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Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

Not many details in this article, but further north there is another threat to undersea cables carrying Internet traffic:

On Feb. 2, a Chinese fishing vessel sailing close to the Matsu Islands severed one of the two cables, which connect the islands with Taiwan proper. Then, six days later, a Chinese freighter cut the second cable.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/21/matsu-islands-internet-...

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Last fall an internet cable to Svalbard was cut.

AIS recordings showed a Russian fishing vessel traveling many times over a vulnerable spot just before it happened.

> traveling many times over a vulnerable spot

I am reminded of this classic Ali G skit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdOQYlYS2q0

And they are spoofing their AIS data frequently. Now they control if they are where the AIS send information about, and use satellites to help with the location task (because they don’t trust the AIS from Russian ships).

Could probably be the same with other countries ships

Now we have to worry about Russian phishing attacks and Russian fishing attacks

And in a worse scenario, Russian fission attacks.

There's a long history of Russian / Soviet "fishing expeditions" and spy trawlers.

<https://www.blindbatnews.com/2022/08/cold-war-revells-spy-tr...>

<http://www.emmitsburg.net/archive_list/articles/misc/cww/201...>

I don't know it seems plausible to me that it was just an accident. There is plenty of legitimate Russian activity in that area. I'm no fisherman so someone correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think it is that unusual for them to go back and forth. It's not surprising that it happened to a vulnerable spot, because if it wasn't vulnerable the cable wouldn't have broke and no one would be looking into it. Finally the Russians have submarines they could use to cut the cable without being detected. Who runs a covert op with AIS on?

Why do you need a throwaway account to post that?

Just ask plainly:

Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party of the United States?

No but I did go to a meeting once. They had doughnuts.

That was clearly an FBI honeypot. Real communist meetings only serve Engels Food Cake.

Depending who you ask Engels was the first Revisionist!

I once went to a talk at Berkeley's Revolution Books.

Fortunately, I doubt if they could topple a suburban HOA.

Edit: Revolution Books, not Revolution Cafe.

Are you kidding? American communists are more fractious than Quakers - they couldn't topple a game of Jenga if you pulled half the blocks out first.

True. That was a bad example. Some HOAs are tough.

So's Bob Avakian, I hear. But he's only got three fans.

You have hit a tough crowd.

I make these accounts every so often, use them for a while, and then make a new one. It is just for general privacy reasons.

The account name would be green if they made the account recently just to post this.

Well it seems many are hell bent on war so it would hardly be surprising that more infrastructure is deliberately sabotaged.

A lot of VN internet infra is yandex (Russia), so I don’t see them intentionally doing so. Especially since Russia has their attention elsewhere. There is a different player that would benefit however

> There is a different player that would benefit however

Who?

The same "player" who benefited from blowing pipelines and arms selling.

And by arms selling you mean giving away arms, right?

The whole way down this could apply to the US or Russia and probably a few others.

What a truly unfortunate coincidence.

Rather like the Russian elite who keep mysteriously falling out of buildings.

Defenestration, what was once medieval is hip again.

I never thought I'd see the day where buildings become sentient and rise up against their overlords.

On the renewed China-Vietnam tensions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Vietnam_relation...

Is this an effort to force Vietnam to route all their traffic via China? Through the Great Firewall?

If it is intentional, I would guess it’s more likely general intended to scare Vietnam into accepting island territorial claims

No, they’re trying to get to Singapore. Business in Vietnam is highly dependent on things like Facebook and Google. I was there last year, and have some friends that run businesses there.

https://vietnamembassy-usa.org/news/2001/02/vietnam-puts-reg...

How do fishing vessels sever internet cables lying on the sea floor? Or is this a case of the ships being "fishing vessels"?

It's at least possible - drag nets can and do touch the bottom.

As do crab pots and lobster traps.

Pots and traps tend not to get dragged. Nets do.

It's conceivable for a crabber / lobsterman to damage undersea cables. It's far more likely that it's a net fisher.

It’s called “bottom trawling” and it’s pretty much what it sounds like.

Also known as cruising?

Russia has a pretty remarkable set of nuclear submarines designed for covert ops. You don't see anything on the surface when they mess with cables.

Why in the world would they cut the cables to friendly Vietnam, or for that matter Svalbard, which has a Russian town of Barentsburg?

Does Svalbard really have a huge e-commerce sector or something that needs undersea fibre? They doubtlessly have plenty of satellite internet, so this will just limit their bandwidth and maybe interrupt things temporarily. What's the strategic value in cutting it?

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