The Bigsibling Blog

When I lived in the Last Frontier, up in the frozen north (that’s Alaska for those of you in Parma, OH), our main Internet connection to the “outside” was a fibre-optic cable running under the ocean between Washington state and Alaska. Now, keep in mind that this was before the emergence of broadband. This was when 33.3K modems were all the rage. And when the 56K modems came about, it was like a great opening of the floodgates of the Internet for that frozen land.

At any rate, every once in a while that cable would be severed. Usually by a fishing boat dragging whatever fishing boats drag along the ocean floor. Sometimes on purpose by the fishermen on those boats, if their stuff got tangled in the cable. It was simply easier to cut the cable than it was to try and untangle the net – and way cheaper (for them anyway) than cutting their nets. But his kind of thing happened maybe twice a year. And even then, with only dial-up access (for you kids out there, imagine a web page taking 10 times longer to load than it does now – and that’s what we played games on – so quitcher whining about lag) it would considerably slow down Internet traffic in and out of the state. The ISP help desk I was working for at the time would be flooded with calls because Granny couldn’t download the pictures of her grandkids (back then, very, very few businesses did any real business over the Internet – and folks, it wasn’t all that long ago).

Knowing what it actually takes for one of these cables to go  belly up, and knowing that the accidents aren’t really all that common, this story comes with some ominous overtones:

CAIRO – Damage to undersea Internet cables in the Mediterranean that hit business across the Middle East and South Asia was not caused by ships, Egypt’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.

‘The ministry’s maritime transport committee reviewed footage covering the period of 12 hours before and 12 hours after the cables were cut and no ships sailed the area,’ a statement said.

‘The area is also marked on maps as a no-go zone and it is therefore ruled out that the damage to the cables was caused by ships,’ the statement added.

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.

Egypt’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.

Now, if an undersea cable that rests on the ocean floor in a traffic area gets cut or broken maybe twice a year; what are the odds that four undersea cables are cut – by accident, in a no-go zone, in such a close timeframe? I’m going to venture that the odds are almost-but-not-quite exactly the same odds that John Edwards has of winning the Presidency this year.

Something to be on the lookout for are any major attacks in the next month or so. Sure, it could be nothing, but disrupting communications is usually a portend of something to come. Of course, they didn’t completely cut off communications. In this day and age there are so many avenues of communications that it would be night impossible to completely cut off communications, but with so many business relying on the Internet for their busines dealings, disrupting that does cause a massive disruption and could potentially cost business millions or even billions in damages.

I first learned of this story via ZDNet blogs, where Threat Chaos blogger Richard Steinnon reported on it. What I found completely amusing, and somewhat worrisome were the comments left by readers of this blog. Here are some excerpts:

US installing interception equipment.

Now it comes out. There were no ships around that area, but the cables were mysteriously cut because of ship’s anchors? Anyone with even a 2-digit IQ would realise this is the US getting their hands on it to install surveillance gear. (kraterz)

RE: Fourth cable cut in Mideast

Is it coincidence this happens a few days after the U.S government announce “Afcyber” or just bad luck on their part? You decide. (jim_56K)

Absolutely.

Absolutely possible. The US and Israel work very closely together on many defense aspects, you can’t rule out these two countries working together on this even, given the nature of the operation. (kraterz)

It’s the GOP old tactic.

They try to fear the annoyed American. They did that in the last election and Bush won. They’re doing it again to stop people from favoring the Democrat. (ThBird)

See these peoples thinking process? The scary part is that I imagine (and dreadfully hope I am wrong) that these nimcompoops are actually going to cast a vote for our next POTUS *shudders*.

Technorati Tags: Fibre-Optic, Middle East, United States, Internet, Nefarious, Terrorism

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