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. The Falcon cable has since been repaired, along with the Flag Europe Asia (FEA) cable which was damaged off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. The status of the remaining cable is still unclear.
Not exactly earth-shattering information at this point, but worth a look. The question is, why?
First, the real answer to #17, ” Why not let the Middle East have it’s own private internet?”
If they had their own private internet, where would they get all their porn?
Next. Thank’s to JPV for answering my post #9.
JPV, check this out “The rumors are that the Navy’s newest nuclear sub, the USS Jimmy Carter, has been designed for spywork, with a “special capability… to tap undersea cables and eavesdrop on the communications passing through them,” according to the AP.”
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001397.html
Unfortunately, this article and the Robert Hanssen spy case (where he exposed an american tap on a soviet cable which had been undetected for years) clearly shows that:
America knows how to tap an underwater cable without disrupting service and has been doing so since before 1975!
Right theory? Wrong country!
21,
THAT cable was COPPER.
This is fiber optic, you need tobe INLINE to tap fiber.
The US didn’t do, I did it.
I was sick of emails selling Viagra and decided to take care of this problem personally.
How about the US telcos/cable companies? They’re tired of hearing how lackluster their service is compare to the rest of the world.
you need tobe INLINE to tap fiber
I wouldn’t bet a lot of money on that.
A lot of websites speculate that the cables were cut in an attempt to delay/stop the opening of the Iranian Oil Bourse on February 17 (but it opened anyway).
#12, Ivan, they probably used something like the “time domain reflectometers” I used about 30 years ago. (Heheheh, tells you a lot, eh?) It’s sort of like radar shooting a signal down an electrical wire, but there’s no reason the idea would not work with a light pulse for optical cable.
There’s probably better equipment around now, it darn sure isn’t going to weigh 50 pounds, or whatever.
#21, yea you thought that through. I’m sure the military is going to build a multi-billion dollar sub to tap obsolete copper cables…
Now that I’ve bought plenty of tin foil for my hat, here are a couple of theories.
1) It really was an accident, or
2) Being intentional, it was to test/train a countries ability to tap undersea cables. Practice in an area which you don’t care about so that you can tap successfully in an area you do care about.
#12 Ivan – Phillep is correct. A TDR would do the trick on copper or fiber (different model for each of course).
@22 ECA – Not hardly. You do not have to cut the fiber to gain access to the light pulse traveling through it. It can be accomplished by putting a bend into the fiber and placing the sensor on the bend. However, when you do that it does change the overall loss in the fiber run that is detectable, hence the need for monitoring equipment that alarms on the slightest variation in signal strength for those of us who are paranoid……
For those interested in an in-depth article on these cables and the history of undersea cables in general, the December 1996 Wired (4.12) had a piece by Neal Stephenson that’s longer than one of his books (about 15KB):”Mother Earth, Mother Board.” Both the cables cut off Alexandria were being built at the time and he and his photographer visited about half the countries they touch. The printer-ready version is at
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html
Enjoy!
(Oh, the Stephenson book that is shorter than this piece is “In the Beginning Was the Command Line” which is also recommended.)