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Third Undersea Cable Cut

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Fri Feb 01, 2008 02:47 PM
from the someone-doesn't-like-connect-the-dots dept.
Communications Hardware
Many readers are reporting that another undersea fiber optic cable has been cut, apparently caused by another wayward anchor. It looks like Iran has completely lost Internet connectivity."
+ -
story

Related Stories

Submission: Third Undersea Cable Cut by Ashbory (781835)
[+] The Effects of the Fibre Outage Throughout the Mediterranean 101 comments
Umar Kalim writes "Analysts have been studying the effects of the fibre outage throughout the Mediterranean in terms of network performance, by examining the changes in packet losses, latencies and throughput. We initially discussed the outage yesterday. 'It is interesting that some countries such as Pakistan were mainly unaffected, despite the impact on neighboring countries such as India. This contrasts dramatically to the situation in June - July 2005, when due to a fibre cut of SEAMEWE3 off Karachi, Pakistan lost all terrestrial Internet connectivity which resulted, in many cases, in a complete 12 day outage of services. This is a tribute to the increased redundancy of international fibre connectivity installed for Pakistan in the last few years.'"
[+] Technology: Fourth Undersea Cable Taken Offline In Less Than a Week 499 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Another undersea cable was taken offline on Friday, this one connecting Qatar and UAE. 'The [outage] caused major problems for internet users in Qatar over the weekend, but Qtel's loss of capacity has been kept below 40% thanks to what the telecom said was a large number of alternative routes for transmission. It is not yet clear how badly telecom and internet services have been affected in the UAE.' In related news it's been confirmed that the two cables near Egypt were not cut by ship anchors." Update: 02/04 07:13 GMT by Z : A commenter notes that despite the language in the article indicated a break or malfunction, the cable wasn't cut. It was taken offline due to power issues.
[+] IT: Fifth Cable Cut To Middle East 676 comments
You may have noticed a number of stories recently about undersea cables getting cut around the world. Apparently the total is now up to 5, but the scariest part of this is that Iran is now offline. You can also read Schneier's comments on this coincidence. Update: 02/06 17:42 GMT by Z : As a commenter notes, though the country of Iran is obviously experiencing some networking difficulties, it is not offline.
[+] Your Rights Online: Iran May Shut Down Internet During Election 234 comments
daveschroeder writes "'The Iranian government might block private access to the Internet for the general legislative election on March 14, two Iranian news outlets reported Monday. In 2006, the authorities banned download speeds on private computers faster than 128 kilobytes per second. The government also uses sophisticated filtering equipment to block hundreds of Web sites and blogs that it considers religiously or politically inappropriate. Many bloggers have been jailed in the past years, and dozens of Web sites have been shut down.' It would appear that Iran's own government is more a threat to the nation's internet connectivity than the fragility of the undersea cable network."
[+] The World's Biggest Undersea Robot 81 comments
Roland Piquepaille writes "According to redOrbit.com, companies installing subsea cables for telecommunications companies and pipelines for the oil industry now have a new tool, the UT-1 Ultra Trencher which is the world's biggest subsea robot. This beauty weighs 60 tons (out of the water) and has a length of 7.8 meters, a width of 7.8 meters and a height of 5.6 meters. In fact, it has the dimensions of a small house but is more expensive, carrying a price tag of about £10 million. It can move at a speed of 2 to 3 knots under the sea. And it can trench pipelines with a 1-meter diameter in deep waters of up to 1,500 meters."
[+] Technology: Satellite IDs Ships That Cut Cables 186 comments
1sockchuck writes "Undersea telecom cable operator Reliance Globalcom was able to use satellite images to identify two ships that dropped anchor in the wrong place, damaging submarine cables and knocking Middle East nations offline in early February. The company used satellite images to study the movements of the two ships, and shared the information with officials in Dubai, who impounded the two vessels. The NANOG list has a discussion of where Reliance might have obtained satellite images to provide that level of detail. Google News links more coverage of the developments."
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  • Third cut? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eevee (535658) on Friday February 01 2008, @02:49PM (#22265560)

    Once is accident.

    Twice is coincidence.

    Thrice is enemy action.

    • Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by KublaiKhan (522918) on Friday February 01 2008, @02:51PM (#22265600) Homepage Journal
      Yes, it does seem suspicious, especially since it's Iran--a country that's in the news a lot lately, and with whom communication may be rather important.

      If this is followed by reports of various despicable actions in Iran which cannot be verified due to the lack of communication, then it would be even more suspicious.

      • Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Funny)

        by eldavojohn (898314) * <my/.username@@@gmail.com> on Friday February 01 2008, @03:01PM (#22265756) Homepage Journal

        If this is followed by reports of various despicable actions in Iran which cannot be verified due to the lack of communication, then it would be even more suspicious.
        Meanwhile a U.S. effort to bring aid to the Kurds has been proven successful. "Operation Dredge Massive Underwater Machete" has stated that its peaceful goals have been accomplished and will slowly pass the rest of Iran's coast in a return to its base in India.

        • Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2008, @03:53PM (#22266474)
          At least now we know they cant buy parts for their nuclear weapons online anymore.

          • Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Funny)

            by monkeyboythom (796957) on Friday February 01 2008, @03:55PM (#22266488)

            Sigh...more fairy tales from teh Intarweb...

            We all know that colorblind people can see colors correctly underwater while those who have correct vision cannot.

            First scuba: "Hey dude! I found the cables!" Second scuba: "Cool. Now cut the red one. No, not that one, the other one. No not this one!" First scuba: "Hey man! Sorry, I'm colorblind.." Second scuba: "Sh.t! That's 2 dude. We were simply supposed to cut the good one... Now gimme those scissors. There you go."

              • Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Funny)

                by Kompressor (595513) on Friday February 01 2008, @04:54PM (#22267278)

                We all know that ironyblind people can see irony correctly underwater while those who have correct perception cannot.

                I've never heard that before. My understanding is that ironyblindness is due to an absence or shortage of irony receptor cells in the brain. I don't see how that could give someone better comprehension underwater.

                OTOH, I have heard that irony blind people are worse at spotting camouflaged humor. I presume that's because they percieve things DIFFERENTLY than the non-ironyblind person who created the camouflage.
                There, fixed that for ya ;-)

              • Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Interesting)

                by onepoint (301486) on Friday February 01 2008, @06:46PM (#22268566) Homepage Journal
                Color Blind... you don't want it, nor the benefits of it.

                My dad has it, and he See's everything in grays ( well that's the color he calls it ), he can spot the difference in the color black from 4 different producers. my dad work for the government back in the 60's and 70's and he was consistently seeing things. his job was to point out "problems in photographs" so if an image was out of balance, he would just circle it and hand it up the chain of command.

                Some of the more interesting assignments my dad disclosed to me.
                1) military cloth review and rejection for top brass ( 3 and 4 star level )
                2) Paint color review ( hundred of gallons at time )
                3) standardise the color of military traffic lights on domestic bases, so many colors of red variations and green, he got it down to 2 of each and let someone else pick it out.
                4) camo netting review at heights exceeding 10,000 feet
                plus a lot of stuff that I'm not sure about but I saw on the table as a kid

                on of my fathers biggest problems were carpet's, your regular gray carpet might have 800+ threads that were woven to make it, just imagine walking along a carpet, having something that looked like a slice in the carpet ( or a bug ), only to realise that it's just a bad color thread. another problem were berger kings and McDonald's. until the late 80's there were certain ones my dad would eat at, since to him all the plastic chairs and tables ( at the respective franchise ) coloring was similar and color association was rather strong with him, so bad experiences with certain colors would extend into his personal life.

                he never had a chance to become a pilot, but when he worked for the military he always (come hell or high water) from take-off to landing was in the co-pilot chair. how he pulled that stunt was a secret that I have never asked, but he got away with it.

                the color of scotch always made him ill until i found out about the first time he got drunk ( color association ).

                my dad had amazing wood skills when it came to selecting wood for his carvings, wood would just be right and the grain would always just be perfect for what he wanted to do.

                Concrete ageing, that's something my father was a perfectionist at, he could look at a concrete job that was recently poured, tell it's age and by shit luck ( or some magic ) tell if it was cured correctly.

                people with this disorder are different, but none the less, thier skills at other things are sometimes exceeding.

          • Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Jeremiah Cornelius (137) on Friday February 01 2008, @04:01PM (#22266582) Homepage Journal
            One in Marseilles, one in Suez. Not the same ruddy deal. The new break is on the FLAG cable - in yest another place: 56 kms from Dubai on a segment between the UAE and Oman.

            You seem to be a knee-jerk skeptic, who's "Nothing to see here, move along" displays not - as you presume - intelligence, but rather a susceptibility to Jedi mind-tricks.
            • If the US wanted to tap the cable, they'd just use the submarine USS Jimmy Carter, which was retrofitted a few years back to perform exactly these sort of operations. They'd do it without any detected loss of connectivity.

              • Re:How to tap the cable (Score:5, Funny)

                by Afrosheen (42464) on Friday February 01 2008, @05:25PM (#22267706)
                Retrofitted? What does the sub have on it, a giant pair of scissors sticking out of the front?

                • Re:How to tap the cable (Score:5, Funny)

                  by eli pabst (948845) on Friday February 01 2008, @06:11PM (#22268214)

                  What does the sub have on it, a giant pair of scissors sticking out of the front?
                  Actually it was fitted with a gigantic ear. In fact, the sub gets its name from the comically over-sized ears of Jimmy Carter.

                • Re:How to tap the cable (Score:5, Interesting)

                  by Zymergy (803632) * on Friday February 01 2008, @07:04PM (#22268720)
                  Yes and No. Its original class design was modified and lengthened by 100 feet to accommodate the "Multi-Mission Platform (MMP), which allows launch and recovery of ROVs and Navy SEAL forces. The MMP may also be used as an underwater splicing chamber for tapping of undersea fiber optic cables." (Wiki)
                  OTOH, If the US Navy were doing 'tapping' with the Seawolf-Class SSN, no one would ever know about it. US Navy Submarine crews are the best there are and in this string of events, and the US Navy is not having "accidents" while tapping cables. *If* the US Navy is involved with these fiber cable cuts, they are on purpose and not due to errors. Those men truly know what they are doing and are very well trained.

                  I wrote on this same topic (with links) this morning in an different story's thread: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=438002&cid=22263288 [slashdot.org]

              • Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Insightful)

                by spun (1352) <loverevolutionar ... com minus distro> on Friday February 01 2008, @06:14PM (#22268230) Journal
                Some people think America is always evil. Others think America can do no evil. A few of us believe that we should take it on a case by case basis. There's no proof here that America did anything. But this is likely more than a coincidence. When was the last time you heard of an underwater cable being cut? Never? Yeah, me neither. Then, boom! 3 or 4 in a few weeks. Not very likely. Now, I haven't ruled out coincidence, but I have shown probable cause to search for another explanation. So, who has the means, the opportunity, and the motivation? The Bush administration. Am I saying I know for sure they did it? Of course not.

                Now, are you saying you know for sure they didn't?

    • Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2008, @02:55PM (#22265648)
      Last night while sitting in my chair
      I pinged a host that wasn't there
      It wasn't there again today
      The host resolved to NSA.

      • Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2008, @05:00PM (#22267388)
        If you're trying to make some nukes
        Don't bother putting up your dukes
        Subs with scissors of nations crossed
        Will ensure *** CARRIER LOST ***

    • Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Funny)

      by bigdavex (155746) on Friday February 01 2008, @02:56PM (#22265674)
      A communications disruption can mean only one thing - invasion.

    • Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2008, @02:57PM (#22265696)
      yes funny. does not slashdot realize we have had a sub that can do just that for decades?

      http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:3fK6ZB19WjIJ:msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/docs/cnn/2005-02-18_cnn_optical_taps.pdf+fiber+submarine+cia&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us&client=opera [72.14.205.104]

      keep laughing guys and gals why the spies among us earn their salary. :-P

      • Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by riseoftheindividual (1214958) on Friday February 01 2008, @03:14PM (#22265948) Homepage
        If this is the work of our spies, they aren't earning their salary. They're incompetent bastards who should be fired for lacking any type of stealth or subtlety.

        How much tech do you really need to cut a cable? It doesn't seem like it would require much in the way of high tech capability. Given that these cables are communication lines carrying western influences into muslim countries, I would say that at this point, we should not rule out militant acts to make a statement about wanting a reduction of western influence.

        If this is our spies, this would seem to be a pretty boneheaded execution of tapping lines. But, since they work for the government, we can't rule out boneheadedness. Or just really bizzarre random chance, though that's kind of hard for me personally to swallow at this point.

        • Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Chris Snook (872473) on Friday February 01 2008, @05:32PM (#22267792)
          Actually, if you want to test your surveillance of an enemy's communications networks, deliberately disrupting their communications can be a very worthwhile experiment.

          It's notable that Iran is now supposedly cut off entirely. If the Iranian government has any secret communications links, it'll be much easier to tell when they're using them.

      • "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" (Score:5, Insightful)

        by HTH NE1 (675604) on Friday February 01 2008, @03:19PM (#22266010)
        "Understand the procedure now? Just stop a few of their machines, their telephones, their lawnmowers, throw them into darkness for a few hours, and then sit back and watch the pattern."

        "This pattern is always the same?"

        "With few variations. They pick the most dangerous enemy they can find.... and it's themselves. All we need do is sit back and watch."

        "I take it that this place...this Maple Street...is not unique."

        "By no means. Their world is full of Maple Streets, and we'll go from one to the other and let them destroy themselves."

  • Iran hasn't lost connectivity (Score:5, Informative)

    by anotherone (132088) on Friday February 01 2008, @02:51PM (#22265602)

    Iran hasn't lost connectivity, the specific router that Internet Traffic Report is checking has lost connectivity.

    Even the University that hosts the router that ITR is checking is still up: http://www.iust.ac.ir/ [iust.ac.ir]

    • Re:Iran hasn't lost connectivity (Score:5, Funny)

      by ShieldW0lf (601553) on Friday February 01 2008, @04:19PM (#22266830) Journal
      The countries internet connection is hanging by a thread, and you slashdot their university. Smooth move, asshole.

    • Re:Iran hasn't lost connectivity (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mrboyd (1211932) on Friday February 01 2008, @04:43PM (#22267124)
      Iran is still on the grid, as is all of the ME. I am still in Dubai (where the 3rd cable has been cut). I received a communication from our ISP (DU/ aka DIC Telecom) telling us about this new cut and that they had to reroute us again. I couldn't notice more slow down in web browsing but bittorrent traffic seems to have been blocked. Could it be a preemptive measure? We live behind a big firewall similar to the one in china here. I would be surprised if they decided not to plead like the Egyptians and just block some of the crap we download to save the bandwidth.

  • It was widely reported from a variety of whistleblowers at the turn of the millennium that the U.S. was preparing the U.S.S. Jimmy Carter to be able to tap underwater fibre-optic cables. See Bamford's Body of Secrets [amazon.com] for exmaple.

    That this operation was carried out on the submarine named after the president who did the most to reduce spying on civilian targets shows just how petty and spiteful the professional privacy violators in the NSA are.

  • When will they learn.... Oblig quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by hermit_tries_virtual (1229948) on Friday February 01 2008, @03:07PM (#22265850)

    Fry: What's happening?

    Dr. Zoidberg: All 6,000 hulls have been breached!

    Fry: Oh, the fools! If only they'd built it with 6,001 hulls! When will they learn?

  • Cloverfield 2 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lurker2288 (995635) on Friday February 01 2008, @03:25PM (#22266110)
    So let's see, three cables in three days...that puts the monster in Manhattan by what, next Thursday, give or take a few isolated fishing vessels between here and there? Better charge up those handicams, kids!

    • Re:Cloverfield 2 (Score:5, Funny)

      by John Whitley (6067) on Friday February 01 2008, @04:13PM (#22266738) Homepage
      If it is the Cloverfield monster, here's the moral imperative of anyone caught in its landfall zone: SHOOT TO KILL any and all person(s) caught in public with a camcorder but without a steadicam rig...! ;-)

  • In related news (Score:5, Funny)

    by ObiWanStevobi (1030352) on Friday February 01 2008, @03:32PM (#22266208) Journal

    Office productivity throughout the Middle East has risen sharply.

  • The Great White Backhoe (Score:5, Funny)

    by xleeko (551231) on Friday February 01 2008, @03:49PM (#22266408)
    <french-accent>
    This reclusive giant of the deep, the Great White Backhoe, spends most of its life in quiet solitude. But, once every seven years, as if called by some unknown force, these gentle beasts gather in great numbers to feast upon the cables of the ocean floor.
    </french-accent>

  • Maybe the NSA has to cut the cable to tap into it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mgh02114 (655185) on Friday February 01 2008, @04:14PM (#22266760)
    The locations where many of the recent cable cuts have occurred (China, Pakistan, Palestine/Egypt, and now Iran) is highly suspicious. I suspect that the U.S. intelligence community is using a sub to tap into the fiberoptic line to capture all of the data. Unlike copper lines, they probably can't splice into glass fiberoptic lines without breaking the circuit for a while.

    1) Cut the line somewhere roughly, so it clearly looks like an accident
    2) Somewhere else far away, splice into the line using a sub, so the NSA can capture all the data (or even potentially alter it in transit)
    3) Let the commercial communication providers fix the obvious break
    4) Profit! (at least in terms of intelligence gathering and cyber-war capability

  • Sealab (Score:5, Funny)

    by HTH NE1 (675604) on Friday February 01 2008, @04:33PM (#22266996)
    "Hey, Quinn! Check out my new raver's wig!"
    [He flips a switch and fiber optic cables coming out of his hair start glowing and flowing in multiple colors)

    "Stormy, where'd you find the cables for that wig? Tell me you didn't pull them out of the control panels."

    "Control panels? Hell no, I'm not stupid! No, I got them outside. There's a whole lot of them out there on the sea floor."

    "Outsi-- you idiot! Those are Internet cables! You can't just steal them!"

    "But everyone's else is doing it!"

    [Hetch appears on the monitor, but the camera reads him as a multi-colored blob.]
    "Hetch sewed himself a fiber-optic suit!"

    • Re:Can anyone enlighten me? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Surt (22457) on Friday February 01 2008, @03:29PM (#22266158) Homepage Journal
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable [wikipedia.org]
      Includes a nice picture, and description of each layer.
      Here's the picture link directly.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Submarine_cable_cross-section_3D_plain.svg [wikipedia.org]

    • Re:Can anyone enlighten me? (Score:5, Informative)

      by mikael (484) on Friday February 01 2008, @04:22PM (#22266862)
      The BBC has an article [bbc.co.uk] with a cross section of an undersea cable [bbc.co.uk]

      The first cable - the Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) - was cut at 0800 on 30 January, the firm said.

      INSIDE A SUBMARINE CABLE
      cable infographic
      1 Polyethylene cover
      2,4 Stranded steel armour wires
      3,5 Tar-soaked nylon yarn
      6 Polycarbonate insulator
      7 Copper sheath
      8 Protective core
      9 Optical fibres
      Not to scale

      A second cable thought to lie alongside it - SEA-ME-WE 4, or the South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 cable - was also split.

      FLAG is a 28,000km (17,400 mile) long submarine communications cable that links Australia and Japan with Europe via India and the Middle East.

      SEA-ME-WE 4 is a submarine cable linking South East Asia to Europe via the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East.

      The two cable cuts meant that the only cable in service connecting Europe to the Middle East via Egypt was the older Sea-M-We 3 system, according to research firm TeleGeography.


      It's amazing that a ship's anchor could have the strength to pull apart two layers of stranded steel armour wires, a layer of copper, kevlar layers, and three polyethylene layers.

      • Re:Can anyone enlighten me? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by russotto (537200) on Friday February 01 2008, @04:36PM (#22267042) Journal

        It's amazing that a ship's anchor could have the strength to pull apart two layers of stranded steel armour wires, a layer of copper, kevlar layers, and three polyethylene layers.

        Have you ever seen an anchor? Sure, it's just a hunk of low-tech metal. But it's a very LARGE hunk of low-tech metal. Connected by a very heavy cable or chain to a ship which weighs many, many tons. Ripping apart a communications cable = not a problem.

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