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If cables are cut you can bet the US will retaliate which is why it hasn’t happened. You can also bet there are plenty of undocumented cables. However I do won

If cables are cut you can bet the US will retaliate which is why it hasn’t happened. You can also bet there are plenty of undocumented cables. However I do wonder if we should just focus of getting space laser communications working to avoid some of these ground infrastructure issues, it seems much easier to cut wires than blow up space craft.

atoav 3y ago
You can only retaliate if you can attribute the attack first and that might not be possible 100% of the time. The reason why this happened yet is because it isn't very benefitial for the effort it would take. Any rouge state actor can use the Internet in their enemy territory for far more impacting operations (e.g. propaganda, psy ops). Terrorism would be a more realistic thing, but terrorists don't typically have submarines.
- pipo234 3y ago
  +1 Retaliation wrt. to "cyber security incidents" is seldomly a plausible deterrent, exactly because attribution is so hard. Consider a "simple" case like the Nordstream attacks; despite serious efforts there still is no conclusive attribution. Protection and mitigation are usually much more practical defenses than the threat of retaliation.
cycomanic 3y ago
You'll not be able to get anywhere near the throughputs that we have with today's fibre communication networks using satellite communications, unless there is some revolutionary breakthrough (and by revolutionary I mean completely changing of how we understand losses in free-space, so extremely unlikely). This means we will not really use satellite comms instead of fibre. That said there is definitely applications that benefit from optical satellite comms.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  But even getting 1% of the throughput is enough to prevent modern life grinding to a halt. sure - people won't be able to watch netflix, but basic things like credit card processing, sending emails, getting emergency alerts out, ordering an uber, etc. would all work fine with a 99% reduction in bandwidth. To cripple a countries infrastructure, you need to cut 100%. And satellite links mean you can no longer do that.
  - redeeman 3y ago
    > sending emails you had better hope people stop using modern webmails then, have you seen how insanely huge those pages are? we'd have to sit for HOURS to download them at dialup speeds
    - nickpeterson 3y ago
      They want to style every element four different ways. Hello World marketing emails are like 70kb. Reminds me of the days of Microsoft frontpage.
    - andylynch 3y ago
      I remember in the mid 90s a fellow intern scratching his head about why a short video clip he'd emailed to his school hadn't made it through - it eventually did, but took about 36 hours to send through the local OpenMail -> internet gateway. Every other email out the door did as well.
  - cycomanic 3y ago
    I think you seriously unterestimate the amount of data society uses to function. If e.g. Australia would suddenly go to only 1% of it's throughput it would cause economic chaos and likely cause hyperinflation amongst many things. Too many things rely on data essentially being free (the development of data traffic prices over the last 4 decades is absolutely mind blowing), in fact even if data throughput prices would stop dropping that would likely have significant economic impact as business plans rely on those projections.
  - KineticLensman 3y ago
- andy_ppp 3y ago
  WiFi will be too slow forever compared to Ethernet until suddenly it isn’t.
  - gambiting 3y ago
    People have been saying this literally for 20 years now, yet even the fastest 6E wifi with compatible devices and router can barely break 1Gbps barrier in real life use(for me), and majority of the time I see it's much less than that. I mean it's great seeing real life 300-500mbps over wifi, don't get me wrong, but all this incredibly fancy(and very expensive) tech doesn't seem to beat a basic £5 cable quite yet.
    - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
      Not to mention, ping, jitter and packet loss are all better with ethernet. Most users never until you put them in a situation where their performance is dependent of those factors, like gaming.
      - yomlica8 3y ago
        I feel like they do notice but they blame other parts of the chain first, like their ISP.
    - bdavbdav 3y ago
      You're right - its just too unpredictable. The bit that gets me is the hardware in laptops / devices. Apple seem to take some care in antenna design etc, and appear to be fairly fast / reliable, but many device manufacturers stick in whatever, if you get a link then great, call it a day.
  - rasz 3y ago
    Are you planning on discovering some new laws of physics?
moffkalast 3y ago
> focus of getting space laser communications Maybe there's a company in Israel that can help with that. ;)
awestroke 3y ago
The US will retaliate if somebody cuts a cable belonging to the EU? I'd be less surprised if the US were the ones doing the cutting
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  Considering the NordStreams and that they became a taboo topic in EU, a cut cable would mean a lot of finger-pointing and not much done.
  - ta1243 3y ago
    When Shetland had two cuts the other month, disconnecting the entire island, I don't remember any finger pointing
    - londons_explore 3y ago
      Sometimes things like that are a demo of capabilities. Countries like to demo their war capabilities to other nations simply as a kinda-threat. Such demos help stop war happening, so I'm not against them. Wars only happen when two countries believe they will win a war. If one of those countries believes they will lose, they will just admit defeat before any actual fighting happens. If countries are aware of eachothers capabilities, there is less chance that both countries believe they will win.
roenxi 3y ago
> If cables are cut you can bet the US will retaliate which is why it hasn’t happened. What, like Nordstream? The risk is that the US cuts the cable when it benefits them. It is still a risk. Ditto for who is it who is going to be using the cables to spy on people.
ur-whale 3y ago
> If cables are cut you can bet the US will retaliate Unless it's the US doing the cutting, of course.
willvarfar 3y ago
It is claimed that cables are routinely cut and the US and Europe do not take obvious diplomatic nor military action. This was explored as a major topic in the Scandinavian TV investigation https://www.svtplay.se/uppdrag-granskning-skuggkriget https://www.svtplay.se/uppdrag-granskning-skuggkriget
darkclouds 3y ago
HP were were working with the british military on laser line of sight communication. If someone breaks the laser beam, you'll know about it. Certainly more secure than cables, but environment is a weak spot, smog, fog, leaves, etc etc.
rcarr 3y ago
I might be wrong, but I think with space there’s the potential for a Gravity (2013) style situation though, where if one satellite is blown up the debris could cause a chain reaction and take out a ton of other satellites?
- dmoy 3y ago
  It's called the Kessler syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

atoav 3y ago

You can only retaliate if you can attribute the attack first and that might not be possible 100% of the time. The reason why this happened yet is because it isn't very benefitial for the effort it would take. Any rouge state actor can use the Internet in their enemy territory for far more impacting operations (e.g. propaganda, psy ops). Terrorism would be a more realistic thing, but terrorists don't typically have submarines.

pipo234 3y ago
+1 Retaliation wrt. to "cyber security incidents" is seldomly a plausible deterrent, exactly because attribution is so hard. Consider a "simple" case like the Nordstream attacks; despite serious efforts there still is no conclusive attribution. Protection and mitigation are usually much more practical defenses than the threat of retaliation.

cycomanic 3y ago

You'll not be able to get anywhere near the throughputs that we have with today's fibre communication networks using satellite communications, unless there is some revolutionary breakthrough (and by revolutionary I mean completely changing of how we understand losses in free-space, so extremely unlikely). This means we will not really use satellite comms instead of fibre. That said there is definitely applications that benefit from optical satellite comms.

londons_explore 3y ago
But even getting 1% of the throughput is enough to prevent modern life grinding to a halt. sure - people won't be able to watch netflix, but basic things like credit card processing, sending emails, getting emergency alerts out, ordering an uber, etc. would all work fine with a 99% reduction in bandwidth. To cripple a countries infrastructure, you need to cut 100%. And satellite links mean you can no longer do that.
- redeeman 3y ago
  > sending emails you had better hope people stop using modern webmails then, have you seen how insanely huge those pages are? we'd have to sit for HOURS to download them at dialup speeds
  - nickpeterson 3y ago
    They want to style every element four different ways. Hello World marketing emails are like 70kb. Reminds me of the days of Microsoft frontpage.
  - andylynch 3y ago
    I remember in the mid 90s a fellow intern scratching his head about why a short video clip he'd emailed to his school hadn't made it through - it eventually did, but took about 36 hours to send through the local OpenMail -> internet gateway. Every other email out the door did as well.
- cycomanic 3y ago
  I think you seriously unterestimate the amount of data society uses to function. If e.g. Australia would suddenly go to only 1% of it's throughput it would cause economic chaos and likely cause hyperinflation amongst many things. Too many things rely on data essentially being free (the development of data traffic prices over the last 4 decades is absolutely mind blowing), in fact even if data throughput prices would stop dropping that would likely have significant economic impact as business plans rely on those projections.
- KineticLensman 3y ago
andy_ppp 3y ago
WiFi will be too slow forever compared to Ethernet until suddenly it isn’t.
- gambiting 3y ago
  People have been saying this literally for 20 years now, yet even the fastest 6E wifi with compatible devices and router can barely break 1Gbps barrier in real life use(for me), and majority of the time I see it's much less than that. I mean it's great seeing real life 300-500mbps over wifi, don't get me wrong, but all this incredibly fancy(and very expensive) tech doesn't seem to beat a basic £5 cable quite yet.
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    Not to mention, ping, jitter and packet loss are all better with ethernet. Most users never until you put them in a situation where their performance is dependent of those factors, like gaming.
    - yomlica8 3y ago
      I feel like they do notice but they blame other parts of the chain first, like their ISP.
  - bdavbdav 3y ago
    You're right - its just too unpredictable. The bit that gets me is the hardware in laptops / devices. Apple seem to take some care in antenna design etc, and appear to be fairly fast / reliable, but many device manufacturers stick in whatever, if you get a link then great, call it a day.
- rasz 3y ago
  Are you planning on discovering some new laws of physics?

moffkalast 3y ago

> focus of getting space laser communications Maybe there's a company in Israel that can help with that. ;)

awestroke 3y ago

The US will retaliate if somebody cuts a cable belonging to the EU? I'd be less surprised if the US were the ones doing the cutting

ajsnigrutin 3y ago
Considering the NordStreams and that they became a taboo topic in EU, a cut cable would mean a lot of finger-pointing and not much done.
- ta1243 3y ago
  When Shetland had two cuts the other month, disconnecting the entire island, I don't remember any finger pointing
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    Sometimes things like that are a demo of capabilities. Countries like to demo their war capabilities to other nations simply as a kinda-threat. Such demos help stop war happening, so I'm not against them. Wars only happen when two countries believe they will win a war. If one of those countries believes they will lose, they will just admit defeat before any actual fighting happens. If countries are aware of eachothers capabilities, there is less chance that both countries believe they will win.

roenxi 3y ago

> If cables are cut you can bet the US will retaliate which is why it hasn’t happened. What, like Nordstream? The risk is that the US cuts the cable when it benefits them. It is still a risk. Ditto for who is it who is going to be using the cables to spy on people.

ur-whale 3y ago

> If cables are cut you can bet the US will retaliate Unless it's the US doing the cutting, of course.

willvarfar 3y ago

It is claimed that cables are routinely cut and the US and Europe do not take obvious diplomatic nor military action. This was explored as a major topic in the Scandinavian TV investigation https://www.svtplay.se/uppdrag-granskning-skuggkriget https://www.svtplay.se/uppdrag-granskning-skuggkriget

darkclouds 3y ago

HP were were working with the british military on laser line of sight communication. If someone breaks the laser beam, you'll know about it. Certainly more secure than cables, but environment is a weak spot, smog, fog, leaves, etc etc.

rcarr 3y ago

I might be wrong, but I think with space there’s the potential for a Gravity (2013) style situation though, where if one satellite is blown up the debris could cause a chain reaction and take out a ton of other satellites?

dmoy 3y ago
It's called the Kessler syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome