One Internet cut explained, but four others still a mystery

[CGowen]

Source: AFP

One Internet cut explained, but four others still a mystery

1 hour ago

CAIRO (AFP) — A ship's anchor severed one undersea Internet cable damaged last week, it was revealed on Thursday amid ongoing outages in the Middle East and South Asia, but mystery shrouds what caused another four reported cuts.

There has been speculation that five cables being cut in almost as many days was too much of a coincidence and that sabotage must have been involved.

India's Flag telecom said in a statement that the cut to the Falcon cable between the United Arab Emirates and Oman "is due to a ship anchor... an abandoned anchor weighing five to six tonnes was found."

Flag -- part of India's Reliance Communications -- said repair work on the cable which broke on February 1 was continuing despite rough weather, and it was expected to be completed by Sunday.

...

Read more: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iOI6IbGndscHLRd4lRiKCqGksCSg

[ConcernedCanuk]

1. OK then - if they want me to believe - give me pictures, please?

.
.
.

Pictures of the anchor that did this on it's own.

Close-ups of the "cut" in the cable - both pieces please.

I make my decisions on evidence.

Give me some.

[underpants]

2. "vengeful militant dolphins."

Bloggers have speculated that the cutting of so many cables in a matter of days is too much of a coincidence and must be sabotage.

Theories include a US-backed bid to cut off arch-foe Iran's Internet access, terrorists piloting midget submarines or "vengeful militant dolphins."

[kestrel91316]

3. As another poster said, "That's one BUSY abandoned anchor".

[SpiralHawk]

4. "Smirk" - Commander AWOL

[Sodbuster]

5. Anchors and other lost items...

So how often do ships loose anchors? Seems like a rash of them lately, or at least cable cutting ones.....

[JPZenger]

6. Used abandoned anchor to cover their tracks?

It seems very possible that a terrorist group would have left an old anchor nearby to have covered their tracks.

[Sodbuster]

8. Anchors and such...

Like finding a passport with the picture of one of 9/11 hijackers in the rubble of the WTC.........

[TheWraith]

11. Why would terrorsts cut internet cables? Where would they get the equipment?

Industrial sabotage is VASTLY more likely.

[InkAddict]

23. Testing, testing...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=114&topic_id=34052&mesg_id=34057

[JPZenger]

26. NPR Source Said Some "Lost Power"

NPR interviewed an official with one of the companies that handles the cables. He said a set of two cables "lost power" and apparently were not actually cut.

[blayne]

10. It would seem that they should be able to retrieve the anchor

if it had successfully severed the cable. Unless it was found lodged against something else which I doubt.

[lumberjack_jeff]

14. A dragging anchor is easy to retrieve - it wouldn't be lost. n/t

[hisownpetard]

7. So - FINALLY! - they found Jimmy Hoffa?

[eppur_se_muova]

9. Fouled anchor? Cut and run!

For those who missed the earlier discussion, this is actually the origin of the term 'cut and run' -- it signifies getting unstuck from an impossible situation, not cowardice, as our POS POTUS would have us believe.

[Proletariatprincess]

12. This is scary.

To cut off the internet communications to a whole continent at a time when the war mongers in USA and Israel are itching to attack Iran is more than just a coincidence. The media there may not be up to reporting the actual events on the ground in the event of an attack without the internet....and isn't that convenient?
Or maybe this is attempt to tap into the communications in the Muslin world as it begins to move away from the petro dollar to the Iranian Brouse in an attempt to undermine their banking industry.
The war mongers and the criminal financial industry could and would do anything to cover up their atrocities and crimes.

[lovuian]

13. They did it on purpose

there is a war going on and Americans are clueless

[Pavulon]

19. NO our war

is fought by tapping those lines. We have no interest in cutting our allies internet service. The US has a long history with these cables and cutting them is not what we do with them..

If you said we intercept every packet flowing over them...

[farmbo]

22. They cut them to disrupt the opening round of Iran's Petrol Exchange...

(which, just by the way, only accepts bids and tenders in Euros)

By cutting all five cables they (we) sent the following message to traders the world over:

We can and will shut down this upstart exchange at will, and,

If we can cut them, we can tap them...we know who you are.

:scared:

[liberal N proud]

15. An anchor?

Sure...

[QUALAR]

16. Ship's Registry

The ship's name is the USS AT&T. They have unused cable capacity available through their San Francisco office. All countries welcome. Surveillance of the willing.

[CGowen]

17. The USS JIMMY CARTER could do that, I also like the pre 911 thinking in this article

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001397.html

Spy agency taps into undersea cable
By Neil Jr., News.com
Published on ZDNet News: May 23, 2001 12:00:00 AM

...

Even so, the agency has been pushing ahead. At General Dynamics' Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Conn., the Navy is deep into a five-year, $1 billion retrofit of the USS Jimmy Carter, a nuclear-powered vessel that intelligence experts say will be the premier U.S. spy sub when it hits the seas in 2004. Among its many planned features, says one former official familiar with the project: state-of-the-art technology for undersea fiber-optic taps.
...

Undersea taps would pose tricky legal issues for the agency, too. For example, U.S. law forbids the NSA to intentionally intercept and process the phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens without court approval. Such communications make up a sizable slice of undersea cable traffic.


...
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-529826.html

[QUALAR]

21. Interesting

I guess that explains why Bush refused to relinquish any US control of the internet, but did not object to selling oceanic cables. The plan was to severe them anyway.

[aquart]

18. I thought they said they were NOT all cut.

But that some were shut down due to a cascading overload.

[Truth2Tell]

20. Ummmm, huh?

So the anchor cut the cable, but then got stuck? And the ship had to cut it loose? But no ship has reported any such thing?

Weird.

[OnyxCollie]

24. Bullshit. The cables were cut and spliced together with a Crater Coupler.

Secrecy Power Sinks Patent Case
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2005/09/68894?currentPage=1

Lucent wanted to evaluate the Crater Coupler for use as a fiber-optic "wetmate" -- an airtight connector for two fiber-optic cables designed to operate underwater. It was part of a contract with a U.S. government agency that, the company said, would have to remain unnamed. "It was a secret black job, they couldn't divulge what it was for," says French. "Who it was for, the Navy or the CIA, or who knows, they never said."

~snip~

A Navy spokeswoman declined to comment on the Crater case, but outside experts say it's easy enough to guess the nature of the top-secret project the government is protecting. "It's all but self-evident that it has to do with the clandestine monitoring of fiber-optics communications cables on the ocean floor," says Aftergood.

"They've been interested in it since the first fiber-optic cable was ever invented," says James Bamford, author of two books on the NSA. "It's clear that they have a major operation in terms of tapping into sea cables."

Fiber-optic cables were well on their way to supplanting less-secure communications technologies at the time that Lucent approached the Crater inventors, and it's been widely reported that the switch threatened to cut off the electronic spies at the NSA. "There's been this huge shift from using satellite communications, which is very easy to tap into, to using both terrestrial and transoceanic fiber-optic cables, and that's presented a major problem for NSA," says Bamford.

[TalkingDog]

25. Other 4? Other EIGHT. Connect th' dots...yeah, yeah....

http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/ConnectingTheDots.htm


Maybe :tinfoilhat: :shrug:


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