Damage to several undersea telecom cables that caused outages across the Middle East and Asia could have been an act of sabotage, the International Telecommunication Union said on Monday. “We do not want to preempt the results of ongoing investigations, but we do not rule out that a deliberate act of sabotage caused the damage to the undersea cables over two weeks ago,” the UN agency’s head of development, Sami al-Murshed, told AFP. Five undersea cables were damaged in late January and early February leading to disruption to Internet and telephone services in parts of the Middle East and south Asia. There has been speculation that the sheer number of cables being cut over such a short period was too much of a coincidence and that sabotage must have been involved.
India’s Flag telecom revealed on February 7 that the cut to the Falcon cable between the United Arab Emirates and Oman was caused by a ship’s anchor. But mystery shrouds what caused another four reported cuts. “Some experts doubt the prevailing view that the cables were cut by accident, especially as the cables lie at great depths under the sea and are not passed over by ships,” Murshed said on the sidelines of a conference on cyber-crime held in Gulf state of Qatar. The Falcon cable has since been repaired, along with the Flag Europe Asia (FEA) cable which was damaged off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. The status of the remaining cable is still unclear.
Not exactly earth-shattering information at this point, but worth a look. The question is, why?
“Some experts doubt the prevailing view that the cables were cut by accident, especially as the cables lie at great depths under the sea and are not passed over by ships,”
While I doubt it as well to say they aren’t passed over by ships is silly.
#1. Yeah, it seems something may have been lost in the translation.
So… are we saying that there is evidence that, what appeared to random (“hoped” actually by the authorities) is showing signs of being designed and executed by other methods? Shouldn’t we be ridiculing these people who are following the evidence and coming to different conclusions? Just wanna be consistent here.
Duh. I think that with the number of cables that were cut, within such a brief period of time, that it was pretty fucking obvious that it was done intentionally.
But Americans being the stupid idiotic sheeple that they are, have been carefully and deliberately conditioned to misinterpret the word “conspiracy” as a pejorative, instead of it’s true original meaning.
As to why someone would want to disrupt Asian telecom lines… well, it’s so fucking obvious that I’m shocked anybody could be idiotic enough to even ask. That is, unless they’re a stupid brainwashed American.
I said it before and I’ll say it again, Navy Seals could’ve done this one from a sub – totally undetected of course. Not too many others would have the subs and expert demolitions divers. As to why, I don’t know about anyone else but after the ‘events’ my spam dropped off drastically. I mean if you’re gonna do something harsh to or through the network you’d need some well connected servers in countries that are sympathetic to your cause and/or have insufficent infrastructures to persue cybercrimes. To find out what they’re really up to all you need to do is find out which servers were the most affected. Of course you can’t cut ’em off completely but you can reduce their flow to a trickle. Must’ve been something pretty big and imminent or they wouldn’t have taken such drastic and obvious measures.
#6 My first thought when I heard about this was Navy Seals as well. And that we’ll never know the real how or why of this whole thing.
Fundamentalists, want to cut off ALL connected to the west.
USA gov, wants to monitor EVERYONE to protect the OIL. So a CUT and splice would work.
Other groups would LOVE to do something, and PASS the buck, and make OTHERS FIGHT. with a GOOD chance to walk in LATER.
Corps would do it to EXTEND the war, and keep price UP.
This is a real enigma. If this was intentional, the only reason I could phantom as to why was solely to prove that it could be done.
But then again, that doesn’t make any sense, because you don’t want to tip your hand. In cyberwarfare, as in any type of warfare, you would want the element of surprise.
So, JPV, enlighten us!
IMO, they’re obviously doing one of several things. Either they intentionally disrupted Asian communications, for some unknown purpose. Perhaps strategic, or a probe to see how the situation is dealt with by the Asians, industrial sabotage, exhibition of our capabilities, or just plain harassment. Or they tapped in to eavesdrop on these these lines and cutting them was a byproduct.
As to why that region, it seems obvious that it’s related to US or perhaps Israel, or whoever did it’s, hegemonic interest in the region.
Ships can anchor in pretty deep water. Maybe divers can go deeper, but not much. This is weird.
Oh, and the US is not the only country able to send divers or special subs down to cut a cable. The “US done it” obsession is silly.
My guess would be that the international FISA troopers needed some time to install a listening device at some “other point” in the cables and that they used the one-time cuts elsewhere as a simple diversion. I mean, like key, that’s what I would do (if so, it worked!).
By the way, if I have one single undersea cable running the uninterrupted length from Australia to Hawaii, and it gets “buggered”, then how can I so quickly locate the cut exact location (longitude/latitude) of that cut? Is there some electrical impedance meter or something?
This was indeed an assault on the communications infrastructure for the middle east. Operatives of the 207th Seal teams activating from submerged mobile bases (SSN Baton Rouge and SSN Toledo) demonstrated the power of the Stient 510 Barracuda cable cutter. In a targeted training exercise team members proved successful in their task.
JPV: Somebody cuts a cable (or two or three or five, who cares?) in the Med, and right away some asshole (Uh, you) starts ranting about “Those stupid Americans”. Well, the damned cables were cut in the Med, not exactly off American shores, and it’s completely possible they all just wore out at the same time, especially if they were lain about the same time. Lots of stuff goes on under that water, sharks get into arguments, whales find a nice little belly scratcher laying on the sea floor, ships sink and all the fish pee in the water. You need to quit buying into all this media BS that all Americans are brain dead, and watch your ass, because there might just be one of those “Sheeple” fixing to kick it for you.
Don’t be naive. Of course it was intentionally done by somebody with the resources of our (US) government.
The why is so they can install more snooping devices when they make the repairs. They will probably install amplifiers too as the number of people listening diminishes the signal.
For gosh sakes it’s the middle east and we are spending trillions over there. Good communications are anathema to despots like Bush and the terrorists were using it for their own purposes. They had to do something with the emphasis on spying and tracking the communications.
OmarTheAlien…
“Well, the damned cables were cut in the Med, not exactly off American shores, and it’s completely possible they all just wore out at the same time, especially if they were lain about the same time.”
—–
Yeah, I forgot. The US doesn’t have any naval craft or submarines. Especially not in that area of the world. On top of that, we aren’t the only superpower fighting multiple wars in the region either. It could have been one of the other superpowers that’s also fighting in the same part of the world.
OmarTheAlien…
“Lots of stuff goes on under that water, sharks get into arguments, whales find a nice little belly scratcher laying on the sea floor, ships sink and all the fish pee in the water.”
—–
Yeah, you’re right. It was probably arguing sharks, or belly scratching whales, that cut those five cables in a period of two weeks. Makes a lot of sense now that I think about.
“You need to quit buying into all this media BS that all Americans are brain dead, and watch your ass, because there might just be one of those “Sheeple” fixing to kick it for you.”
—–
Well, I guess I must be delusional in my every day personal experience, with people I meet and all the news stories and internet posts that I read about the behavior of my fellow Americans.
I also shouldn’t be baffled by watching people get scared of Muslims, because in the whole entire history of our nation, 3,000 Americans have been killed by a handful of them on 9/11. Meanwhile 20,000 Americans murder each other EVERY YEAR and that doesn’t scare anyone. Yeah, now that I think about, there really isn’t anything strange at all about this fact.
70% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 plot. At first I thought that it’s strange, that the Dictator of a secular Arab country, that repressed Muslims in his own country, would join forces with Islamic radicals. But now that you’re telling me this is all just media BS, I realize that it makes sense after all.
I guess your right. I’m totally mistaken that Americans, by and large, are idiotic sheeple that have been brainwashed by corrupt government officials and a colluding media.
Thanks for setting me straight. I owe you one.
And I will surely be watching my ass. Thanks for the friendly advice.
Why not let the Middle East have it’s own private internet?
It wouldn’t bother me in the least if we blocked any IP from there to the rest of the world…
How about jamming the entire electomagnetic band also..
Welcome back to the stone age.
What possible motive could America have for cutting these cables?
No offense, but it’s just silly to think they need to cut the cables to snoop — especially at the bottom of the ocean! We know they already ARE snooping on our emails and it’s done from the comfort of air conditioned offices illegally provided by the telcoms.
I could imagine terrorist doing such a thing but not at the bottom of the ocean.
I think this is a case for Occam’s razor.
# 17 bill said, Why not let the Middle East have it’s own private internet?
It wouldn’t bother me in the least if we blocked any IP from there to the rest of the world…
No offense, but is there something the matter with you?
There is a million and one reasons we need to communicate with people in the Middle East.
#18. Occams would say what in this instance….think hard.
First, the real answer to #17, ” Why not let the Middle East have it’s own private internet?”
If they had their own private internet, where would they get all their porn?
Next. Thank’s to JPV for answering my post #9.
JPV, check this out “The rumors are that the Navy’s newest nuclear sub, the USS Jimmy Carter, has been designed for spywork, with a “special capability… to tap undersea cables and eavesdrop on the communications passing through them,” according to the AP.”
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001397.html
Unfortunately, this article and the Robert Hanssen spy case (where he exposed an american tap on a soviet cable which had been undetected for years) clearly shows that:
America knows how to tap an underwater cable without disrupting service and has been doing so since before 1975!
Right theory? Wrong country!
21,
THAT cable was COPPER.
This is fiber optic, you need tobe INLINE to tap fiber.
How about the US telcos/cable companies? They’re tired of hearing how lackluster their service is compare to the rest of the world.
you need tobe INLINE to tap fiber
I wouldn’t bet a lot of money on that.
A lot of websites speculate that the cables were cut in an attempt to delay/stop the opening of the Iranian Oil Bourse on February 17 (but it opened anyway).
#12, Ivan, they probably used something like the “time domain reflectometers” I used about 30 years ago. (Heheheh, tells you a lot, eh?) It’s sort of like radar shooting a signal down an electrical wire, but there’s no reason the idea would not work with a light pulse for optical cable.
There’s probably better equipment around now, it darn sure isn’t going to weigh 50 pounds, or whatever.
#21, yea you thought that through. I’m sure the military is going to build a multi-billion dollar sub to tap obsolete copper cables…
Now that I’ve bought plenty of tin foil for my hat, here are a couple of theories.
1) It really was an accident, or
2) Being intentional, it was to test/train a countries ability to tap undersea cables. Practice in an area which you don’t care about so that you can tap successfully in an area you do care about.
#12 Ivan – Phillep is correct. A TDR would do the trick on copper or fiber (different model for each of course).
@22 ECA – Not hardly. You do not have to cut the fiber to gain access to the light pulse traveling through it. It can be accomplished by putting a bend into the fiber and placing the sensor on the bend. However, when you do that it does change the overall loss in the fiber run that is detectable, hence the need for monitoring equipment that alarms on the slightest variation in signal strength for those of us who are paranoid……
For those interested in an in-depth article on these cables and the history of undersea cables in general, the December 1996 Wired (4.12) had a piece by Neal Stephenson that’s longer than one of his books (about 15KB):”Mother Earth, Mother Board.” Both the cables cut off Alexandria were being built at the time and he and his photographer visited about half the countries they touch. The printer-ready version is at
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html
Enjoy!
(Oh, the Stephenson book that is shorter than this piece is “In the Beginning Was the Command Line” which is also recommended.)