4th Undersea Cable Cut?

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Four undersea cables cut in one week? What are the odds of that occurring accidentally? There is something fishy going on here (no pun intended).

Four undersea communication cables have been cut in the past week, raising questions about the safety of the oceanic network that handles the bulk of the world's Internet and telephone traffic. Most telecommunications experts and cable operators say that sabotage seems unlikely, but no one knows what damaged the cables or whether the incidents were related.
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something cutting cables in the ocean?

it must be the cloverfield monster.
 
I was thinking some kind of monster.... or maybe sea turtles and jellyfish have given up their standard diet in favor of more enjoyable fare? What's in those cables anyways? Copper? Iron? Glass? "Insulation"? Maybe that's tasty to someone down below?

202276
 
Tytalus said:
What's in those cables anyways? Copper? Iron? Glass? "Insulation"?
202276
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Actually with all the news about people stealing copper cabling out of schools and government buildings due to copper prices soaring you may not be far off.
 
frenzy said:
something cutting cables in the ocean?

it must be the cloverfield monster.
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I'll bet more than a few people thought this was part of the viral ad campaign for the movie that's been going on for almost a year,like the very realistic "news videos" that popped up on YouTube showing the collapse of a deep sea oil rig.
 
Its Pirate Bay decentraliziing their servers.

But seriously... probably an undersea earthquake or eruption that cut two and damaged two others such that they failed soon thereafter.

Maybe instead of reporting on speculation the reporters should ask to interview the guys who go down and fix it... they probably can say "yeah lava did it"... or whatever it turns out to be.
 
The Pirate Bay is probably rerouting the cables to their new island.
 
Most likely it's illegal trawlers fishing in forbidden areas. With worldwide sea stocks plummeting, a huge amount of fishing is taking place in coastal waters that are normally off limits just so that fisheries can make some sort of profit. These trawlers use huge, deep drag nets that essentially scrape everything off the sea floor. This includes fish, mollusks, rocks, and yes, cables.

Nothing conspiratorial about that.
 
I don't have the link, but someone made a map of the world that showed all the world's connection. They all user fiber optics obviously because of speed, and no latency problems with it.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tytalus
What's in those cables anyways? Copper? Iron? Glass? "Insulation"?

Quote:
SelousSizzle n00bie
Actually with all the news about people stealing copper cabling out of schools and government buildings due to copper prices soaring you may not be far off.

Those cables are fiber optic and there pretty damn big... alot of them are used for military purposes...
 
actually it's all my fault.. I have obsessive compulsive tendencies when it comes to cutting undersea internet cables.. sorry i'll stop :(
 
They still think it's anchors doing it right? I didn't read the article, I have a monster headache.
 
Hmmm. Four lines out of commission. Two in the Mediterranean, two in the Persian Gulf. So I Googled "Iran submarine" and turns out they have three surplus Russian Kilo-class boats and a line of mini-subs based on North Korean technology. Qatar and UAE are relatively friendly to the West, both of them allowing the U.S. to operate air bases for operations over Iraq, the Gulf, and potentially against Iran if things heat up there.

Mini-sub cuts cable in Med, passes through Suez shadowing a surface ship, cuts cable in Gulf. As I said, hmmmm...
 
Methinks it's military driven...probably a clever way to blackout internet over there, since that's a primary front of attack for the extremists.
 
That work closely and were trained by the US 6th Fleet....the 6th is specialized in demolitions.

please, Pontificate.
 
SelousSizzle said:
Actually with all the news about people stealing copper cabling out of schools and government buildings due to copper prices soaring you may not be far off.
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The cables are basically glass stands (fiber) with heavy steel jackets and jelly (add some maylar, polycarbonates, polyetheline, etc). Pretty much useless when it's been in the bottom of the ocean for such a long time and pretty much useless period :)



Azhar said:
The Pirate Bay is probably rerouting the cables to their new island.
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Hahaha, now that would be funny and good at the same time!

wiseoracle said:
I don't have the link, but someone made a map of the world that showed all the world's connection. They all user fiber optics obviously because of speed, and no latency problems with it.
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There are many maps, it really depends which cables you would like to see... there are a ton of private links tossed in there not even added to most maps.

Fiber isn't used for the speed nor is it used for the latency, although, those are two nice factors of fiber... but it's rather the distance it can carry a signal.

K2rn2g3 said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tytalus
What's in those cables anyways? Copper? Iron? Glass? "Insulation"?

Quote:
SelousSizzle n00bie
Actually with all the news about people stealing copper cabling out of schools and government buildings due to copper prices soaring you may not be far off.

Those cables are fiber optic and there pretty damn big... alot of them are used for military purposes...
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You have a better chance of stealing power cable off transmisson lines than you have of stealing this cable. This cable almost has no recycle value, but copper found in power transmission lines, are worth their weight in gold.

Commander Suzdal said:
Hmmm. Four lines out of commission. Two in the Mediterranean, two in the Persian Gulf. So I Googled "Iran submarine" and turns out they have three surplus Russian Kilo-class boats and a line of mini-subs based on North Korean technology. Qatar and UAE are relatively friendly to the West, both of them allowing the U.S. to operate air bases for operations over Iraq, the Gulf, and potentially against Iran if things heat up there.

Mini-sub cuts cable in Med, passes through Suez shadowing a surface ship, cuts cable in Gulf. As I said, hmmmm...
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To find cable and snip it would be finding a needle in a haystack, especially on a full mesh network. You would be better off strategically to kill those connections electronically. It would also serve no purpose for Iran as they would be killing their own connections to the world :) The US millitary has their own communication networks.

It would be hard to hide a surface ship and a mini sub in those regions without the US or allies taking notice :)
 
Ockie said:
To find cable and snip it would be finding a needle in a haystack, especially on a full mesh network. You would be better off strategically to kill those connections electronically. It would also serve no purpose for Iran as they would be killing their own connections to the world :) The US millitary has their own communication networks.

It would be hard to hide a surface ship and a mini sub in those regions without the US or allies taking notice :)
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Good points--here are some clarifications on mine. The stories posted hadn't mentioned a direct impact on Iran, although I imagine the "traffic to the Middle East" part includes them at least to a degree. As far as Qatar and UAE, I was thinking more of punitive action than trying to affect the U.S. bases there strategically.

I assume a mini-sub is self-hiding if its range is sufficient, unless U.S. task forces are operating close enough to the affected areas to pick it up? My mention of the sub shadowing the surface ship didn't assume that the surface ship was a knowing accomplice. But of course with the resources Iran has, they wouldn't need to move the sub through the Suez--they have enough of them to operate in both areas at once.

To follow up on your needle-in-haystack point, would an undersea cable on the sea floor be quickly covered by silt-muck-algae etc? I could see that making it hard to find them, unless maybe the places where they come ashore are well-defined and you could trace them from there. Another question that comes to mind--how do the repair ships find them?
 
hmm someone dosnt want info going in an out

probably about the concentration camps in iraq
 
You guys don't know crap it is a little annoying.

I saw clash of the titans... it clearly is the work of a Kraken.

See these arms? Clearly, only thing that could cut this:
clashkraken.jpg
 
Commander Suzdal said:
Good points--here are some clarifications on mine. The stories posted hadn't mentioned a direct impact on Iran, although I imagine the "traffic to the Middle East" part includes them at least to a degree. As far as Qatar and UAE, I was thinking more of punitive action than trying to affect the U.S. bases there strategically.
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Perhaps, but I think this is a little too complicated for Iran to pull off unnoticed :)


Commander Suzdal said:
I assume a mini-sub is self-hiding if its range is sufficient, unless U.S. task forces are operating close enough to the affected areas to pick it up? My mention of the sub shadowing the surface ship didn't assume that the surface ship was a knowing accomplice. But of course with the resources Iran has, they wouldn't need to move the sub through the Suez--they have enough of them to operate in both areas at once.
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Suez canal is about 300m wide, not very wide for a covert operation.

Here is a wikipedia picture to give you an idea of how much operation room you've got to work with when you have destroyers patroling it:

Bainbridge_in_Suez.jpg



Commander Suzdal said:
To follow up on your needle-in-haystack point, would an undersea cable on the sea floor be quickly covered by silt-muck-algae etc? I could see that making it hard to find them, unless maybe the places where they come ashore are well-defined and you could trace them from there. Another question that comes to mind--how do the repair ships find them?
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Yes, an undersea cable and quickly dissapear under the sand and can quickly grow to be part of the enviroment.

You can see cables on the shore here (if they can't be burried, which is rare), but they have serious boots that would be incredibly hard to crush (designed so trucks can drive over them and ships can bash into them):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Submarine_Telephone_Cables_PICT8182_1.JPG

They are usually burried:
http://www.divecommercial.com/MVC-214F.JPG

Sometimes they can even be burried under water using a wedge.


Repair ships can find them by using cable laying positions, deep sea robots, and dive equipment. Sometimes they can use weird designed grapple hooks to catch the cable. These equipment are very specialized and are very expensive. Some ships have the ability to pickup cable and trace it.

Keep in mind, fishing trawlers and small ships will get sinked if they snatch cable, so the only rigs that are big enough are the big big ships, here is a warning and a nice picture of a snagged cable:
http://www.kisca.org.uk/cable_snagging.htm

Detailed charts are out, in this case for the UK, to help navigate shippers around them, because they are not only a risk to the communications, but they are also a risk of the ships sinking due to snagging them:
http://www.kisca.org.uk/charts.htm

One of the things to note is that you know who the owners of the cables are, but you don't know for what they are for. So in order to get the rigt cables terminated, you need to hack a lot of them off.
 
Ockie said:
It would be hard to hide a surface ship and a mini sub in those regions without the US or allies taking notice :)
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Unless it was the US doing the cutting. :-/

I hate being a conspiracy theorist, but you really never know...
 
Ockie said:
To find cable and snip it would be finding a needle in a haystack, especially on a full mesh network. You would be better off strategically to kill those connections electronically. It would also serve no purpose for Iran as they would be killing their own connections to the world :) The US millitary has their own communication networks.
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Say huh?

You realize we've had cables on the ocean floor for literally decades for communication, and in the opening moves of BOTH World Wars, the 'Allied' forces immediately dug up all of the cables going to Germany on the ocean floors and cut them.

For instance, CS Telconia, a British cable ship, cut 5 of the transatlantic cables running to Germany in 1914.
 
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