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Topic: Third major subsea Internet cable damaged (Read 14401 times)
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Righ
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6542
Teaching the world Google-fu one broken dream at a time.
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On Wednesday, two subsea cables, FLAG and SEA-ME-WE 4 were severed by cause unknown, suspected to be by use of a ship's anchor in stormy weather. The two cables are presumed to pass close enough together for a single incident to damage them. This morning, a third cable was severed: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7222536.stmAt the moment, the cause of the third break is also unknown but being presumed to be because of a ship's anchor. What Middle East Internet capacity do you lose before you wonder about the statistical likelihood of multiple ships having the same sort of accident at the same time, and start looking at the possibility of malicious intent? |
The camera adds a thousand barrels. - Steven Colbert
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Murgos
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7474
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It's a clever ploy by the Scientology Naval Arm (Yes, they have a navy!!!) to disrupt Anonymous.
Please Mr. Scientologist Assasin, the above was said entirely in jest and I meant no harm to your wonderful religion.
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"You have all recieved youre last warning. I am in the process of currently tracking all of youre ips and pinging your home adressess. you should not have commencemed a war with me" - Aaron Rayburn
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Soukyan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1995
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Could be Cthulhu, no?
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"Life is no cabaret... we're inviting you anyway." ~ Amanda Palmer"Tree, awesome, numa numa, love triangle, internal combustion engine, mountain, walk, whiskey, peace, pascagoula" ~ Lantyssa"Les vrais paradis sont les paradis qu'on a perdus." ~Marcel Proust |
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Murgos
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7474
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Could be Cthulhu, no?
Nah, Remo has that situation well in hand. |
"You have all recieved youre last warning. I am in the process of currently tracking all of youre ips and pinging your home adressess. you should not have commencemed a war with me" - Aaron Rayburn
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WayAbvPar
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I was thinking the same thing Righ, especially considering the location.
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When speaking of the MMOG industry, the glass may be half full, but it's full of urine. HaemishM
Always wear clean underwear because you never know when a Tory Government is going to fuck you.- Ironwood
Libertarians make fun of everyone because they can't see beyond the event horizons of their own assholes Surlyboi
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42666
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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One cable is an accident. Two is a really bad accident. Three... that just cannot be coincidental. Thing is, who would benefit from the Middle East, Asia and Africa being cut off? American businesses who outsource IT and CS to India and the like would be well fucked.
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WayAbvPar
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Could be a way to lure repair crews in for an ambush? Or maybe Sharia has decided that teh interwebz is evil since you can see pictures of women's ankles and wrists (and labias, but who's counting)?
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When speaking of the MMOG industry, the glass may be half full, but it's full of urine. HaemishM
Always wear clean underwear because you never know when a Tory Government is going to fuck you.- Ironwood
Libertarians make fun of everyone because they can't see beyond the event horizons of their own assholes Surlyboi
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Salamok
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2803
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Maybe one of the dot com billionaires finally had to experience outsourced tech support and is seeking revenge. Certainly this guys Private Fleet is capable of trolling for the interwebs with an anchor. Anyway since my career has been hurt by outsourcing AND since I have had the negative experience of dealing with outsourced tech support all I can say is I am fucking thrilled. viva la revolution! |
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SnakeCharmer
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3807
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Hrm.
IMO and MARPOL regulations require that these areas are expressly stated on charts, and ships are NOT to anchor in these areas, even in storm conditions. It's best to power through or around those anyway. No ship owner is going to take the risk of anchoring their ship in adverse storm conditions. Too many bad things can happen, despite the cost of IFO or MDO - which is significantly cheaper than the cost of a ship breaking up.
So, one of two things:
1) It's a huge conspiracy
2) A bad batch of updated charts neglected this info
But even still, I'd be very surprised if a ships anchor did this. A propeller, yes. Anchor? Not so much. I'd be very surprised if the anchor could lift the cable up even part of the way. Any idea of the circumference or weight of the line?
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Calantus
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2389
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If they cut off the Australia->America link there will be killings. Many killings.
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Tale
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8567
sıɥʇ ǝʞıן sʞןɐʇ
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But even still, I'd be very surprised if a ships anchor did this. A propeller, yes. Anchor? Not so much.
 __ ______________/ |___ ~~~~~~~~~~~\___________________/ x~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  =======  =========  ===========  ============ a propeller? |
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Lantyssa
Terracotta Army
Posts: 20848
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That was a beautiful use of ascii art and smileys.
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Hahahaha! I'm really good at this!
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Righ
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6542
Teaching the world Google-fu one broken dream at a time.
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Thing is, who would benefit from the Middle East, Asia and Africa being cut off?
Consider this instead, because its what is happening - who would benefit from all of the Middle East's Internet and telephone traffic to Europe transiting through operators audited by the UKUSA signals intelligence community? |
The camera adds a thousand barrels. - Steven Colbert
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WayAbvPar
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Thing is, who would benefit from the Middle East, Asia and Africa being cut off?
Consider this instead, because its what is happening - who would benefit from all of the Middle East's Internet and telephone traffic to Europe transiting through operators audited by the UKUSA signals intelligence community? Very interesting. My tinfoil hat must fit well, because I am finding that a little too plausible. Of course, we ARE dealing with the gang that couldn't shoot straight...are they really bright enough to pull this off? |
When speaking of the MMOG industry, the glass may be half full, but it's full of urine. HaemishM
Always wear clean underwear because you never know when a Tory Government is going to fuck you.- Ironwood
Libertarians make fun of everyone because they can't see beyond the event horizons of their own assholes Surlyboi
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Righ
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6542
Teaching the world Google-fu one broken dream at a time.
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But even still, I'd be very surprised if a ships anchor did this. A propeller, yes. Anchor? Not so much. I'd be very surprised if the anchor could lift the cable up even part of the way. Any idea of the circumference or weight of the line?
A modern armored fiber-optic submarine cable is typically around two inches (50mm) in diameter. I'll let you do the not tremendously difficult sums to work out the circumference. They are known to have been broken by anchors in the past. They are usually sufficiently deeply sunk and buried that neither surface nor submarine vessel are likely to foul their propellers on a cable. Another reasonably common cause of accidental damage includes deep trawling from fishing vessels or dredging. |
The camera adds a thousand barrels. - Steven Colbert
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SurfD
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4039
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I wonder if you connected the things together, would you get a line pointing towards the Statue of Liberty? I expect a giant, metallic, severed head to come crashing into New York any day now, followed imminently by a giant pissed off reptilian monster thingie.
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Darwinism is the Gateway Science.
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Nerf
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2421
The Presence of Your Vehicle Has Been Documented
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Definately not terrorism.
Hell, I had to call and cancel my free month of freecreditreport.com the other day, I thought about cutting some cables after that shit too, I'm sure it's just a disgruntled dell customer who got tired of being on hold after 9 hours or so.
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Simond
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6742
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Definately not terrorism. Agreed. It's not called terrorism when it's governments doing it.  |
"You're really a good person, aren't you? So, there's no path for you to take here. Go home. This isn't a place for someone like you."
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Riggswolfe
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8046
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The thing is, it's only gonna take a couple of weeks to repair from that article, so I'm not sure what would be accomplished by this.
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"We live in a country, where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain that to me! Explain that to me, God! Explain it to me, God!" - Denis Leary summing up my feelings about the nature of the universe.
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Simond
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6742
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1) Cut undersea fibre-optic cables.
2) Get covops team to splice in taps/bugs/whatever 'upstream' while cable is dark.
3) Repeat.
4) Wait for cables to be fixed.
I'd imagine that it's much simpler to just grab whatever data you want out of the guts of the data stream rather than having to strongarm the telecoms companies...especially non-American companies.
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"You're really a good person, aren't you? So, there's no path for you to take here. Go home. This isn't a place for someone like you."
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Righ
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6542
Teaching the world Google-fu one broken dream at a time.
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You don't need the cables cut forever. If the UKUSA community feels that there is communication about something that they need to listen to happening on the Internet, they just need traffic flowing through their routers for however long those conversations take. A few days may be what's needed. Chop chop.
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The camera adds a thousand barrels. - Steven Colbert
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Ironwood
Terracotta Army
Posts: 28240
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Oh Come On. 4 is no way an accident. Confusing !  |
"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
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Teleku
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10516
https://i.imgur.com/mcj5kz7.png
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This is definitely suspicious, can't be a pure coincidence, but Jesus people, your getting a little to far out there with the conspiracy theories.
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor."
-Stephen Colbert
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naum
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Posts: 4263
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"Should the batman kill Joker because it would save more lives?" is a fundamentally different question from "should the batman have a bunch of machineguns that go BATBATBATBATBAT because its totally cool?". ~Goumindong
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Righ
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6542
Teaching the world Google-fu one broken dream at a time.
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I don't think that if there are suspicions that Middle Eastern terrorist groups are planning a major attack in coordination with European cells that it would be 'too far out there' to force traffic through peerings that can be monitored. That would just be prudent. Breaking the cables so that nobody would notice you splicing in a monitoring repeater elsewhere is a bit 'out there' because you do that to avert suspicion - and four breaks in rapid succession doesn't avert suspicion terribly well.
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The camera adds a thousand barrels. - Steven Colbert
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42666
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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and four breaks in rapid succession doesn't avert suspicion terribly well.
Well, as Way said, it's not like the folks in charge of US "Intelligence" are Mensa members. |
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lamaros
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8021
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What does Mensa have to do with stopping terrorists attacks? If only we knew they were the experts earlier!
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Jeff Kelly
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6921
I'm an apathetic, hedonistic, utilitarian, nihilistic existentialist.
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JWIV
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2392
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More that just that one test router is dead in the water right now. Iran is not entirely isolated. |
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Salamok
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2803
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It's self inflicted the middle east is trying to protect the flock from Wikipedia's illustrations of Muhammad.
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Simond
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6742
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"You're really a good person, aren't you? So, there's no path for you to take here. Go home. This isn't a place for someone like you."
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Lantyssa
Terracotta Army
Posts: 20848
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I wonder how Haliburton's new Dubai headquarters is handling this.
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Hahahaha! I'm really good at this!
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MrHat
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7432
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
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Strangely, my parents in Lebanon still have full DSL access.
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Simond
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6742
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Strangely, my parents in Lebanon still have full DSL access.
...at the moment. |
"You're really a good person, aren't you? So, there's no path for you to take here. Go home. This isn't a place for someone like you."
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