CIA/NSA/DoD attack undersea Internet cables?

[boutons_]

When the 2nd cable cut incident happened last week, that seemed extremely weird, improbably to have 2 cut incidents in one week, but when they said the second cut took Iran off-line, the smell of fish became very strong.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2008/February/theworld_February77.xml&section=theworld&col

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=JES20080202&articleId=7980

Maybe the USA just wanted to see which cables screwed up which countries.

Or maybe the "repair" ship is going to install a splitter that feeds the entire cable contents to the US spooks, like ATT is doing for dubya in SFO.

[PEP]

Are you serious?

There are other ways to monitor/spy on the internet other than cutting lines to other countries. The US at one time had submarines in Russian waters monitoring comunication cables, so cutting cables makes no sense.

[boutons_]

"monitoring comunication cables"

doesn't work with fiber optic cables.

[Evan]

http://www.tfhp.org/images/tinfoil-hat.jpg

[101A]

Here's my conspiracy theory (as good as Bouton's, I think)

It's probably Iran doing it.

Trying to make us look bad; get the tin hat crowd here, and the radical Muslims everywhere else riled up.

[PEP]

No, it was dolphins used by the Navy. There was a story a couple of years ago that dolphins were being trained and now we have the proof; they were trained to cut cables.

[xrayzebra]

Nice way to let someone know that they really can become
completely isolated without reverting to war.

Cable cuts (intentional) by countries are not unusual. It has happened in the past.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Or maybe the "repair" ship is going to install a splitter that feeds the entire cable contents to the US spooks, like ATT is doing for dubya in SFO.

:lol

It's not like there's one strand of cable running through that pipe... and yet you think the U.S. just cut the cable, is picking out the magic fiber cable that goes to Iran, and tapping it....

I can't figure out what's funnier. You buying into the idea that we would go through all this trouble to intercept their communications or you not understanding that we already do monitor all their communications and have for some time (hence, not needing to do something this obvious).

[Extra Stout]

We need to investigate the possibility that the U.S. Government used top-secret seismic ray generators to trigger the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunamis.

Note also the Bam earthquake in Iran, and the earthquake in Pakistan. What do all these events have in common? They all happened to Muslims, in places where either Islamic rebels are active, or an Islamic government is in power. This cannot be mere coincidence.

I've become convinced that any time something bad happens in the world, the U.S. Government caused it. I believe the winter floods and mudslides in California were caused by the Government to punish enlightened progressives for their resistance to evil capitalist plundering by the U.S. Government. I believe whenever I get a cold, low-intensity biological weapons are at play. Were it not for my tinfoil hat, they probably would have transformed me into a neocon by transmitting rays into my brain from satellites overhead.

[Phenomanul]

We need to investigate the possibility that the U.S. Government used top-secret seismic ray generators to trigger the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunamis.

Note also the Bam earthquake in Iran, and the earthquake in Pakistan. What do all these events have in common? They all happened to Muslims, in places where either Islamic rebels are active, or an Islamic government is in power. This cannot be mere coincidence.

I've become convinced that any time something bad happens in the world, the U.S. Government caused it. I believe the winter floods and mudslides in California were caused by the Government to punish enlightened progressives for their resistance to evil capitalist plundering by the U.S. Government. I believe whenever I get a cold, low-intensity biological weapons are at play. Were it not for my tinfoil hat, they probably would have transformed me into a neocon by transmitting rays into my brain from satellites overhead.


Classic ES!
:lol

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

We need to investigate the possibility that the U.S. Government used top-secret seismic ray generators to trigger the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunamis.

Note also the Bam earthquake in Iran, and the earthquake in Pakistan. What do all these events have in common? They all happened to Muslims, in places where either Islamic rebels are active, or an Islamic government is in power. This cannot be mere coincidence.

I've become convinced that any time something bad happens in the world, the U.S. Government caused it. I believe the winter floods and mudslides in California were caused by the Government to punish enlightened progressives for their resistance to evil capitalist plundering by the U.S. Government. I believe whenever I get a cold, low-intensity biological weapons are at play. Were it not for my tinfoil hat, they probably would have transformed me into a neocon by transmitting rays into my brain from satellites overhead.


:rollin

[Evan]

We need to investigate the possibility that the U.S. Government used top-secret seismic ray generators to trigger the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunamis.

Note also the Bam earthquake in Iran, and the earthquake in Pakistan. What do all these events have in common? They all happened to Muslims, in places where either Islamic rebels are active, or an Islamic government is in power. This cannot be mere coincidence.

I've become convinced that any time something bad happens in the world, the U.S. Government caused it. I believe the winter floods and mudslides in California were caused by the Government to punish enlightened progressives for their resistance to evil capitalist plundering by the U.S. Government. I believe whenever I get a cold, low-intensity biological weapons are at play. Were it not for my tinfoil hat, they probably would have transformed me into a neocon by transmitting rays into my brain from satellites overhead.

Brilliamt
:clap :clap :clap

[Nbadan]

We need to investigate the possibility that the U.S. Government used top-secret seismic ray generators to trigger the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunamis.

Ever heard of HARP.....duh!

:hat

[Nbadan]

....one fiber-optic break..OK...but 4 in the same general area in less than a month......

http://animeoltre.altervista.org/pers/jabberjaw.jpg

[Nbadan]

speaking of tsunamis...


A crucial part of a tsunami detection system placed in Indonesia's busy Sunda Strait has gone missing amid indications that it was deliberately removed, an Indonesian official said Thursday.

The device is one of just four installed off Indonesia so far as part of a regional alert system designed to help predict the kind of killer waves that swept the Indian Ocean in December 2004.

It last transmitted data on December 30, 2007, Ridwan Djamaluddin, head of Indonesia's marine technology research centre, told AFP.

Djamaluddin said he believed the unit was deliberately pulled out from its place, but did not say who would have done it.

Link (http://news.my.msn.com/regional/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1218801)

[Wild Cobra]

"monitoring comunication cables"

doesn't work with fiber optic cables.
Yes it does, but the method is a bit more complicated than just splicing into a wire.

You carefully expose the inner core, and bond another caple with it's inner core to it. You can make an effective directional coupler this way.

This is extreemly delicate work, must be done with special tools.

[Wild Cobra]

....one fiber-optic break..OK...but 4 in the same general area in less than a month......

Has the damage been looked at yet?

Near any fault lines? Could techtonic activity have damaged them?

Near any undergound vents? Maybe they were melted.

Same general location could be a natural cause easily.

[boutons_]

The "experts" speak:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/logoprinter.gif (http://www.nytimes.com/)
February 4, 2008
Cut Undersea Cables Raise Questions of Safety

By HEATHER TIMMONS (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/heather_timmons/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
NEW DELHI — Four undersea communication cables have been cut in the last week, raising questions about the safety of the network that handles most of the world’s Internet and telephone traffic.

Most telecommunications specialists and cable operators say that sabotage seems unlikely, but no one knows specifically how the cables were damaged or if the incidents were related. The Egyptian government on Sunday dismissed one theory — that a ship traveling off course because of bad weather was responsible for severing the first two cables last week. No ships passed the area in the Mediterranean where the cables were located, the country’s Ministry of Communications said.

“This has been an eye-opener for us, and everyone in the telecom industry worldwide,” said Col. R. S. Parihar, the secretary of the Internet Service Providers Association of India. Today, the cause of the problem may have been an anchor, “but what if it is sabotage tomorrow?” Mr. Parihar asked.

“These are owned by private operators,” he said, “and there are no governments or armies protecting these cables.”

Most recently, a cable operated by Q-Tel of Qatar, which linked Qatar to the United Arab Emirates, was cut Friday. Communications in the Middle East have been hardest hit by the damage, though India, the United States and Europe have also experienced slowdowns.

Telecommunications operators have been trying to diversify the routes used for transmissions, said Alan Mauldin, research director with TeleGeography Research, particularly since an earthquake in Taiwan in 2006 disrupted service in Asia.

The cable network contains “choke points” — like those off the coast of Egypt and Singapore where many cables run, Mr. Mauldin said.

A spokesman for Q-Tel, Adel al Mutawa, said Qatar was operating at about 60 percent of telephone capacity, but that Internet and data transmission services were running at normal speed. Most telecommunications companies affected by the cuts in the last week rerouted service through other cables. Q-Tel will not know what caused the rupture in the Qatar-UAE Submarine Cable System until it sends a repair ship to pull the cable off the ocean floor, Mr. Mutawa said.

Undersea cables carry about 95 percent of the world’s telephone and Internet traffic, according to the International Cable Protection Committee, an 86-member group that works with fishing, mining and drilling companies to curb damage to submarine cables. Information travels faster and less expensively under the ocean than it does via satellite, and undersea cable transmission is gaining market share, the group said.

The Egyptinan Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said Sunday that no ships had passed through the area in the Mediterranean where two cables, known as the Sea Me We 4 and Flag’s Europe-Asia cable, were cut earlier last week.

“The site is a restricted area, which excludes the possibility that the malfunction resulted from a crossing ship,” the agency said. Internet efficiency in Egypt has reached about 70 percent, the statement said.

A third cable, known as Falcon, was cut Friday morning about 35 miles off the coast of Dubai in the Gulf. Wet, windy weather in some areas around the Gulf has shut ports and delayed ships.

Two of the damaged cables, the Flag Europe-Asia cable and Falcon, are owned by Flag Telecom, a subsidiary of the Indian conglomerate Reliance ADA Group.

Flag Telecom has never had two cables down at the same time in the region, a spokesman, Vineet Kumar, said. Flag Telecom’s network is one of the “newest in existence” so it would be unlikely the cables would break because of age or wear and tear.

“There has to be something very abnormal” for these cables to be cut, Mr. Kumar said, but added that the company would not know what that was until the cables are pulled up and repaired.

But he ruled out sabotage, noting that if someone was trying to cut off communications to the Middle East, they would have also damaged the other cables that are still operating.


=================

Can't rule out anything, yet, until the nature of the cuts is known. 4 cuts in 1 week in or near the M/E? something stinks

[Nbadan]

3 undersea communications cables cut in two week, an accident?....maybe....4? EH.....5?

6?

Try 8.......

Connecting The Many Undersea Cut Cable Dots
by Richard Sauder
February 2008


1) one off of Marseille, France

2) two off of Alexandria, Egypt

3) one off of Dubai, in the Persian Gulf

4) one off of Bandar Abbas, Iran in the Persian Gulf

5) one between Qatar and the UAE, in the Persian Gulf

6) one in the Suez, Egypt

7) one near Penang, Malaysia

8) initially unreported cable cut on 23 January 2008 (Persian Gulf?)



Three things stand out about these incidents:



1) all of them, save one, have occurred in waters near predominantly Muslim nations, causing disruption in those countries;

2) all but two of the cut/damaged cables are in Middle Eastern waters;

3) so many like incidents in such a short period of time suggests that they are not accidents, but are in fact deliberate acts, i.e., sabotage.

...


The explanations being put forth in the mainstream news media for these many cut, undersea communications cables absolutely do not pass the smell test. And by the way, the same operators who cut undersea cables in the Persian Gulf, Mediterranean Sea, Malaysia and possibly the Suez as well, presumably can also cut underwater cables in the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes, the Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound. This could be a multipurpose operation, in part a test run for isolating a country or region from the international communications grid. The Middle East today, the USA tomorrow?

Link (http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/ConnectingTheDots.htm)

[sabar]

Only 5 cables are cut, hurray for misinformation and propaganda. Try to use netural sources next time. I know it's hard when you're extremely biased.


http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/who-cut-the-cab.html
Stephan Beckert of TeleGeography Research (http://www.telegeography.com/) says it's all a bit much.

"I'm much more worried about terrorists blowing up people than cables," Beckert said. "If you cut a cable, all you are doing is inconveniencing a lot of people."

Only the first two cuts had any serious impact on the internet, says Beckert. Those cables near Alexandria, Egypt account for 76 percent of the capacity through the Suez canal -- connecting Europe with the Middle East, North Africa and the India sub-continent.

Once those failures sensitized a conspiracy-happy net, it was natural that other cable failures would be found to feed the frenzy, because they occur all the time.

"Cable cuts happen on average once every three days," Beckert said. There are 25 large ships (http://www.iscpc.org/information/Cableships_1.htm) that do nothing but fix cable cuts and bends, Beckert adds.

While any severed cable is a "cut" in the parlance of telecom, most often they're the result of cables rubbing against sea floor rocks, eventually cutting through the copper shielding and exposing the thin fiber optics inside.


Cable cuts average 1 in 3 days. We have a reported 6 in 12 days, reduced to 1 in 2. Statistically insignificant.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c2/2008CablesCutMap.png

[01Snake]

CAIRO, Egypt — An abandoned anchor was responsible for cutting one of the undersea Internet cables severed last week, causing disruptions across the Middle East and parts of Asia, the cable's owner said Friday.

A FLAG Telecom repair crew discovered the anchor near where the fiber-optic cable was severed Feb. 1 in the Persian Gulf, 35 miles north of Dubai, between the Emirates and Oman.

Weighing more than 5.5 tons, the anchor has been pulled to the surface. The company did not immediately explain whether the anchor moved and snapped the cable or whether the cable itself was drifting when it was sliced.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/02/08/internet.outage/index.html

[smeagol]

We need to investigate the possibility that the U.S. Government used top-secret seismic ray generators to trigger the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunamis.

Note also the Bam earthquake in Iran, and the earthquake in Pakistan. What do all these events have in common? They all happened to Muslims, in places where either Islamic rebels are active, or an Islamic government is in power. This cannot be mere coincidence.

I've become convinced that any time something bad happens in the world, the U.S. Government caused it. I believe the winter floods and mudslides in California were caused by the Government to punish enlightened progressives for their resistance to evil capitalist plundering by the U.S. Government. I believe whenever I get a cold, low-intensity biological weapons are at play. Were it not for my tinfoil hat, they probably would have transformed me into a neocon by transmitting rays into my brain from satellites overhead.

The fact Argentina defaulted on it's debt in 2001 is the US' fault too.

That is a well-known fact.

[Extra Stout]

The fact Argentina defaulted on it's debt in 2001 is the US' fault too.

That is a well-known fact.
Historians have revealed that it was actually the Americans who crucified Jesus.

[smeagol]

Historians have revealed that it was actually the Americans who crucified Jesus.
Didn't you guys burn Joan of Arc too?

[Wild Cobra]

Historians have revealed that it was actually the Americans who crucified Jesus.
Yep, soon they will name George Bush as the culprit who signed the execution order.

[Wild Cobra]

As for these cable cuts. It doesn't matter. We will be hearing about this for years to come from conspiracy theorists, and they will claim the average normal 1 in three days is a made up statistic for cover.