Scuba Divers Accused of Cutting Internet Cable

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Dear stupid criminals, the term "hacking the internet" doesn't mean cutting an undersea internet cable with some bolt cutters. Real smart, now what are you going to do without porn..err, internet access? :D

The Egyptian military has arrested three scuba divers accused of cutting an undersea Internet cable off the coast of the northern city of Alexandria, it said on Thursday. The three had been spotted on board a small boat and attempted to flee ashore, but the navy gave chase and eventually caught up and arrested them, the military said on its Facebook page.
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lol, that's kinda funny in a way, whether it's true or not (obviously not for the divers).

underwater hooligans
 
Someone paid the to do it. The question is who and why. Given the reputation of Egyptian security forces, it won't be long before the pliers and battery cables come out and they find out who is behind it.
 
Reminds me of home. I grew up on an island in the middle of a lake that had a massive power cable that connected it to the mainland. At one point, a tanker accidentally dropped its anchor and severed the cable, and unknowingly dragging it across to the other side of the lake. It took like, 2 weeks to finally fix it.
 
Fact: The Navy has no money laying around.

Fact: People fall off ships in motion all the time and some drown and sink.

Fact: Dredging is a common way to recover bodies.

Obvious Conclusion: Somone fell off a ship or boat and, while dredging to recover that person, the Navy cut a cable by accident so they used three random guys of their own to pose as scuba divers to pretend like there was some nefarious thing happening so they could then "catch" them and not have to pay for the repair of an expensive undersea fiber line.

Ripple Effect: The government is evil and out to get everyone with their taxes and violently apprehending people so we obviously need more crazy Libertarianism to fix it with fantasy-land ideas about a new world order.

/trollface :p
 
I'm a little lost on the story. So the Internet goes down and somehow the ISP immediately figures out the cable has been cut and not only that.. that it was cut in the ocean. They call the Egyptian 911 and say hey someone is in the ocean and cut the internet and they dispatch the military who find the people on scene?

Something doesn't add up
 
Monkey God said:
Someone paid the to do it. The question is who and why. Given the reputation of Egyptian security forces, it won't be long before the pliers and battery cables come out and they find out who is behind it.
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UBISOFT. They wanted to piss off SimCity players again and further damage EA's image :D
 
J So said:
I'm a little lost on the story. So the Internet goes down and somehow the ISP immediately figures out the cable has been cut and not only that.. that it was cut in the ocean. They call the Egyptian 911 and say hey someone is in the ocean and cut the internet and they dispatch the military who find the people on scene?

Something doesn't add up
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They would know immediately which link went down. They would not know exactly where on that link where it was severed (specifically where on the cable was cut). I would assume that the building where the undersea cable plugs into is right near the ocean, so it would be as simple as following the cable and map to eventually find someone parked nearby in a boat. Boaters flee, they are likely suspects.
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
They would know immediately which link went down. They would not know exactly where on that link where it was severed (specifically where on the cable was cut). I would assume that the building where the undersea cable plugs into is right near the ocean, so it would be as simple as following the cable and map to eventually find someone parked nearby in a boat. Boaters flee, they are likely suspects.
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They are able to test the line and find out the location of the break as well.
 
Monkey God said:
Given the reputation of Egyptian security forces, it won't be long before the pliers and battery cables come out and they find out who is behind it.
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Are they going to be using the pliers on themselves?
At the very least this was done be people who support the current thugs running Egypt.
Just trying to stop people from reporting how bad it's getting over there.
 
J So said:
I'm a little lost on the story. So the Internet goes down and somehow the ISP immediately figures out the cable has been cut and not only that.. that it was cut in the ocean. They call the Egyptian 911 and say hey someone is in the ocean and cut the internet and they dispatch the military who find the people on scene?

Something doesn't add up
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Also my first thought.
Even IF the ISP could accurately locate the break (by what mechanism?), it would take tens of minutes for the military to be notified and to respond. You'd think that would allow plenty of time for an escape.
 
Geonerd said:
Also my first thought.
Even IF the ISP could accurately locate the break (by what mechanism?), it would take tens of minutes for the military to be notified and to respond. You'd think that would allow plenty of time for an escape.
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How would they test where the break in the line is? I mean shit, it's a wire, it goes one way, it needs something on the end to send signals back.
 
It was a couple old Geezers that were thinking " The interwebz is ruining our way of life and we can turn it off if we do this! "

Also they probably didn't originally try to get away, they were sitting in their boat with a couple of beers thinking of how they saved all those people from internet Porn and after a few hours passed they noticed the military show up and then got caught.
 
J So said:
Something doesn't add up
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A report that the cable in question was already cut a week before the divers were caught attempting to cut it:

http://www.seacom.mu/news/article-129/message-from-seacom-ceo/

The original cut was most likely done by a ship's anchor:

http://slashdot.org/topic/datacenter/ships-anchor-suspected-in-mideast-internet-problems/

Why were the divers attempting to cut an already cut cable? Who knows. I'm guessing there's a potent mix of incompetence, confusion and miscommunication going on here.
 
The cable has been cut for about 5 days. These scuba divers sure as hell didn't cut it.
 
randomdean100 said:
How would they test where the break in the line is? I mean shit, it's a wire, it goes one way, it needs something on the end to send signals back.
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Fiber pairs used for high level transport like this usually have in-line OTDR's. It only takes seconds to find out where the cut is.
 
ya the article even states

The arrests come after many Internet users in Egypt reported service disruptions during the past few days.
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so the divers cut the cable and hung out for a few days? :confused:
 
Okay, I just came up with a theory that actually works: the company whose ship's anchor cut the cable didn't want to get in trouble for it, so they came up with a crazy damage-control scheme to pay some stupid Egyptian divers to go cut the line, then called the cops on the divers, so when the authorities come after the company, they can point fingers at the divers and say "oh no, we didn't do it, those saboteurs did it, not us!"
 
evilsofa said:
Why were the divers attempting to cut an already cut cable? Who knows. I'm guessing there's a potent mix of incompetence, confusion and miscommunication going on here.
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If you look out into the landscape, you'll see a goat...
 
Mchart said:
Fiber pairs used for high level transport like this usually have in-line OTDR's. It only takes seconds to find out where the cut is.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-domain_reflectometer

I learned telcom work as kid on my dads TDR/sidekick from the early 70's and his rotary butt-set, which I still have. Its crazy to look at a modern unit and the sheer amount of information it gathers in seconds. The old TDR you had to take the readings then plot them on cheatsheet/graph to find the distance to fault. Or have 15 years experiance and know your equipment. Dad was pretty accurate just by watching the speed and arc of the needle. I just dont have that knack for it.
 
at least it wasn't a CIA line they would have to cover it up with a terrorist attack
 
Flatline said:
Beat me to it lol... and also... wtf at military facebook news? That's where they talk about what their military is up to?
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This is the only part of the story that stuck with me.

Apparently, some country's military not only thinks it should be on facebook, but also that they should post news on it?

wtf
 
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