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Third Undersea Cable Cut
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Feb 01, 2008 03:47 PM
from the someone-doesn't-like-connect-the-dots dept.
from the someone-doesn't-like-connect-the-dots dept.
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."
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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.'"
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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."
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Third cut? (Score:5, Insightful)
Once is accident.
Twice is coincidence.
Thrice is enemy action.
Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Funny)
I pinged a host that wasn't there
It wasn't there again today
The host resolved to NSA.
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Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Interesting)
In completely unrelated news, a couple of weeks later large portions of mideast anti-western terrorist sponsoring areas had internet access disrupted or cut off in a series of coincidental unobserved "accidents".
Hmm.....
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Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re:Third cut? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Third cut? do i smell Conspiracy BS? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Third cut? do i smell Conspiracy BS? (Score:5, Funny)
Wrong on so many levels...
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Re:Third cut? do i smell Conspiracy BS? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Third cut? do i smell Conspiracy BS? (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, you wanted a "Conspiracy".
PS. Osama is hanging out on GWB's ranch in Texas - that's why they can't find him.
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"The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" (Score:5, Insightful)
"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."
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Iran hasn't lost connectivity (Score:5, Informative)
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]
Putting the puzzle pieces together (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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)
In related news (Score:5, Funny)
Office productivity throughout the Middle East has risen sharply.
The Great White Backhoe (Score:5, Funny)
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>
Re:This is getting exciting! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:This is getting exciting! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Can anyone enlighten me? (Score:5, Informative)
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]
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