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Africa North
Okay 2, no 3, 4 undersea cables cut is still a coincidence
2008-02-06
Moved to Wednesday for further discussion and snark. AoS.
For the second, third, fourth time in a week, an undersea communications cable has apparently been cut (or "failed due to a power outage," as some sources suggest), and while no official reports of subversion have surfaced just yet, things are beginning to get suspicious.
no, reeeaallllyy?
Flag Telecom, a subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Reliance ADA Group, has had two cables damaged in the span of a week -- a quandary it has never dealt with until now. As it stands, traffic from the Middle East and surrounding areas is being routed through various other cables in an attempt to remain online, but any more snips and we could be dealing with ping times eerily similar to those seen in 1993 (or much, much larger issues).
thank you, HDMD
Posted by:Frank G

#17  Cheap Chinese cable connectors?
Posted by: SteveS   2008-02-06 22:41  

#16  Cable virus
Posted by: Pholugum Stalin1270   2008-02-06 19:03  

#15  A aquatic radioactive reptile may be responsible. This is the kind of thing normally seen before he surfaces and takes out a city. You may notice a few boats missing in the Indian ocean as well. Another sign. You have been warned.
Posted by: Gojirra   2008-02-06 13:45  

#14  One to go.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2008-02-06 13:20  

#13  Maybe the Atlantis residents are finally fed up with all this cable laying shit.
Posted by: jds   2008-02-06 13:18  

#12  Lookin' around for my popcorn popper..... This may turn very interesting soon.
Posted by: OyVey1   2008-02-06 13:13  

#11  It's those crazy dolphin's with the lasers on their heads. There just like kids.
Posted by: Delphi   2008-02-06 12:56  

#10  This just in via Vodkapundit:
Reports are coming in this morning that a fifth undersea fiber optic cable was severed in the Middle East. However, by several accounts, the fifth cable cut is actually a second cut on a different segment of the FALCON cable. How exactly these cables are being cut is still unknown, though Egyptian officials maintain a ship didnÂ’t cause the breakages near the port of Alexandria.
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2008-02-06 12:50  

#9  Nah, simply a matter of the warrenty expiring last week. Unless, of course, it could be crab people!
Posted by: swksvolFF   2008-02-06 10:57  

#8  Equally likely this was a warning from China to India that the telephone support / IT industry there could be sabotaged any time Beijing chooses.
Posted by: lotp   2008-02-06 07:54  

#7  Yeah, that's been tossed around a bit. But it still begs the question about how would you get the data from the newly installed tee to where it was being processed? Computers don't work well underwater, and eventually someone will happen across the tee during some maintenance procedure and follow the cable to where it hits land. That's not gonna look good!
Posted by: gorb   2008-02-06 07:47  

#6  You gave me an idea, gorb. Why indeed WOULD someone cut all these cables, if not to stop data flow, and if tapping - at the cut - was impractical? Camoflage/diversion of attention. Maybe other stuff was happening to those cables elsewhere while attention was focussed on the breaks.
Posted by: Glenmore   2008-02-06 07:11  

#5  How do they repair this thing? Do they have connectors every mile or something and they just replace the section that's screwed up? Is it one continuous cable and it requires tons of expertise to not cross the wrong wires?

I don't see how tapping it could be useful. How would you get the data shipped to whoever needs to sift through it without running a parallel cable all the way to where it is going to be processed. Even a satellite uplink would be too obvious and (seems to me, anyway) too small.

You'd have to funnel all the traffic to monitored cables and satellites somehow. Isn't the US able to monitor all the cables and satellites already anyway?
Posted by: gorb   2008-02-06 04:45  

#4  As it stands, traffic from the Middle East and surrounding areas is being routed through various other cables

Satellites targeted, cables cut... I wonder where this could all be heading?
Posted by: Besoeker   2008-02-06 03:01  

#3  So far, nobody has blamed a backhoe for these fades. Probably the work of glass seeking porpoises.
Posted by: GK   2008-02-06 01:17  

#2  5 is still a coincidence. Nothing to see here. Go about your business, otherwise we'll let the wife know what sites you're visiting, k? hint? baaaahhh
Posted by: Halliburton Data Mining Division   2008-02-05 21:43  

#1  For the second, third, fourth fifth time in a week

A total of five cables being operated by two submarine cable operators have been damaged with a fault in each. These are SeaMeWe-4 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4) near Penang, Malaysia, the FLAG Europe-Asia near Alexandria, FLAG near the Dubai coast, FALCON near Bandar Abbas in Iran and SeaMeWe-4, also near Alexandria.
www.menareport.com
Posted by: Glenmore   2008-02-05 21:05  

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