Big Tech is Moving Data Through the Gulf Using Fiber-Optic Cables Alongside Iraq's Oil Pipelines (restofworld.org) 77
Major American cloud companies with data centers in the Persian Gulf "are channeling data out of the war zone through fiber-optic cables that an Iraqi telecom has strung alongside crude-oil pipelines," reports RestofWorld.org:
The data centers serve customers in more than 190 countries, processing transactions, storing files, and running applications for businesses and individuals from Latin America to South Asia. When Iranian drones struck Amazon's facilities in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on March 1, the effects spread across the region. Apps of major banks in the UAE, including Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, stopped working. Payment and delivery platforms went offline. Snowflake, a U.S. enterprise software company used by thousands of businesses globally, reported Middle East service disruptions tied directly to the Amazon Web Services outage. Amazon told its customers to migrate their workloads out of the Middle East...
[Data from] banking, payment, and enterprise platforms normally travels to Europe through cables running under the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, then connects onward to users across the world. The war has put those cables at risk. The overland route through Iraq is meant to serve as a backup if the sea cables are disabled. The overland route through Iraq is meant to serve as a backup if the sea cables are disabled... [Martin Frank, strategic adviser for IQ Networks, the company that built the network, told Rest of World this overland route is already carrying live traffic.] The company, based in Iraq's Kurdistan region, runs fiber from the southern tip of Iraq to the Turkish border. It is now extending the network through gas-pipeline corridors across Turkey to the European border, with the first link expected early next year, Frank said. When that extension is complete, cloud providers will — for the first time — have the option of an unbroken land-based fiber path from the Gulf into the European network, connecting onward to Frankfurt, Amsterdam, London, and Marseille, from where their data connects back to U.S. users.
The advantage of this alternative route is that oil and gas pipelines come with their own security perimeters, access roads, and maintenance corridors already built around them, allowing a telecom company to lay fiber without digging new trenches through difficult terrain. Iraq avoided the fate of earlier overland routes that collapsed because of a sustained period of stability, and because existing pipeline infrastructure provided ready-made corridors for laying fiber, Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at network intelligence firm Kentik, told Rest of World... IQ Networks' route, called the Silk Route Transit, has been running since November 2023. The network currently carries enough data to stream about 400,000 high-definition videos simultaneously, Frank said.
The land route is faster. Data traveling through submarine cables from the Gulf to Europe takes about 150 milliseconds. The Iraqi terrestrial route cuts that to roughly 70 milliseconds — a difference that matters for video calls, financial transactions, and applications that run on artificial intelligence, according to IQ Networks.
[Data from] banking, payment, and enterprise platforms normally travels to Europe through cables running under the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, then connects onward to users across the world. The war has put those cables at risk. The overland route through Iraq is meant to serve as a backup if the sea cables are disabled. The overland route through Iraq is meant to serve as a backup if the sea cables are disabled... [Martin Frank, strategic adviser for IQ Networks, the company that built the network, told Rest of World this overland route is already carrying live traffic.] The company, based in Iraq's Kurdistan region, runs fiber from the southern tip of Iraq to the Turkish border. It is now extending the network through gas-pipeline corridors across Turkey to the European border, with the first link expected early next year, Frank said. When that extension is complete, cloud providers will — for the first time — have the option of an unbroken land-based fiber path from the Gulf into the European network, connecting onward to Frankfurt, Amsterdam, London, and Marseille, from where their data connects back to U.S. users.
The advantage of this alternative route is that oil and gas pipelines come with their own security perimeters, access roads, and maintenance corridors already built around them, allowing a telecom company to lay fiber without digging new trenches through difficult terrain. Iraq avoided the fate of earlier overland routes that collapsed because of a sustained period of stability, and because existing pipeline infrastructure provided ready-made corridors for laying fiber, Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at network intelligence firm Kentik, told Rest of World... IQ Networks' route, called the Silk Route Transit, has been running since November 2023. The network currently carries enough data to stream about 400,000 high-definition videos simultaneously, Frank said.
The land route is faster. Data traveling through submarine cables from the Gulf to Europe takes about 150 milliseconds. The Iraqi terrestrial route cuts that to roughly 70 milliseconds — a difference that matters for video calls, financial transactions, and applications that run on artificial intelligence, according to IQ Networks.
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Because having data travel 90ms faster is so important when depositing another $100 million check or talking to outsourced labor.
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All this because America on behest of their master in the terrorist apartheid regime started an illegal war against civilians.
Marco Rubio stated as much, that America was pulled into the war.
Not only has that made Iranian people side more with their government, especially after revelations that Trump was providing weapons to protestors early in the year, but the new government has become more hardline.
Imagine if Iran unjustly attacked America to "save Americans from their Epstein paedophiles and corrupt MAG
Re: This is a problem? (Score:1, Troll)
Don't you have any shame and get tired of repeating the same tired talking points of the zionists?
Iran has supposedly been 2 weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon for the past 30 years?!
Meanwhile in the real world, Iran's ayatollah published a famous religious edict (fatwa) banning nuclear weapons development, and Iran has been a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT) along with the JCPOA and UN inspectors have always stated there was no evidence of a nuclear weapons program.
Even the
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And, it's worth considering, what we see _above ground_ is most likely just the tip of the iceberg... the big stuff is underground. And, that goes for all countries building nukes.
If they handed over any, that was just to appease whoever that they were getting out of the business.
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You can't compare a stable democracy with the Iranian death cult theocracy. Some countries can never have nukes. Iran is at the very top of that list.
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Look how much Israel has been provoked. Have they ever even hinted at using nukes? No.
Look at what Iran is currently doing to the whole world.
Destabilize world trade. Just finished a rampage slaughtering tens of thousands of their own people. Bombed almost every neighboring country. Holding 20,000 merchant mariners hostage in the gulf. Trying to steal the Strait of Hormuz from the world.
And all that is because Trump tried to stop them from getting nukes.
What do you imagine Iran is going to do with its
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You. Vile. Piece. of. filth. 168 kids at a school that they double? trilple? tapped? That was intended as MURDER. The same way that the IDF double and triple taps hospitals and schools, allegedly to kill one person.
And bombing civilians is going to make the civilians who hate the Iranian government hate them more, rather than pulling together - which is what EVERY STUDY SINCE WWI says happens.
Murderers. And you support murder.
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You. Vile. Piece. of. filth. 168 kids at a school that they double? trilple? tapped?
LOL while there is still no credible evidence of double taps I had joked about assertions of triple taps previously. Funny as shit to see people reaching for it now because hell why not. Heck just make it a quadruple tap just to be safe. Everything is much easier once one frees themselves from the burdensome chains of reality.
That was intended as MURDER.
While there is also no credible evidence for this why not just go with it anyway? The New York Times claims to have spoken with people with relevant knowledge who said it was a tar
Re:This is a problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
All this because America on behest of their master in the terrorist apartheid regime started an illegal war against civilians.
Israel is not an apartheid state although they have some funky crap on the margins around garbage like right of return and military service. While America is obviously not waging war against civilians in Iran the regime itself is most certainly doing exactly that.
I think there is an excellent case to be made the war was illegal. Declarations of war are explicitly an article 1 authority and while war powers act delegates some temporary authority to the president there was no imminent risk as required by law. I don't agree you can just decide to not call waging war a war to sidestep the constitution or just assert imminence where none existed.
Not only has that made Iranian people side more with their government,
Imagine if Iran unjustly attacked America to "save Americans from their Epstein paedophiles and corrupt MAGA politicians", while bombing a children school in New York on the first day, and then going on to destroy other schools and hospitals in the following weeks - you wouldn't become more patriotic and rally around your government to go after the attackers?!
If a foreign invader attacked a normal country this analogy would be apt. In the case of Iran the regime is an oppressive mafia state widely hated by the vast majority of its population.
A more accurate analogy is to imagine your country has been taken over by an oppressive invader that just massacred tens of thousands of your own people. Now imagine your allies swoop in and attack those who are oppressing you. Most Iranians were actually cheering the death and destruction of their oppressors not the other way around.
especially after revelations that Trump was providing weapons to protestors early in the year, but the new government has become more hardline.
As far as I understand it weapons were provided to Iraqi Kurds in the hope they would pass them to Iran yet that obviously flopped. Hopefully other efforts are working out better.
Iran is doing exactly as they stated they would, and gave us at least a year's notice of their intentions to close the strait, and bomb American interests in the Middle East - also exactly what the terrorist apartheid regime wanted: they want to destroy the Middle East, especially UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia as almost half of Saudi Arabia is part of the "Greater Israel project".
Given the Iranian regime has just attacked most Arab states in the region and continues to threaten Arab interests with its games in Hormuz relations between Israel and Arab states are only improving while relations between the Arab states and Iran crater. Israel just delivered iron dome to UAE at the same time you are asserting they want to destroy them.
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Bro.
Not your bro.
Israel literally has a two tier legal punishment system based on race.
They literally don't.
your analogy is very bad
Why is it very bad?
and you should feel bad
Awe... how sweet.
Imagine if America existed only as an agreement between France and the UK, had a treaty with Mexico and Canada, randomly bombed and annexed part of Mexico and then assured Canada that they absolutely wouldn't do that to them... but with the terrorists on the border they need a buffer zone to feel safe.
Imagine if any of this had anything to do with my remarks...
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South-Africa during apartheid had similar bantustans for blacks: "In 2003, an interview with the former Italian prime minister Massimo D'Alema in Ha'aretz reported that former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon explained at length that the Bantustan model was the most appropriate solution to the conflict."
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Even former Mossad chief, Tamir Pardo, has admitted that Israel is imposing apartheid on Palestinians.
Re: This is a problem? (Score:3)
You progizhin trolls turned Hlhasbara bro, time to lighten up on propaganda here.
Iranians are the victims here, just like the Iraqis were back in 2003.
There was no threat to the Hormuz strait before the little war of nazinyahu and the orange shitgibbon.
There were no nukes.
Not only Netcraft confirms it, but also Fox News: https://www.foxnews.com/politi... [foxnews.com]
The two reasons for war are the Epstein files and the corruption court case.
Nothing else.
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War of choice justified by lies to hide nazinyahu and trump's own crimes.
No enrichment and strict controls before the terrorist attacks on Iran since 2018.
No threat to free passage until the trump war.
That's the truth, hasbara troll.
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What lies?
The lies that you're peddling here, hasbara bro. Resoundingly refuted by your own intelligence community.
https://www.foxnews.com/politi... [foxnews.com]
Former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent asserted in a post on X that prior to the start of the Iran war, the U.S. intelligence community agreed that the Islamic Republic was not developing a nuclear weapon.
"One of the many tragedies of this war is that before the war began the U.S. Intel Community, including CIA, was in agreement that Iran wasn't developing a nuclear weapon & that Iran would target U.S. bases in the region & shut down the Strait of Hormuz if they were attacked by Israel & the U.S.," Kent wrote in a post on Thursday.
"The IC also properly assessed that targeting the Iranian leadership would strengthen the regime and embolden the hardliners. Despite the professionalism & accuracy of the IC, the narrative & agenda spun by a foreign government- Israel, won the argument & forced us into this war," he continued.
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There are not lies. Show even one.
"Iran is developing nukes" - debunked in the link above.
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They were everyone knows this.
Evidence? Nah, a trumptard and hasbara bro can't be bothered with such trite things.
You didn't debunk anything.
I didn't. I'm quoting a member "intelligence community" did.
In short, fuck off.
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Iran wasn't producing highly enriched uranium before the terrorist attacks of your government, hasbara bro.
Iran wasn't developing nukes, hasbara bro.
The lying cunt nazinyahu, indicted for crimes against humanity by the International Court of Justice and prosecuted for large scale corruption at home and the lying pedophile trump started a war to avoid consequences of their crimes.
That's all.
Now go fuck yourself.
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They were everyone knows this. You didn't debunk anything.
Why do you think they weren't
Was was the enriched uranium and all the centrifuges for?
Why has it always been a red line to give up nukes?
Iran has obviously been deliberately working toward a breakout capability. This is evidenced by self declared 60% enrichment (post US JCPOA violation) level (observed 83% levels), massive proliferation of centrifuges in underground facilities and parallel development of nuclear capable ballistic missiles at scale. Since war broke out there have been public admissions of pre-war intent for nuclear capability from within the regime itself.
The arguments are in differentiation between developing a capability
just another route (Score:1)
Nothing new under the sun (Score:4, Interesting)
The Williams Company strung fiber optic cables inside decomisiones Gas Pipes, that was Wiltel. first iteration bought by LDDS, second one bought by Level 3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Quest laid down fiber alongside train right of way, using a special plough moved by a locomotive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Ditto for laying bahaul fibre in the eguts/sewers of large cities. Or using the actual sewer pipes to bring the access fiber to buildings or houses...
If the rights of ways are aquired for something else already, laying the fiber is easy and cheap, and a nice way to earn additional revenues on your existing rights of way
Unbroken land-based fiber cloud (Score:2)
Which can be broken anywhere along its 1,200 km length. Which question the veracity of putting all your critical infrastructure in the fibre cloud
Thanks a lot, guys (Score:3, Interesting)
Now Iran knows what to target.
You should have said that the cables were all connected to a node located under Vladimir Putin's palace.
Re: Thanks a lot, guys (Score:1)
Imagine that you and your apartheid masters have not started this war, eh?
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North Korea has entered the conversation.
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Can't imagine it, there's no evidence it would ever have happened without the war of aggression against them.
It was a response to the two little wars that trump and nazinyahu started.
On a lie about "weapons of mass destruction" [foxnews.com] that Iran isn't buidling.
US intel community agreed before war 'Iran wasn't developing a nuclear weapon': ex-counterterrorism chief
Joe Kent declared 'the narrative & agenda spun by a foreign government- Israel, won the argument & forced us into this war'
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because Trump won't let them make nukes.
Fake news, hasbara bro.
The orange moron destroyed an effective and working arrangement that kept Iran from enriching uranium.
The US intelligence community is convinced Iran isn't "making news".
Stop lying.
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There's a better deal now anyway.
Indeed.
Regime strengthened and entrenched.
Regime keeps the hundreds of kilograms of HEU that they produced after trump destroyed the 2015 deal that was working.
Regime controls fully the strait of Hormuz.
The nazinyahu/trump governments with no useful moves.
Brilliant. The definition of fail.
For now... (Score:3)
Iran should tell Trump they're using this to get him to blow it up for them. :-)
Another possibility of a land route (Score:2)
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.
-- Andrew S. Tanenbaum
Also, https://what-if.xkcd.com/31/ [xkcd.com]
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After reading that link, that quote makes sense now :)
Thanks for the laugh! :D
Redundancy through Repetition (Score:2)
The war has put those cables at risk. The overland route through Iraq is meant to serve as a backup if the sea cables are disabled. The overland route through Iraq is meant to serve as a backup if the sea cables are disabled...
It makes perfect sense to have multiple links for redundancy. But I don't think that the article summary needs multiple copies of the same damn sentence.