4th Undersea Cable Cut?

"You are correct sir!" to quote Ed MacMahon. 98% of the cable's design is to protect a very thin and delicate strand of glass in a very hostile environment. Sometimes it fails. The cable has many different kinds of rubber, steel braiding, vinyl and other types of materials all in various layers designed to cushion and strengthen the cable.


Commander Suzdal said:
There's a sample cable diagram on the page with the article that started all this. There are layers of steel reinforcing strands wrapped around the glass fiber core. If the diagram is a good guide (it says "not to scale") there's actually more steel than glass fiber in the fiber optic cable as a whole.
Click to expand...
 
I would not be surprised in 20 years we find out that it was the US trying to "tap" into the cables using a submarine.
We know they were doing that with the Soviets about 20 years ago with submarines that were able to place taps onto the copper cables that was mainly used by higher ups and got some good intel, BUT they did accidentally cut it once and had to grab the stuff before it was fixed.

Not saying that that is what is happening, but I would never rule it out (though this much failure rate would lean that if it is a trap gone bad then the US would not be behind this)
 
The locations of these cables are public domain, so at first I thought it was people trying to steal copper (which is common). Now the fourth cable is cut?

The Americans already have the capacity to spy on transmissions, so I count them out. It would be easier to cut the cables, but what would they have to gain? I can't imagine there is much Internet traffic in Iraq right now, and again they would have the ability to spy on it. It's more beneficial to the Americans to allow them access to cnn.com and foxnews to let them know what they should think.

So who would do this? If you're an emerging power and want to get your message out, the Internet might confuse things. So many conflicting views that aren't yours. You have another way to get your views heard - religious leaders that are unquestionable. Who also has a fleet of submarines in the area? Iran.
 
Sabotage.

I'd say its almost impossible to have that many cable cuts in so short a period of time. These are afterall modern steel reinforced cables, and there has been little to no tectonic activity.

http://www.atlantic-cable.com/Maps/index.htm

Even back in 1858, cable breaks were pretty rare occurances.

But really though, I think fiber optic may be in for a rough ride if a carbon nanotube is figured out. Carbon nanotube cables may have slightly less capacity, but they are infinitely stronger.
 
I remember reading Arthur C. Clarke's novel "The Fountains of Paradise" back in the 80's, about using carbon monofilaments (strands of strongly-bonded carbon that are a single molecule wide/thick) to build towers from the ground into earth orbit. The cables made from bundles of the filaments were light enough for an "anchor" of sufficient mass in orbit to counterbalance the weight of the cable with the acceleration of the orbit speed. We are getting closer every day, it seems, to moving that kind of stuff out of the realm of fiction. If such filaments can transmit data, too, they would indeed be an incredibly strong, lightweight alternative to copper and glass.
 
Commander Suzdal said:
I remember reading Arthur C. Clarke's novel "The Fountains of Paradise" back in the 80's, about using carbon monofilaments (strands of strongly-bonded carbon that are a single molecule wide/thick) to build towers from the ground into earth orbit. The cables made from bundles of the filaments were light enough for an "anchor" of sufficient mass in orbit to counterbalance the weight of the cable with the acceleration of the orbit speed. We are getting closer every day, it seems, to moving that kind of stuff out of the realm of fiction. If such filaments can transmit data, too, they would indeed be an incredibly strong, lightweight alternative to copper and glass.
Click to expand...

Scientists are working to develop "Space Elevator" technology as an inexpensive and envoromentally friendly way to access orbit with a modest payload.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator
 
ssratt said:
I would not be surprised in 20 years we find out that it was the US trying to "tap" into the cables using a submarine.
We know they were doing that with the Soviets about 20 years ago with submarines that were able to place taps onto the copper cables that was mainly used by higher ups and got some good intel, BUT they did accidentally cut it once and had to grab the stuff before it was fixed.

Not saying that that is what is happening, but I would never rule it out (though this much failure rate would lean that if it is a trap gone bad then the US would not be behind this)
Click to expand...

The US already has submarines that can tap into submarine optical cables.
 
Maybe Al Gore is tired of sharing his invention with other people.
 
ssratt said:
I would not be surprised in 20 years we find out that it was the US trying to "tap" into the cables using a submarine.

Not saying that that is what is happening, but I would never rule it out (though this much failure rate would lean that if it is a trap gone bad then the US would not be behind this)
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:
Why not the French? Or the English? Or the Estonians? (okay, maybe not that last one, though I wouldn't put it past them)
 
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