Patterico's Pontifications

2/18/2008

Sabotage Possible in Last Month’s Ruptured Undersea Cables

Filed under: International — DRJ @ 7:41 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

In the past three weeks, there were five instances of ruptured undersea telecom cables that disrupted internet and telephone links in India and the Middle East. Initial reports stated the ruptures were due to damage from boat anchors, but authorities now say they can’t rule out sabotage:

“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. “

Now that’s what I call prior restraint.

— DRJ

12 Responses to “Sabotage Possible in Last Month’s Ruptured Undersea Cables”

  1. Finally, sharks with freakin’ laser beams attached is paying off. Muuwahhahhahh!

    Web traffic now being rerouted through bugged servers which were put in place before the cables were cut.

    steve (ccde87)

  2. I know a lot of the kooks were sure this was a sign of impending attack on Iran because the cables cut Iran off of the internet (in fact, Iran still had some access anyway).

    There is also some talk that fishermen get compensated for not being able to fish when these cables are emplaced, so they have been caught dragging anchors across these cables trying to get a free payday. But I didn’t think these seas were used for anything like fishing.

    I gotta ask: who profits from the cutting? Terrorists generally don’t keep secrets about their destruction.

    Jem (4cdfb7)

  3. I think my dark lord Karl Rove did it!

    Patricia (f56a97)

  4. All Hail Darth Rove!!

    Scott Jacobs (a1de9d)

  5. I gotta ask: who profits from the cutting? Terrorists generally don’t keep secrets about their destruction.

    REALLY lazy hackers…

    Scott Jacobs (a1de9d)

  6. This is very mysterious – those cables aren’t just laying on the sea floor; the cable ships have a sort of undersea plow that digs a trench, lays the cable, and then backfills sediment over the cable. It takes some doing to get at those cables one emplaced. The only exception is where the sea floor is rocky – then the cable is exposed.

    Who would want to disrupt communications and why? It’s almost like a James Bond SPECTRE operation – I suggest we look for someone with an underground lair in a volcano.

    Dean (279254)

  7. ” Sabotage Possible in Last Month’s Ruptured Undersea Cables”

    Oh ya think?

    Hmm lets see, china shoots down a satellite, undersea cables disjointed.

    Nope total coincidence.

    TC (1cf350)

  8. “Who profits from the cutting?” Who has the technical ability to cut the cables? About a dozen of the worlds navies, and the ships from the companies that lay the cables. Think of the overtime those sailors are going to pull this summer.

    chris (1a5917)

  9. Now who would try and sabatage those cables theres probibly several unscruplous persons and nations

    krazy kagu (956b5b)

  10. I’m groping for an answer here…

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewfish

    mojo (8096f2)

  11. During the Cold War, it is known that we (CIA, NSA, ?)tapped into undersea cables to monitor foreign communications. Our technology (at that time) allowed us to do this undetected. The question now is, who out there without that level of technology, is trying to monitor cable comms today, and doing the job poorly?

    Another Drew (f9dd2c)

  12. My first thought when the cable news broke was Russia, but that was just on the basis of deep-sea expertise and a tendency to stir up shit.

    China’s a good choice, too, especially if they’re getting into comm satellites.

    Could also be a series of fault movements on a rocky section of the cable’s path.

    Or maybe Captain Nemo’s back.

    Merovign (4744a2)


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