[Tinfoil hat] No Internet in the middle-east

[ihoss.com]

So, now 5 underwater internet cables have been cut, which means much of the middle-east is without Internet. Can this be a coincidence? According to the Egyptian government, no ships were in the vicinity of the first cables when they were supposedly cut by an anchor. So what are the chances 5 cables have been cut, by accident, in a few weeks? If this is deliberate, what are the intended consequences? Without the internet, the stock market will come to an almost complete halt, especially in areas like oil.

So, am I paranoid, or is something going on here? And how does this affect Flashkits servers (which are, afaik, in Australia)?

Map of Internet cables.

[david petley]

I saw this yesterday -
http://www.renesys.com/blog/2008/01/...le_break.shtml

...which lead me to this new report -
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...Y&refer=europe

...it looks like Egypt and Pakistan are worst affected.

In the meantime, du has already started transferring Internet and international voice traffic through other cable systems that have not been affected, although some congestion may be expected at peak times until this issue is resolved,'' the company said in the statement.

Customers of AT&T Inc., the biggest U.S. phone company, have been affected, spokesman Michael Coe said. While the company is rerouting its clients' traffic, it anticipates congestion since other carriers are doing the same thing, he said. He didn't know how many customers were affected.

david

[FlashLackey]

Wierd. Maybe it was an errant sail-fish swimming upside down.

[silverx2]

Cloverfieldddddd

[TallGuyLittleCar]

I bet the Professor put Gilligan up to it.

[DaVulf]

Well... Interesting to say the least. That would explain the slowdown recently.

[MbZbuGSy]

OK, this is wierd.

If you're reading Engadget today because your favorite Iranian gadget blog is offline, here's why: a fifth undersea cable has now been reported as cut, responsible for knocking Iran and a few other million people mostly off the interwebs. Things were already looking awfully suspicious when a fourth undersea cable in the Mediterranean was cut yesterday, and while nothing about a fifth cable being cut necessarily means some sort of sabotage is to blame.

whos cutting those cables?..

[david petley]

hi,
this should probably be merged with the other current thread on this issue -
http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=758191

The only problem with this theory is that AT&T are affected, as are many other international telecommunications companies. It will impact on the business of the world, not just one or two isolated countries.

And so far it sounds like Pakistan and Egypt have been most affected.

Luddites with submarines is an oxymoron, so there must be some other explanation.

davidp

[Stoke Laurie]

I've never liked Egypt, it's ok they can't hear me!

[DaVulf]

Now this paints a bleak picture.

[gerbick]

Thread started by "MbZbuGSy" merged... odd indeed what's happening.

[CVO Chris]

I doubt it was caused by a ship's anchor. Who ever is cutting them must have a very large and extremely sharp pair of scissors:

Underwater Communications Cable:

1 Polyethylene cover
2,4 Stranded steel armour wires
3,5 Tar-soaked nylon yarn
6 Polycarbonate insulator
7 Copper sheath
8 Protective core
9 Optical fibres

(from BBC)

[japangreg]

I know who's doing it - but I ain't telling.

<adjusts tinfoil hat, pops in internet-on-a-cd>

[ihoss.com]

wired says nothing out of the ordinary is happening. But they still can't explain everything though.

[david petley]

...how do you splice optical fibres together??

david

[Loyal Rogue]

We melt/fuse them together inside of a portable, dust-free "clean room" trailer on the land.

I have no idea how this would be accomplished at the bottom of the ocean.
I imagine it would have to be done under the same kind of conditions.

Even a single speck of dust or the microscopic misalignment of the fiber ends would cause a huge loss of signal over that kind of distance.
Whenever I work with fiber there is a very meticulous, mind-numbing, tedious step-by-step process of cleaning and recleaning every connection even if it's only been opened for a split second to prevent loss of signal over a distance of only a couple of hundred feet.

[david petley]

sounds about what they do with undersea cables as well -

First, the telecom operator has to locate the part of the cable that's no longer working. Cable engineers can figure out the general neighborhood of the problem based on the reported phone or Internet service outages. From terminal stations on shore, they can zero in on more specific coordinates by sending light pulses along the fibers in the cable. A working fiber will transmit those pulses all the way across the ocean, but a broken one will bounce it back from the site of the damage. By measuring the time it takes for the reflections to come back, the engineers can figure out where along the cable they have a problem.

Once they know that, the company can send out a large cable ship with a few miles of fresh fiber-optic lines on board to make the repairs. If the faulty part of the cable is less than about 6,500 feet down, the crew will send out a submersible tanklike robot that can move around on the sea floor. A signal can be sent through the cable to guide the robot toward the problem spot. When the robot finds the right place, it grabs ahold of the cable, cuts out the nonworking section, and pulls the loose ends back up to the ship.

The robot doesn't work in very deep water (with very high pressure). In those situations, the technicians aboard the cable ship use a grapnel, or a hook on a very long wire, to snatch up the cable from the sea floor. The grapnel uses a mechanical cutting and gripping device that can split the cable on both sides of the break and drag the loose ends to the surface. One end is hooked onto a buoy so it won't sink, and the other is hauled on board.

The malfunctioning cable section can be fixed onboard the ship. A skilled technician or "jointer" splices the glass fibers and uses powerful adhesives to attach the new section of cable to each cut end of the original—a process that can take up to 16 hours. The repaired cable is then lowered back to the seabed on ropes.

from http://www.slate.com/id/2183693/fr/rss/

[FlashLackey]

That is one Discovery Channel show that needs to be made.

[Stoke Laurie]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_E7CfQXhcY0
A demo of joining fibre optics

[TallGuyLittleCar]

[QUOTE=CVO Chris]I doubt it was caused by a ship's anchor. Who ever is cutting them must have a very large and extremely sharp pair of scissors:/[QUOTE]

A tankers anchor is quite large.. and is being pulled by a 10,000 horsepower engine.

So maybe not slice.. but shouldn't have a problem ripping anything.