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Undersea Cable System Cuts in Singapore
- dev1n 11y agoI hope this isn't China what with their recent land grab in the pacific [1]. [1]: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/us-issues-strong-warning-to-china-over-land-grab-island-in-south-china-sea-10286206.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/us-issues-stron...
- Terr_ 11y agoI wonder if any countries have "just in case" sabotage-devices near the the undersea cables of possible enemies..
- bigiain 11y agoI sometimes wonder how many countries _don't_. (Both the ability to destroy cables moving data for "possible enemies" who are other countries, as well as for "possible enemies" who are their own citizens...)
- couchdive 11y agoUndersea, on land, and outerspace, oh yeah. Rumors abound of anti satellite/satellites (DS-P1-M and IS Satellites) and I think Russia, china, and the US have destroyed satellites with rockets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon We have tinsel cluster bombs for power plants on land (BLU-114/b) https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/blu-114.htm https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/blu-114.htm And undersea tapping is being done: http://siliconangle.com/blog/2013/07/19/how-the-nsa-taps-undersea-fiber-optic-cables/ http://siliconangle.com/blog/2013/07/19/how-the-nsa-taps-und...
- Phlarp 11y agoor a fleet of submarines that run around tapping them...?
- bendykstra 11y agoI'm sure that you're right. One of the first actions by Britain at the start of WWI was to cut Germany's undersea telegraph cables. (Except for one which was under Britain's control. Germany ill-advisedly continued to send messages using this cable, confident in their encryption techniques. This led to the interception of the Zimmerman telegram which contributed to the United States' entry into the war.)
- appleflaxen 11y agoMaybe it's the NSA splicing a fiber with the USS Jimmy Carter.
- mschuster91 11y agoHow does that work in practice, anyways? I mean, cables these days don't just carry a bunch of fibre wires, but also high-voltage cabling to provide power to the repeaters. Isn't it risky / detectable to cut open such a cable? Also, how is the spliced data actually exfiltrated back to land? The obvious candidate is either a leased dark fiber (which requires intimate knowledge of how the individual fibres are arranged) and laying a second cable (with the obvious disadvantage that cable-laying ships are rare and can easily be spotted).
- ceejayoz 11y ago> Also, how is the spliced data actually exfiltrated back to land? In the operations against the Soviets that've been made public, they physically retrieved the tap.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- gist 11y agoWould make sense to just tap into the repeaters. That is the common sense approach from someone (me) that knows zip about the setup but that seems like the way it would be done.
- mkj 11y agoThey're optical repeaters.
- zw123456 11y agoThe cut is made 100's of miles away from where the taps are being installed and made to look accidental because installing the taps will disrupt service. When the technicians run the OTDR, a repair ship is sent and the distraction cut is repaired, but the taps have already been installed and sealed back up. Not all fibers pass through places where it can be done on land (i.e. not in US) so this is necessary.
- myth_buster 11y agoOn a tangent, I'm curious whether events as the 8.2 earthquake that happened today, could affect these fibers?
- pwenzel 11y agoI wondered about the earthquake as well. Context/maps: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-02/magnitude-8-3-quake-hits-off-indonesia-triggers-tsunami-threat http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-02/magnitude-...
- Phlarp 11y agoThey are designed with this in mind, and certainly hold up better than oil pipelines, which also have to be engineered to withstand earthquakes. I expect it is unlikely for an earthquake itself to sever a cable, but knocking out power / knocking over a building that then destroys the cables landing site is possible, if rare.
- pxeboot 11y agoAn earthquake took out a section of undersea fiber in Alaska recently, so it has definitely happened before: http://www.adn.com/article/20140725/59-earthquake-causes-telecom-outage-southeast-alaska http://www.adn.com/article/20140725/59-earthquake-causes-tel...
- jlgaddis 11y agoI just recently read an article about this... "Around 150 to 200 fiber-optic cable breaks are recorded each year. Between 65% and 75% occur in water depths of < 200 m and result mainly from fishing and shipping activities. In contrast, breaks attributed to geohazards comprise < 10% of the world average. However, seaward of the busy continental shelf and upper continental slope, geohazards account for at least one-third of breaks." -- "Insights into Submarine Geohazards from Breaks in Subsea Telecommunication Cables" PDF: https://www.iscpc.org/documents/?id=1794 https://www.iscpc.org/documents/?id=1794
- djsumdog 11y agoFucking sharks
- noobermin 11y agoDownvoted for being funny(?) but seriously, any speculation on what could have cut them? Ocean currents? Debris?
- yeukhon 11y agoI think it had happened before http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/08/15/shark_attacks_threaten_google_s_undersea_internet_cables_video.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/08/15/shark_att....
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- goodcanadian 11y agoSome ship dragged an anchor across them.
- jlgaddis 11y agoSure, there's lots of speculation -- and we can speculate too, but it's pointless. I'll go with solar flares.
- fosco 11y agoNice map of all cables --> http://www.cablemap.info/ http://www.cablemap.info/
- kiallmacinnes 11y agoI had to close that, otherwise I'd be on it all evening ;) I have zero idea why I find the content so interesting!
- gist 11y agoI am reminded of an ex girlfriend that I had that once asked me why I liked a particular type of food. She demanded to have a reason for what I liked about it. (Let's say it was steak for example). I didn't have an answer for her and we ended up getting into a fight. I said I just liked it and I wasn't interested in defining what I liked about it and being quizzed on it. It just made me feel good to have this particular type of food. Likewise I never question why I like big heavy machinery or constructions sites. I just do. Something about it is interesting to me.
- tacon 11y agoCan't remember where, but I once read about research that clearly showed that having to explain why you like something (like a piece of art you selected) reduces the amount you like it.
- toomanybeersies 11y agoNot all the cables on that map actually exist yet, like the Hawaiki cable.
- Keppl8R 11y agoUn-tick "Future Cables" at bottom of page
- zevyoura 11y agoIf you find this interesting, you'll probably really enjoy this[0] great 1996 Neal Stephenson article, "Mother Earth, Mother Board". [0] http://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ http://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/
- jawngee 11y agoThis is reported maintenance though. http://www.thanhniennews.com/tech/some-bad-days-ahead-as-vietnams-internet-cable-will-undergo-maintenance-59782.html http://www.thanhniennews.com/tech/some-bad-days-ahead-as-vie...
- notwhereyouare 11y agois it though? From the link: The Asia America Gateway, which connects Vietnam and the US, will be serviced from March 4 to 6, the source told Thanh Nien. That says, March 4 -> 6. Also only specifies Vietnam. Edit: Spelling correction
- unholiness 11y agoIt's so startling to see failures so...unabstract. We depend so much on the layers of the internet fulfilling their protocols perfectly, that seeing a vulnerability like this is just bizarre. Of course xkcd is relevant as always: https://xkcd.com/697/ https://xkcd.com/697/
- wslh 11y agoWeird, but in February 29, some of our customers experienced difficulties to connect to our Linode servers in Dallas (not Singapore) from some Internet providers in US (e.g: mobile carriers, cable ISPs). That day I checked the Linode status and it was normal so I forgot the issue until now. Do you think these events can be correlated? May be they were trying to mitigate the issue and affected other regions as well.
- jlgaddis 11y agoIs it possible? Sure. Is it likely? No. Without a lot more information -- preferably from both sides -- it's impossible to know.
- wslh 11y agoSorry, but I was expecting an answer from someone at Linode. Since their update page was not accurate I couldn't rely in their last report. I think the answer is: it is possible and it is likely.
- alfiedotwtf 11y agoDiscuss: Kickstarter to fund unmanned submersibles to follow a cable end-to-end, looking for taps
- fabulist 11y agoI'm afraid that you'll only be able to follow them for a short while before they slip below the ocean floor.
- knowaveragejoe 11y agoLikewise we're talking an immense distance in the deepest of oceans.
- alfiedotwtf 11y agoWhat about duplicating how they repair broken cables... hook onto it close to shore, pull the cable up to a boat, then follow the length of the cable across the ocean. I'm assuming that's how they're repairing this one?
- NiekvdMaas 11y agoAccording to Telekom Malaysia, it will be fixed earliest end of this month: https://www.tm.com.my/OnlineHelp/Announcement/Pages/RESTORATION-WORKS-TO-REPAIR-SUBMARINE-CABLE-FAULT_2-MAR.aspx https://www.tm.com.my/OnlineHelp/Announcement/Pages/RESTORAT...
- samstave 11y agoIf I were a terrorist org with deep pockets, I'd just hire a black market deep see trawler with a sharp cable hook and have it drive north south a thousand miles out of Japan. Global everything shall halt.
- whitegrape 11y agoInfrastructure damage that causes severe issues is such a low hanging fruit it's a mystery to me why it isn't attacked more by terrorist / anarchist / primitivist / et al. groups unless I adopt the Hansonian "X is not about seemingly related Y" viewpoint...
- contingencies 11y agoThesis: The bogeymen don't really exist.
- samstave 11y agoYep, ISIS is a ploy for MIC global domination... We all in tech see it, fuck the deniers.
- contingencies 11y agoIf you want to make flippant statements, perhaps you should find or research an infographic like: "Civilian deaths due to extremist groups vs. civilian deaths due to US military actions and sanctions". Feel free to ignore the far longer history of one side, and the fact one side gave weapons and stupid quantities of free media airtime to the other. If you recall, Wikileaks' war logs proved once and for all the real quantity of civilian deaths is a lot higher than you hear reported in the media by outing the US military's internally reported stats. More people probably died in the first two months of the year in multiple African conflicts than civilian deaths attributable to terrorism in the last 10 years. PS. Funny how as soon as I post this reply I get downvoted on both comments. American nationalism is alive and kicking on HN :)
- CoachRufus87 11y agohow thick are these cables?
- knowaveragejoe 11y agoDepends on the cable, but it's not unheard of to be a foot or more in diameter. Here's a deep-sea fiber splitter: http://i.imgur.com/qh4Gf.jpg http://i.imgur.com/qh4Gf.jpg
- amazon_not 11y agoThis is incorrect. A subsea fiber optic cable is about an inch in diameter. The splice cases and amplifiers are bigger.
- knowaveragejoe 11y agoIt's not incorrect, the original comment is vague. I think it is more reasonable to assume they are talking about the entirety of the cable rather than just the carrier embedded within it.
- CoachRufus87 11y agoIndeed I was. Thanks for the clarification.
- ernsheong 11y ago"TM: Work to restore Internet speed starts March 25" http://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2016/03/02/tm-internet-traffic-slow/ http://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2016/03/02/tm-inter...
- cdf 11y agoI'm in Singapore and this is not reported at all. Likely affects only Telkom Malaysia users only - one Malaysian telco lost their link to Singapore rather than Singapore losing link to the world as implied by the headline.
- ago 11y agoIt definitely affects Thailand too, Sinet sent notifications about the problem, and speed is quite bad to some sites.
- yeukhon 11y agoI am amazed that the undersea cable is not so thick at all. I was expecting a huge tub of cable. Just thinking about that and the amount of data we can equip across continents in less than 200ms is just incredible. Is there a documentary on deep sea/undersea cable system? I am really interested in how they deploy the cables across the ocean. Have a ship sail across the ocean and start laying the cable down?
- PakG1 11y agoFun fact. If you read the book The Victorian Internet, there's an interesting anecdote where a pioneer of the telegraph had a flawed theory that the thinner the cross-Atlantic copper wire, the better the transmission signal.
- jmiserez 11y agoThis animated GIF shows how it's done: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Undersea_cable_laying.gif https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Undersea...
- yeukhon 11y agoI see thanks. Now wonder how they pick up where it left off :-))
- jlgaddis 11y agoI can't seem to find it at the moment but ISTR watching a video (can't recall if it was actually a "documentary" or just some PR thing they put together) that Hibernia Atlantic put out. That may give you a starting point for finding one.
- rwmurrayVT 11y agoI know this is probably a slight tangent to the article, but I is anyone else fascinated by underwater cabling? My first job out of university is working on the USNS Zeus for Military Sealift Command. I've been out on the ship and we're working directly with the cable handling equipment. I've walked in the big empty vats they fill with the cable. It's over 25 feet deep and 20 feet wide. They actually "walk" the cable up to prevent it from getting tangled. Seriously!! SO COOL!! I would love to post pictures, but I like my job a little bit too much to risk it.
- techdragon 11y agoAny comparable pics you can link to? Perhaps some PR photos already exist on wikimedia commons.
- jsmthrowaway 11y agoThey're usually not very secret, and you probably just have to search around a bit. Here's the cable bin on an unidentified ship: http://imgur.com/Oc24DNN http://imgur.com/Oc24DNN
- MrApathy 11y agoThere's a TV show called "Mighty Ships" that profiles various larger ships (mostly commercial, though some passenger or military). One episode focuses on the Tyco Resolute, a cable laying ship: http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/mighty-ships/tyco-resolute/809/3399767 http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/mighty-ships/tyco-re... The full version used to be on YouTube.
- rwmurrayVT 11y agoI have attached a few photos that were released by MSC. The first link is a general directory for the entire T-ARC fleet. The USNS Zeus (T-ARC-7) is the only remaining cable laying ship in the Navy. Another cool thing you can do is use the 3rd link to track a lot of the ship! The Zeus is currently underway in Bermuda. It's not on a mission right now AFAIK. If it goes dark you know it's on a mission for a more secure cable line. I can confirm that the drum linked above is not on the Zeus. The Zeus has two huge drums like that, but they are below main deck. The Zeus also has a cool as fuck hat that I really want, but so far no crew will give me one. A unidentified high officer said he would give me his if I kept the steering wheel for him after it's removal. Sadly, that'll be in the possession of NASSCO/Shipyard and then MSC after the work. http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/27/27idx.htm http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/27/27idx.htm http://www.msc.navy.mil/PM4/images/Zeusatsea2.jpg http://www.msc.navy.mil/PM4/images/Zeusatsea2.jpg http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-70/centery:41/zoom:3 http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-70/centery...
- mkj 11y agoSingapore has a fair bit of redundancy of cables. Perhaps linode are only using a single provider (seems likely given they're cost concious). The only Perth-Singapore cable has broken a few times on the past few years, latency really sucks then going from 50ms to 270ms (routing via the US instead).
- PakG1 11y agoThis reminds me of a funny story. I was a tech manager for the Winter Olympics in 2010, allocated to the mountain venues. We had this crazy test rehearsal day where we'd test our systems and processes. Proctors would actually walk around the various venues at the Olympics and just randomly create both big and small problems to see how we'd respond. Suddenly, our network connection to the primary datacenter went down, and we couldn't figure out why. We later learned that a boat had somehow (I don't know how) cut a main underwater cable that connected the mountain areas to the city. It was a stupid day. :)
- cperciva 11y agoAre you sure it was a boat? The fibre providing most of the connectivity from Whistler to Vancouver runs along the highway and has been cut by traffic accidents, but I don't think there's anywhere that a boat would kill it...
- PakG1 11y agoAll I remember is what I was told. It could have been specific special-purpose fibre that was laid by Bell for the Olympics, don't know.
- hellbanner 11y agoWhat caused this? Sabotage? Animals? Submarines?
- jlgaddis 11y agoLet me check. $ bofh user to computer ratio too high.
- gtrubetskoy 11y agoFew people realize that to splice an undersea cable, you need two (big) ships. This is because if the cut was where the cable is a mile deep, by the time you bring the ends to the surface they will be approximately two miles apart.
- davb 11y agoAren't the cables run with a bit of slack for just this reason?
- nowprovision 11y agoIs there a global status of cut/degraded undersea cable systems? That would be very beneficial. It seems that the connectivity providers Level3, Hibernia/Atrato, HE, NTT etc.. only relay limited information, perhaps their notification from cable providers is very limited too, by the time it gets to downstream customers we're all guessing, e.g. on WebHostingTalk there are customers trying to determine latency issue to a Hong Kong provider, only to have a competitor announce a fiber cut 2 days ago in Jakarta may be affecting it.
- nmc 11y agoYou are wrong on one part: connectivity providers usually provide detailed information about failures to their customers [1]. The only thing is: you are not their customer — your ISP is. Some ISPs will communicate to their own customers, i.e. you, for instance see the link NiekvdMaas posted in the thread [2]. Sadly, most ISPs do not relay any detailed info. [1] I once saw a fully detailed report from a connectivity provider about a cable failure and repair, with pictures of scuba-divers included — the cut happened on fibers running at the bottom of a water canal. [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11213555 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11213555
- djfergus 11y agoI'm in Kuala Lumpur and use Telekom Malaysia Unifi for my ISP (20 Mb/s bidirectional for $US62 per month, for anyone who is curious). This fault has existed for the past few days and is only now being reported. It not a simple slowdown and is frustrating due to the architecture of the modern internet content hosting and I suspect however TM is rate limiting its customers. e.g. 1) some youtube videos play fine, others stall and simply never load. 2) I cannot play anything on soundcloud.com, plays first 2 seconds then never recovers (however if I switch off wifi and use Maxis 4G mobile connection it works fine). 3) Animated gifs take ages to load and stutter 4) torrents stream perfectly: I can fully utilise my upstream and downstream bandwidth 5) Netflix has no problems (I use a dynamic DNS to get USA content) 6) iOS App updates depend on time of day, during the day they are fine, at early evening peak hours they crawl. 7) Downloading any large file from a website is very slow at all times It is a pity TM won't purchase/route capacity through an alternative link, having throttled internet for a month is terrible service...
- nowprovision 11y agoHave you considered a VPN to a Singapore provider. e.g. PureVPN or alternatively PPTP on a DigitalOcean, Linode (maybe not in this case), Softlayer etc.. Generally VPS provider will have better international transit than your local ISP, however your local ISP will peer in Singapore so that part is usually congestion free.
- djfergus 11y agoHmm, interesting suggestion for a temporary fix. I'll have a play around later. But I'm loathe to add another point of failure in my transmission route, let alone one I need to maintain myself and troubleshoot myself (VPS).
- matthew5025 11y agoFrom SG here, funnily enough, I haven't encountered any issues. Any sites you noticed with unusually high ping?
- chei0aiV 11y ago