New underwater footage raise sabotage suspicions against Yi Peng 3 | Hacker News Reader

New underwater footage raise sabotage suspicions against Yi Peng 3

scandasia.com

43 pointsanonymousiam13 comments

Seems this is pretty cut and dry. I'm surprised this isn't bigger news but the Nordic countries boarded the vessel yesterday also [1]

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/swedish-police-go-board...

> It is our expectation that once the inspection has been completed by this group of people from the four countries, the ship will be able to sail towards its destination

Seems like a better deterrent for future sabotage is to ratchet up the consequences by seizing the ship until it is settled in the courts.

A fishing ship is cheap (he) for any developed nation state. Delaying one is not a meaningful deterrent. Forbidding Chinese ships in those waters would be, but no one is quite ready for that kind of commercial disruption.

Provided that China actually knew about it; this is what Putin would like us to believe but I doubt it as there is absolutely no benefit for them.

A Chinese billionaire is losing money on a ship that isn't generating revenue. Either they made a deal directly with the tsar that is worth that cost or they were ordered by the emperor to take the hit.

What it would be the motivation? Anyway, Hanlon's razor is something hard to dismiss.

Assuming this was orchestrated by a nation state I wonder what the goal is? Just causing mayhem and incurring cost? Is there some specific function of these cables? Is this a negotiating tactic?

It can be a test of the response.

If you have a plan to sever every major fibre link into and out of some country then the only way to rest the effectiveness of your plan is to sever just a couple and see what happens.

The Cold War equivalent is to fly up to the border and see how the enemy fighters intercept your bombers.

Alternately it’s “making a concrete statement” in response to a thinly veiled threat.

E.g.: if a western government threatens to cut Russia off from the Internet they can cut a fibre to two to make a point that the west is just as vulnerable.

The problem with seeing it as a test of response is that the test changes future responses. Where previously it might have been possible to do a surprise attack on cables, govts will now (hopefully) be looking at ships maneuvering near by with more suspicion.

The problem is that in some areas there are both cables and ships in such a high concentration that it's impossible to police.

Generally undersea cables "land" at major port cities because that's where it is convenient and also that's where the data centres are.

Likely this is just for "practice". This incident shows how easy it is to break the cables, and what methods the authorities in the area use to pin the blame. It also shows what effect breaking the cables did or didn't have. I doubt China cares about losing one ship. Next time the ship they send won't slow down while near the cable, which caught the eye of the authorities. Next time they will do a lot of things differently, but I have no doubt the next time is coming, just because they can.

"Assuming this was orchestrated by a nation state" thanks for the laughs

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