Submarine cables linking Africa-Asia-Europe severed
en.globes.co.il
en.globes.co.il
"There is also the obvious threat of sabotage by a hostile government, but, surprisingly, this almost never happens. When cypherpunk Doug Barnes was researching his Caribbean project, he spent some time looking into this, because it was exactly the kind of threat he was worried about in the case of a data haven. Somewhat to his own surprise and relief, he concluded that it simply wasn’t going to happen. “Cutting a submarine cable,” Barnes says, “is like starting a nuclear war. It’s easy to do, the results are devastating, and as soon as one country does it, all of the others will retaliate."
This rule was broken last year and it will happen again with more and more frequency.
Might have happened outside Finland last year [1].
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/estonia-says-chinese-sh...
[0] https://theanguillian.com/2023/02/rapid-response-from-flow-r...
[1] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231101666271/en/Lib...
That didn't stop governments trying with nordstream.
Perhaps not quite enough for a conviction in a court of law, but definitely a balance of probabilities.
1. the sheer number of cables today makes an individual - or even several - cuts far less dramatic.
2. there's likely still a perceived difference between a nation-state being seen to openly take responsibility for cutting cables, and terrorist groups doing so.
It's still an interesting chang (and everyone should read Mother Earth Mother Board), and you're probably still right it will happen more often, and things could escalate very quickly.
3 is a nuisance, but the Red Sea route cuts thousands of miles and according latency between Europe and South Asia - Africa is big and both the African and direct Eastbound overland routes have all kinds of "challenges". If more of them are cut, expect a drastic escalation.
I think the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline has shown that even when a blatant act of sabotage occurs under the sea, as long as nobody claims responsibility, the debate will rage on for years about who it might have been. I'm not sure if we can really differentiate between state actors and terrorists any more when it comes to this kind of operation. Perhaps it's more a question of did anyone take responsibility, or did no one?
[0] https://apnews.com/article/matsu-taiwan-internet-cables-cut-...
I'm assuming that was autocorrect because it was capitalized too.
(Making that up, but seems plausible and simple enough).
The post-WW2 peace structure was built around a prohibition on aggressive war and sub-war violations of the integrity of other states. This hasn't always held, and once we get into a situation where there are state-power-but-not-a-state actors involved (who are by definition not part of the UN!) things get messy.
I do think the US breach of this principle by invading Iraq did a colossal amount of damage to this principle, both morally and practically in that the collapse of the (repressive) Iraqi state caused the rise of non-state groups which destabilized Syria. The collapse of Yemen has been going on for a while with very little caring from outside, and now it's a venue for the proxy war between Iran and everyone else in the area (mostly Israel, but also Saudi).
It's also an easy mistake to blame everything on the US and Israel; there are a lot of different groups looking to seize various sorts of power in various places at gunpoint, with varying outside backers with varying levels of control.
There was even at one point indirect cooperation between the US and Iran to defeat the only group that was an even worse influence on the stability of the region than either of them: ISIS. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/03/us-iran-forced...
To be clear, ISIS is great for stability. It's not the stability we want, but they do definitely provide stability. We may not like them, but there are reasons that people living in chaos or extreme poverty choose to support them over alternatives. The Taliban didn't triumph in Afghanistan without it's fans.
I remember reading about Al Qaeda / Bin Laden who was funded by CIA to fights Russians.
The US absolutely participated (and continues to participate in) the SCW.
Once the Soviet Union imploded, there was little reason for this to be maintained and, sure enough, here we are.
The US has been striking a very awkward balance between "we want our allies to spend more on their military and do more of their own defence" versus "but not enough to be an independent power". Resulting in odd things like the UK "independent" nuclear deterrent that has to be returned to the US for servicing, or the JSDF "helicopter carrier" (definitely NOT an aircraft carrier, despite the big long flat deck, because that would be prohibited under treaty).
The US has done many many breaches of international law since post-WW2
All those old empires disguising as anti-imperialist, and the US is selfimolating they want to play another great game.
> Telecoms provider SEACOM suffered an outage on its subsea cable system over the weekend.
> The disruption is affecting the segment of the cable that runs from Mombasa (Kenya) to Zafarana (Egypt), SEACOM said in a statement.
* https://itweb.africa/content/WnxpE74YRQjMV8XL
> Seacom, one of Africa's leading undersea communications systems and fiber network operators, has suffered a disruption to its connectivity services as a result of breakage on a segment of its cable lining in the Red Sea.
> Confirming the incident, the company says other cables around the area have been damaged as well but has not been able to pinpoint the cause. Seacom's East African cable system, which runs from Mombasa in Kenya to Zafarana in Egypt, went down.
* https://www.benjamindada.com/seacom-cable-damage-red-sea/
* https://techcentral.co.za/seacom-is-down-in-the-red-sea/2402...
This is one of four that are apparently damaged:
> The first reports of damage to submarine cables off the coast of Yemen began emerged on Monday morning, with Israeli news outlet Globes claiming that four cables (EIG, AAE-1, Seacom and TGN-EA) had experienced damage. Seacom has reportedly confirmed damage to a cable it operates on a stretch between Kenya and Egypt.
* https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/red_sea_cables_houthi...
A map of their network at:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SEACOM_Global_Network.png
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEACOM_(African_cable_system)#...
Is there a project that tries to build (using Raspberry Pis for example, or an app on a smartphone) a second global network of privately run nodes. The most similar project I can think of was the Fon project [1] where you would purchase a Fon box and share internet access with all other Fon users. Sort of an organised wifi hotspot club.
But, what I'm thinking about is more something that would just need electricity (vs electricity + ISP) and be running more like a big LAN. Everything would be P2P on it, from DNS to hosting. I think some federated systems could work almost just the same on it but possibilities (and speed) would be very limited.
With all the conflicts and natural disasters happening world wide I've been thinking more and more about ways to still be connected to others through something that would be more P2P even hardware wise.
I know internet (arpanet) started by trying to be just what I describe, but we all know now that it's not how it works anymore with some big centralisation points along the stack.
Is what I'm describing the "infamous" Web3? The few hazy definitions I read don't make it sound like it.
Anyways, if anybody knows any project that ressembles my poor explanation, I'm all ears as I'd like to get on board an promote it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_networking
People have tried, but they’re hard — and TLAs tend to show up. (At least from stories I heard; before my time.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Wireless
But they’re doing a crypto one too — maybe that’ll work better.
There’s also a HAM radio option.
The US has a bunch of agencies whose names are TLAs. The FBI, the CIA, the NSA, FCC, etc.
Generally the problem with mesh networks is spectrum licensing.
(a badly functioning mesh network is indistinguishable from a distributed jammer in its band!)
As for the TLAs .. I don't know about that, but the history of radio licensing and telecoms is entangled with national security, because allowing enemy agents free comms into your country was considered Very Bad.
The FBI and CIA infiltrated gaming groups as well.
[1] I’m not sure if the algorithm has been vetted or not.
Wireless mesh networking also exists but is complex, unreliable, slow and high-latency. Not to mention there isn't an established standard like there is IP/TCP/UDP.
It was commonplace where I grew up on an island, that our telephone line were cut by accident. Happened like 2 times in 15 years.
In this case the repair ship might need some air defense, but US or UK could easily provide that.
- it's a specialized business requiring specialized ships which are often booked out a long time in advance
- the damage is in a war zone
Would you be willing to do your job in a war zone? Would your boss be okay with sending you there? With sending very specialized and expensive equipment there with you?
Also what do you think would be sufficient to provide peace time equivalent safety guarantees for the ship and crew? Military equipment and crew ain't cheap either.
The real issue is the second fact you identified, that it's cut in middle of a warzone. I don't think they will risk sending a ship out unless closely escorted by military vessels.
Nordstream 2? Of course it was Russians despite how illogical it was.
This cable? No way the Houthis despite them saying they would attack them.
The prejudice is interesting.
I thought with the cable the general objection to the Houthis having done it is that they're too incompetent to pull it off. I'm inclined to believe the Houthis did it as they could have literally done it by accident at this point.
... but they can't so they shan't? Lol, a bit light on reasoning.
"There is nothing I've seen in the Iranian orbat (Order of Battle) that could touch these cables, certainly not their submarines," says former Royal Navy Cdr Tom Sharpe. "Diving is an option but it's deep and busy so I think it would be pushing it," he says. Concurring with Rear Adm Gower, Cdr Sharpe says: "I think this is a bluff."
...
"In conclusion, the threat made recently by the Houthis on their Telegram channel would be hard to carry out. It would be both technically challenging and politically risky for Iran, whose hand the West sees in all the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea."
Wait, which side is this arguing?
Three months after the Houthis began attacking merchant ships, the Yemenite rebels have carried out another one of their threats. "Globes" has learned that four submarine communication cables have been damaged in the Red Sea between Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and Djibouti in East Africa.
It's their prerogative to publish whatever they like, and it's our prerogative to believe what we like, but if you want to actually understand something you'll need to be more rigorous than that.
However, I don't see how making the internet a little slower between Africa, Europe, and India really hurt "the enemy".
Perhaps it's just that I don't know who "the enemy" is. If we accept that the Houthis are responsible this action would make it seem like the Houthis actually have grievances with the majority of the non-Houthis world.
They have "death to America" literally written on their banner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slogan_of_the_Houthi_movement
How utterly wretched must a life be before a cause like this cause could appeal to someone?
We’ve been all but pulling the trigger as we supported Saudis bombing them for years, kept them under famine, have American mercenaries doing political assassinations for the emirates in Yemen, the list goes on.
We had 9/11 happen and large chunks of society wanted to nuke Mecca. Imagine multiple 9/11s every year for a decade and think how you’d feel.
If these people won, and all of the people they hate so much died tomorrow, would they stop killing? I think not. I suspect that they would begin killing other sects of their own religion, and after that people who don't adhere closely enough to the rules of the "one true religion".
Murderers want to murder. In the end, the reasons are made up long after the decision to murder is made.
Can they be rehabilitated in some way?
You should think deep why you assume they are simply killers and not people with dignity who have been wronged by the murderous governments of saud and the us. And you should be asking if we are the ones that can be rehabilitated.
CF "starlink for russia"
Laws of physics still apply even to space based connectivity technologies.
https://www.space.com/spacex-starshield-space-force-contract
AAE-1 alone has a capacity of 40Tbps (the article says terabytes - that's wrong; EIG is <4Tbps, TGN Atlantic is ~5Tbps), and so assuming the numbers I found are right, you'd need to be able to aggregate bandwidth across 500 Starlink sats for uplink, 500 more for the downlinks, and whatever number you need for laser links between the endpoints.
There are at lot of submarine cables[1], though, so while I don't doubt that there will be people looking for contracts to use Starlink for some degree of extra redundancy and worst-case offload, the primary redundancy for these cables will be other cables, along other routes at least until Starlink gets a couple of generations further.
It's Israeli obviously, but shame that despite the name implying it might have a wider outlook it does seem to be Israel/Israeli business focussed.
I meant it is clear from the `.il` TLD that it is an Israeli site, so from that alone you might assume it would be 'Israeli news', but the name 'Globes' then implies that maybe it would be more global - world news, and so seeing as I liked the site I might therefore visit it more/bookmark it for general news; but actually it seems (from the articles on front page, the About page) it's not, and it is Israeli business focussed.
I blame our great leaders who can't figure out that peace is better than war.