Could Russian submarines cut off the internet? | Hacker News Reader

Could Russian submarines cut off the internet?

bbc.com

9 pointskostyk19 comments

Kind of ridiculous to single out Russian attempts at fiddling with mass communications, given both the US and UK's recent and ongoing attempts to do just that.

There's a difference though. Compared to e.g. China/Russia the US have had more practise and act in a smarter way.

Instead of blocking, they allow the traffic to flow, and then implement surveillance. They have learned from silicon valley companies the value of data.

(The "education" of the citizens is then done another way, but that's a whole other story.)

Lets remember that this piece of news is from BBC.

Exactly.

Could Russia spy the whole world ?

Related: a "meter-long" remotely controlled UAV with explosives was found near the Russian underwater gas pipeline "Nord Stream" (Russia-Germany) just off the swedish maritime border by the swedish armed forces last week.

The implicit assumption (made by me) is that the US (or perhaps UK on the behalf of the US) planted it there just in case. It certainly wasn't Germany or Russia...

http://www.thelocal.se/20151107/explosive-sub-found-near-rus...

Side-note: This "ally" thing is odd. Germany and Sweden provides the US with intelligence in exchange for intelligence and trade contracts. Germany spies on Sweden. Sweden finds a threat that could threaten gas supply from Russia to Germany and exposes it to the world. Sweden implements an internet surveillance program aimed at domestic arabs but also russian internet traffic flowing through Sweden, to trade with the US for intelligence/favors. US plants a bomb in order to be able to kill critical energy supply to Germany.

Not everything is a US/UK conspiracy. In the grand scheme of things Sweden and Russians relations is probably not at the top of their todo lists.

Why would the US want to do anything to Germany anyway? They are one of our strongest allies in the region and house some of our largest military bases outside of the US. The German politicians were publicly appalled at our spying but I feel thats only a show for the public. Business will go on as usual.

Sweden isn't really an issue here. Only in discovering this UAV. This is about Russia providing gas to Germany.

You can't imagine a future situation where Germany would have to choose between alignment with the US or Russia, and short-term energy supply being a factor?

Who else would have the both the capability and interest to place such a UAV/remotely controlled explosion device there?

I would even say it would be incompetent of the US administration/military not to prepare for situations like these.

Nord Stream has very huge strategical value. It allows to sell gas directly to Germany while letting Poland and Ukraine to "starve". It is in my opinion the enabler of crisis in Ukraine which possibility was obvious for me since the Nord Stream was announced - the question was only the timing.

At the same time Nord Stream can used as an excuse to strengthen the Russian military presence on the Baltic Sea. In this sense the discovery of a UAV is strongly in favor of Russia.

It certainly wasn't Germany or Russia...

North Stream allows Russia to excuse the military presence on Baltic Sea (to protect the pipe but also cut of aid to Nato allies over the sea).

Therefore finding anything that shows threat to the pipe is in favor of Russia.

Of course this might have multiple levels. It was planted by US/UK, Russia strengthens military presence close to Sweden, Sweden moves closer to the Nato alliance.

I am no expert in this area but I think that your understanding is a bit too simplistic.

The interesting thing about ocean cables is everyone knows where they are, and they don't tend to move too often.

I'd be willing to bet every superpower has a remote cut box on each others' cables, ready to go in the event of a digital war, kind of a mutually assured silence.

One thing seems strange: author claims that burying cable one meter under the bottom of the ocean will make it difficult for submarine to destroy it. Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't they simply use some torpedo or missile to accomplish that ? Some tactical nuclear bomb even, if cable is protected by really thick casing. No more sophisticated equipment needed.

Sand absorbs a lot of energy. 3-feet of sand will absorb a lot of energy. The cables are already protected to absorb a lot of energy. A torpedo is only going to move at 200 MPH.

Relevant news: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34797252 Seems that Russians are already working on new generation torpedo. It seems it would be aimed more at oil and gas pipelines than internet cables, but who knows...

Because orbiting communication satellites are trivially vulnerable to secret underwater sneak attacks via submarine.

There is a huge difference in the amount of bandwidth that can be moved via satellite compared to undersea fiberoptic cable (not to mention differences in latency).

If all cables were cut and we went back to satellite we'd essentially be back to UUCP for worldwide datacomms for the general public.

Speaking directly to communications satellites, they likely would not be immune to any conflict that affects underwater cables. US, Russia, and China all are rumored to have anti-satellite weapons and Russia has been steering satellites (spy or ASAT no one seems to know) around commercial telecom satellites

What do you mean?

Satellites are either geostationary or not. If they are not geostationary you need a network of them and complex ground equipment. If they are geostationary, they incur a ping latency of a few hundred milliseconds making them worthless for modern mass Internet usage. Either way, bandwidth is quite limited compared to what is flowing through fibers today.

Also: I am pretty certain US, Russia and China by now are able to kill satellites at will, geostationary or not.

"The [2007 Chinese anti-satellite missile test] is the largest recorded creation of space debris in history with at least 2,317 pieces of trackable size (golf ball size and larger)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi...

The US did their test in 1985. At this point, shooting down satellites is easy, but it has big consequences. The more debris we create, the harder it is to keep satellites up there.

> The more debris we create, the harder it is to keep satellites up there

Or astronauts, space stations, deep space probes, etc...

Just ask George Clooney ;P

The only possible protection: LOTS of cables. With the regular transmission advances, I think one cable (with some dozens fiber strands) could carry the entire bandwidth between e.g. US and EU.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com