple redundant fiber routes within both countries, as well as cross-border routes to other neighboring countries, enabling more resilient Internet connectivity.
See also Does the Internet Route Around Damage?
Statistically (Score:3, Insightful)
Behaviorally, I tend to believe the US 3 letter agencies about like the kid with icing on his lips sayin he didn't get into the cupcakes.
Re: (Score:1)
Just like how the chances of two people in a small office sharing the same birthday are vanishingly small [wikipedia.org]?
Re: (Score:2)
No, because the statistics are totally different. Among other relevant differences, people are not all born in the same year.
Re: (Score:1)
No.
The birthday "problem" arises only because there's only 365 days in a year but we think of birthdays as unique. It's purely a perception problem.
The Baltic sea is 377000 km^2. The longest cable in it, C-Lion1, is 1172 km long. About 0.5m across. 0.6 km^2. If you were to drop an anchor randomly, the chance you'd hit it is 1.6e-6. Real close to the "gold" standard 5 sigma used as evidence in particle physics. Way beyond the p0.01 that's enough everywhere else.
Of course, undersea cable do get cut still. Clo
Re: (Score:2)
If they release info that they think something was an accident, they generally mean “we really think it was an accident’”. The whole say-the-opposite thing is more KGB-style bumbling that everyone sees throu
Re: (Score:2)
What would be the benefit for US or Israel to cut cables between Lithuania and Sweden?
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The chances of Two accidental anchor drags, in the same region, on consecutive days are vanishingly small.
Seemingly it involves one vessel "Vessel tracking data from Kpler shows the Chinese-flagged ship Yi Peng 3 crossed both cables at around the time each was cut. The BCS EastWest was cut around 10 a.m. local time on Sunday, according to the Lithuanian Armed Forces, and the C-Lion 1 was cut around 4 a.m. local time on Monday, per Finnish telecom provider Cinia." https://edition.cnn.com/2024/1... [cnn.com]
Are there reasons to believe the vessel couldn't have cut the two cables by dropping anchor once and then drifting?
Learn from it and adjust. (Score:3)
It's clear that key cables need full-time monitoring of vessels or devices that come near them. Otherwise, assholes will F them up without impunity.
Reputation matters (Score:2)
I am comfortable blaming Russia, because they have been doing their best to bring down every other nation in the world, throwing sand in the gears wherever they can.
They've long since lost benefit of the doubt. They are clearly at war with the entire world but lack the strength to take it on directly.
It's long past the time we admit Russia will keep advancing 'in self defense'. And every time they take a bit of land, the people on the other side become the next threat.
There's no risk of WWIII to consider,
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They are clearly at war with the entire world but lack the strength to take it on directly.
They lack the strength to take on Ukraine without groveling to North Korea for ammunition and cannon fodder.
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To be fair, Ukraine lacks the ability to resist even without NK soldiers without other countries providing arms to it.
It's Russia and its vassals and allies against the rest of the world, but the majority of the fight is happening in Ukraine and costing Ukrainian blood.
But Russia still has the ability to sow chaos and disorder around the world without a single soldier, and they're doing it, have been doing it, for decades. We all have our own shit to deal with that causes pain and suffering, Putin's policy
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Not just North Korea. China, Iran and other nations are helping them out too.
This is only the beginning (Score:2)
Once Putin's lapdog is comfortably ensconced in the White House again, Russia's expansionist ambitions will bring this covert war out into the open. Not that most Americans will know, because mainstream news media won't stand up to politicians of any stripe. They'd sell their children for access.
Re: (Score:2)
"baselessly"
I don't think that word means what you think it means. There's no question the ship in question was responsible, the only question is whether it was on purpose or accidental. The probability of the same ship accidentally cutting two separate cables on the same trip is significantly less than it purposefully doing so.
The obvious question (Score:2)
If it was intentional but had little effect, why did they do it?
To make a statement... (Score:2)
Why? "