It strains credulity

[pecunium]

Once happenstance

Twice is co-incidence

Thrice is enemy action.

So, what are we to make of five internet cables cut in the Middle East in the past week.

It started on the 31st of January, and the effect was limted, directly, to the Middle East, and India. Since no small amount of business traffic moves through those cables, it had some ripple.

The more suspicious immediately imputed it to some hostile act; and the U.S. was top of the mark for finger pointing. The main reason people suspected foul play was the lack of outside cause being apparent.

The first suggestions (of a wayward anchor) seem to have been ruled out.

But acciddents happen.

But five?. In a week? All in the same area?

None of which seem to have any apparent cause?

Add the, almost complete lack of coverage (at least in the States) and it looks damned odd. I have no ideas as to who might be doing it (and, if we assume it's one actor, not a number with aims that all require cutting cables in that area, the questions get broader), but I can see reasons why it might be done.

Most likely (IMO) is someone who wants to be able to sniff traffic. Why they needed to break the cables to do that, I don't know (and I don't know enough about the systems to be sure that's a very good guess, but apart from trying to isolate the reagion; which isn't really possible, all that seems to be happening is a great slowdown in traffic, not a blockade, I don't see any reason for this).

Maybe it's just testing a system, making sure it works, so that should cutting some area off completely be needful, it can be done.

Maybe there's a giant squid who hates the cables.

But, whatever it is, I no longer think it's accidental.

Comments

[summers-place.livejournal.com]

Oh, goody. I'm not the only one who's suspicious about this.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

It's being under-reported in the UK, too. And this despite a lot of businesses having moved their customer call cemntres to India. The accents I can cope with. The over-compressed phone lines are signs that they're getting by on the minimum of connectivity. And nobody's noticed?

Well, I don't think our press is all that far behind yours for not noticing stuff.

There have been natural events that have triggered multiple breaks, but these things happen in the same chunk of ocean, and all at once, or very nearly so.

Anyway, I don't know the data, and I can't do the math, but what are the odds of five breaks in so short a time?

It could just be chance, but add the geography, and it's not the way I'd bet.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

The Beeb's been reporting it.

[summers-place.livejournal.com]

That's the only place I ever heard about it.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Me too.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Maybe there's a giant squid who hates the cables.

There was a Clarke short story about that. It was a power-generating underwater grid rather than communications cables, but...

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

What's really odd is that I couldn't find any mention of it at all in the Indian press.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I'd say it's somebody doing it. I've been saying that since the second cable, though. As to the someone...

[ketzl.livejournal.com]

The articles I saw specifically mentioned Iran as having its access cut off entirely. Hey, wouldn't it be great if the US govt could sniff all internet traffic in & out of Iran? Hmm.

[ketzl.livejournal.com]

Although then I googled it and saw that those articles were mistaken, Iran isn't offline and some of the cable breaks were nowhere near Iran.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

What? No underwater backhoe operators?

I've seen talk about this whole mess in my esoteric Techie wanderings, but so far, it's only been in Slashdot, but not on any mainstream news.

I wonder why? And five? Hadn't heard about that one...

[tongodeon.livejournal.com]

it's only been in Slashdot, but not on any mainstream news. I wonder why?

I think it hasn't made it out of obscurity because there's no story yet. No apparent motive, no purpose, etc. It's like if a quarter of the telephone poles in the US fell over at the same time. It's way weird, no doubt. And maybe it's intentional. But until you have something to report you can't just broadcast video of a bunch of people scratching their heads.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

The story could be about how life is affected by the cable breaks.

[tongodeon.livejournal.com]

Ah. Well I've seen *that* story on CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/02/01/internet.outage/index.html?iref=mpstoryview), MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22956683/), BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7218008.stm), and Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,327588,00.html) including the conspiracy itself (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,329046,00.html). I can't find a news organization that *hasn't* written about it, actually.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

It was mentioned in passing this morning on "Marketplace" on NPR. They lumped it in with crumbling infrastructure and the opportunities they present.

Maybe someone is cutting the cables to make money off repairing them- who knows?

[tongodeon.livejournal.com]

Most likely (IMO) is someone who wants to be able to sniff traffic. Why they needed to break the cables to do that, I don't know.

They didn't need to break the cables before it was fiber. Now they need to break the cables but they also need to put them back together again - otherwise the traffic isn't flowing anymore.

Assuming that it's intentional I'm not sure what the objective is, but I'm confident that it's not signal interception.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"Maybe there's a giant squid who hates the cables."

That would be my theory.

B

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

It's been showing up on Google News. At least on the US version. (The English-language US version, that is. There's also a Spanish-language version.)

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Your search - "underwater backhoe operators" - did not match any documents.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

What does show up on Google News (without searching):

Four cable ‘cuts’ in a week: Conspiracy nuts light up the phones
ZDNet Blogs - 7 hours ago
So what’s going on with telecom cable interruptions in the Middle East? First a ship’s anchor cut into two high-priority cables - Flag Telecom’s Europe-Asia cable and the consortium-owned SEA-ME-WE 4 system.
Conspiracy Theories Behind Those Cut Undersea Cables Wall Street Journal
New Cable Taking New Route After Web Cut The Associated Press
Wired News - CNET News.com - Slashdot - Detroit Free Press
all 272 news articles »

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Except that Eqypt later said there was no ship in the area...

Like I said, I have no idea who, but at this point I am certain someone.

TK

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

It has been appearing on the BBC Website, and I do recall at least one mention on a BBC1 tv bulletin.

Important cables that can be severed by an errant ship's anchor? I'd have thought that unlikely but for the two offshore wind turbines I can see from my house that have been u/s for over a year because the company chose not to fit armoured cables - in the North Sea! - on the grounds of cost. And who is more cost (profit?) conscious that telecoms companies?

I also recall a couple of similar cables being similarly damaged in the Gulf area not to long ago (but can't find anything - but given my net skills that means nothing)

I'm inclined to agree that it looks like enemy action. The problem is that there is no shortage of enemies - real and imagined - in that part of the world, including one or two governments who are distinctly antagonistic towards free access to the net.

We await developments with interest, but will not hold our breath in expectation of the truth being revealed.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Aside from keeping an eye out for more broken cables, I wonder if the repairs will take unduly long (how long is normal? does having a bunch of cables to fix make the job, especially for the later cables, take longer than usual?), and if repaired cables get re-broken.

[tongodeon.livejournal.com]

So I did a bunch of writing last night (http://tongodeon.livejournal.com/698470.html) and worked some stuff out. This didn't happen within a few hundred miles during a one-week period, it happened over 6,000 miles and a two week period.

"Cable cuts happen on average once every three days. There are 25 large ships that do nothing but fix cable cuts and bends." Five breaks in 13 days works out to... one break every 2.6 days. This isn't remarkable, it's typical.

I don't think it's necessarily "enemy action", even when it happens five times, if those five times happen in three oceans 6,000 miles apart from each other.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

That makes it less likely to be non-accidental, but the co-incidence of those cuts, all to the same part of the world is going to make the wonder hard to shake.

Mind you I still count 5 cuts from Jan. 30 to Feb. 04, because one cable was cut in two places on Jan. 30.

TK

[tongodeon.livejournal.com]

There's a good article in The Economist (http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10653963) today.

[kokuten.livejournal.com]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/07/cut_underseas_cable_conspiracies/

Submitted for your consideration.

Alcatel wants business?

[cem.livejournal.com]

Alcatel wants business? Seems to me as likely to be commercial as political issues - to the extent they can be separated.