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| Africa North | ||
| Ships did not cause Internet cable damage | ||
| 2008-02-04 | ||
CAIRO - Damage to undersea Internet cables in the Mediterranean that hit business across the Middle East and South Asia was not caused by ships, EgyptÂ’s communications ministry said on Sunday, ruling out earlier reports. The transport ministry added that footage recorded by onshore video cameras of the location of the cables showed no maritime traffic in the area when the cables were damaged.
Two cables were damaged earlier this week in the Mediterranean sea and another off the coast of Dubai, causing widespread disruption to Internet and international telephone services in Egypt, Gulf Arab states and South Asia. A fourth cable linking Qatar to the United Arab Emirates was damaged on Sunday causing yet more disruptions, telecommunication provider Qtel said. Earlier reports said that the damage had been caused by ships that had been diverted off their usual route because of bad weather. EgyptÂ’s communication and information technology ministry said it would report its findings to the owners of the two damaged Mediterranean cables, FLAG Telecom and SEA-ME-WE4. A repair ship was expected to begin work to fix the two Mediterranean cables on Tuesday. | ||
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #23 This article says the 4th outage was due to the power system rather than a break in the cable. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-02-04 21:01 |
| #22 Individuals in Egypt talking to individuals in Iran? Must have been talking about the weather... |
| Posted by: Spusoque and Tenille6870 2008-02-04 20:45 |
| #21 Egypts Communications Ministry? If it was a mini-sub, I have a name for it. Moses. |
| Posted by: www 2008-02-04 20:23 |
| #20 COSCO beta testing. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-02-04 20:14 |
| #19 My gues is this is more Egyptian ass covering for incompetentcy on thier part. Egypt doesn't like Iran, though. Perhaps they are just screwing with them a bit and letting their imaginations cause a reevaluation of their position in the world. |
| Posted by: gorb 2008-02-04 20:04 |
| #18 One correction to the article, some are reporting that the 4th outage was maintenance, not damage. Any sufficiently advanced sabotage is indistinguishable from a mediocre maintenance department. |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2008-02-04 19:27 |
| #17 No reason for governments to do it no, but the technology is there for non-governments to do it. It's not cheap, but the sort of economic sabotage you can do to a country through things like this is growing easy enough that sufficiently determined people with grudges could manage it. It's my hope that our guys are thinking of how to prevent this being done to us, not that we should be doing it to others. After 9/11, there was an incident in NY with a backhoe that cut a major telecommunications line. It caused alot of 800 numbers to go out of service and managed to shut down 3 out of the 4 major credit card processors for nearly a day. It also took out their tech support numbers. The company I worked for at the time had set up a secondary system after Hurricane Andrew knocked them out so we were the only one still operating, though on the slower backup network. |
| Posted by: Silentbrick 2008-02-04 19:10 |
| #16 One correction to the article, some are reporting that the 4th outage was maintenance, not damage. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-02-04 19:08 |
| #15 No reason for NSA or any other technologically advanced nation to cut the cables. They can tap them. We have submarines that are configured for that, and have tapped SOVIET cables without them knowing it. I doubt some non-military cables off Egypt would be an issue. My gues is this is more Egyptian ass covering for incompetentcy on thier part. No US-centered conspiracy needed. Keep thatlunacy over at slashdot where you have lots of gullible young leftys that think they know teach but dont know jack. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-02-04 19:00 |
| #14 Under ocean turbidity currents are nothing to sneeze at. I'm working on my senior thesis atm, and my project involves a channel fill of what we suspect is a channel cut by a turbidity current. Early estimates put the channel at least 40-50 feet deep. So yes, anything capable of digging trenches through 40-50 feet of underlying shale beds is enough to cut a man made cable. However these cuts seem a tad too specific for a turbidity current. More likely someone is out there playing with a ROPV equipped with a cable cutter. Okay, that gives me ideas I'm NOT going to put out on the net for other people to see. Let's just say that a little creative thinking can be dangerous. I sure hope the agencies tasked with our defense think this way. |
| Posted by: Silentbrick 2008-02-04 17:58 |
| #13 Not Alan.... :) ALLLLLLLLLLLLVIN!/Dave |
| Posted by: Thomas Woof 2008-02-04 17:46 |
| #12 must've been Alan ..or not |
| Posted by: macofromoc 2008-02-04 15:47 |
| #11 Now that's a shame -- how will Middle Easterners be able to suckle the teat of the West's technological advances? What's a parasite to do? |
| Posted by: regular joe 2008-02-04 15:01 |
| #10 Manatee did..they arn't scared of terrorists. I was thinking it was an op of some kind (landslide or whatnot would have shown up on a seismograph). Concerned it was a way to cut communications to Israel as part of a strike or probe into internet survivability. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2008-02-04 12:46 |
| #9 Or someone did it with a porpise in mind. |
| Posted by: darrylq 2008-02-04 11:20 |
| #8 Are you saying someone did it on porpise. |
| Posted by: darrylq 2008-02-04 11:18 |
| #7 Unless Iran has one of their putt-putt subs in the Med, forget that theory. |
| Posted by: mojo 2008-02-04 11:06 |
| #6 Yeah, but it retains all of its cable-slicing porpoises! |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2008-02-04 10:33 |
| #5 But I thought the Navy lost all their killer man-eating dolphins during Hurricane Katrina? |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2008-02-04 10:25 |
| #4 "Welcome back to the Dallas, gentlemen." heheh. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2008-02-04 10:18 |
| #3 In 1929 there was a large undersea 'landslide' off the Grand Banks which sent a turbidity current tearing down slope. At least 6 trans-Atlantic submarine cables were severed sequentially over a distance of 1000 km - a circumstance that for the first time revealed the size and speed of these turbidity flows. These cable failures do not seem to have any such pattern, leading us back to suspecting amazing coincidence or intentioal act. While I suppose one might blame US espionage agents, I figure a lot of Islamic leaders might have motive to reduce contact of their people with the outside world to 'manageable' levels. We don't want their Islamists talking with agents here, but they don't want their non-Islamists talking with the Rantburgers here. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2008-02-04 07:24 |
| #2 More likely, the CIA, DIA and or the NSA attempting (with some success I might add) in quelling the low level communications net by Al Qaeda, between several Arab countries with the horn of Africa cells. The ultra secret 'All Seeing Eye' program scooping Echelon's compilations. |
| Posted by: smn 2008-02-04 04:45 |
| #1 Coulda been one of Iran's attack submarines? |
| Posted by: gorb 2008-02-04 03:06 |