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Sweden reports damage to Baltic Sea cable with Estonia
- reocha 3y agoUndersea cables seem like a perfect target, how does a state even ensure their cables aren't damaged by bad actors?
- 2rsf 3y agoDefine "ensure", you can easily damage any cable undersea or not and if anything under sea ones are harder to get to.
- RandomLensman 3y agoIt can't.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- toomuchtodo 3y agoYou can bury them deeper after being laid in trenches created using undersea ploughs or water jets. They will always be vulnerable where they came to shore though, unless you're going to bury them deep all the way to the equipment hut on the shore. There is undersea concrete available for vulnerable paths (both articulated blocks and a mix that can be grouted and will set underwater), but I believe that likely draws more unwanted attention to the asset's route without providing much more protection. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/cyber-defense-across-the-ocean-floor-the-geopolitics-of-submarine-cable-security/ https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/re... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9tRmJLOCdg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9tRmJLOCdg
- tivert 3y agoThose seem like a defense against accidental damage, but I don't see how burying a cable in a shallow trench or covering it with a few blocks of concrete will protect it from a "bad actor."
- toomuchtodo 3y agoAbsolutely, boils down to your threat model. If you are defending against a nation state actor, you are probably going to want to deploy underwater surveillance across the cable's length and station folks who can respond when someone nefarious shows up to chop chop. No security is absolute, you are either dissuading or slowing down an attacker based on their resources and available window of time. It's 42 miles/67km from Finland to Estonia across the Gulf of Finland, which does not seem challenging to defend vs cables crossing oceans. Sweden to Estonia is definitely a bit further. Finland and Estonia share a 1GW electrical interconnector (composed of two HVDC submarine cables, with a signed MOA for a third) Estonia is using to consume power from Finland's recently turned up nuclear generator. I am unaware if it is buried, but it is a strategic critical infra asset that likely requires defense. Its easy to overthink these problem spaces (imho), but I propose that Russia's current geopolitical posture adds an element of a wildcard necessitating the thought exercise. This infra can take months to build or repair, but only hours to cripple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estlink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estlink https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/EE?wind=false&solar=false https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/EE?wind=false&solar=fal... Example commercial system: https://electronica-submarina.com/protection-of-critical-infrastructures/ https://electronica-submarina.com/protection-of-critical-inf... Example US Navy military system SOSUS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOSUS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOSUS (which is suspected to be what detected the Titan submersible implosion)
- sandworm101 3y agoThe bad actors aren't down there with shovels and robots digging down into trenches. They are just like any other ship dragging an anchor across the bottom close to the cable. These cables are often deliberately laid far enough apart that, should they need to be serviced, they can be hauled up by dragging an anchor/hook until it snags the correct cable. So it is equally not difficult to attack a chosen cable with nothing more complex than an anchor, a long chain, and a handheld GPS.
- sandworm101 3y agoThey don't. Damage happens all the time. There is an entire industry for repairing these cables. The answer is to have multiple redundant lines to redirect traffic onto other paths, which is largely what the internet does.
- ugjka 3y agoUndersea cables get cut like 2 times a week anywhere around the world
- sidewndr46 3y agoTaiwan would love to know the answer to that as well!
- varjag 3y agoNaval patrols.
- sschueller 3y agoYou don't need "bad actors" when you already have plenty of idiots in captain chairs doing damage by dragging their anchors where they aren't supposed to etc.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoYou can't; a while ago, there were Russian ships hovering near an important undersea cable (iirc between Ireland and the US). But since that's international waters, they can't do anything. I'm 99% sure that all the cables have been identified and if the order is given, they will be cut. Along with all other infrastructure.
- petre 3y agoYes you van. Surveillance equipment, remotely activated tamper explosives, patrols, etc.
- rjzzleep 3y agoUp until now there were silent rules of engagement of not touching this sort of infrastructure. All that probably went out the window with the NS2 bombing, but it's still doubtful that Russia would have anything to do with it. They've been meticulously avoiding escalation with any NATO country. Even when Lithuania tried to block Kaliningrad they solved it through diplomacy.
- serpix 3y agoRussia does not do diplomacy. They lie, deny and threaten.
- mastax 3y ago> They've been meticulously avoiding escalation with any NATO country. Except for the constant threats of nuclear Armageddon, the sabotage of the Bulgarian munitions factory, ramming into a US drone over the Black Sea, shooting a missile at a British jet over the Black Sea, threatening to invade Gotland, threatening to invade Poland, violating Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian airspace. I’m probably forgetting some things, it’s been a long war.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thinkingemote 3y agoIn neal stephensons 1996 classic wired article Mother Earth Mother Board theres a bit in there about why cables are not attacked. " 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. " Are we now in the retaliation stage? https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ paywalled Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20151107094324/https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ https://web.archive.org/web/20151107094324/https://www.wired...
- N19PEDL2 3y agoRetaliation will be when someone cuts the cables connecting Kaliningrad to Russia.
- tpmx 3y agohttps://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-medvedev-says-moscow-now-has-free-hand-destroy-enemies-undersea-2023-06-14/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-medvedev-says-m... (June 14) Russia now has free hand to destroy undersea communications cables, Putin ally says
- lenkite 3y agoWell, Biden did say he would destroy Nordstream-2 and followed up, so Medvedev can deliver threats too. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/if-russia-invades-ukraine-there-will-be-no-nord-stream-2-biden-says-2022-02-07/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/if-russia-invades-uk...
- wolverine876 3y agoLook up the history of Medvedev's statements; there is a lot of extreme stuff.
- kjksf 3y agoStarlink enters the chat. Most people don't know but Starlink's ambition is to capture only a small part of retail market (a person buying a starlink terminal) but a big chunk of backbone traffic. That's why latest version of the satellites have lasers to beam data between satellites so that they don't need to go back and forth between satellites and base stations. That business will be direct competitor to under sea cables. Fun fact: light travels a bit faster in space than in an optic cable. Microsoft has already did partnership with Spacex for Azure: https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/digital-transformation/azure-space-partners-bring-deep-expertise-to-new-venture/ https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/digital-transform...
- dotnet00 3y agoI doubt Starlink has the bandwidth needed to beat out an underwater cable, it's good as a backup option though.
- andrewpolidori 3y agoI'm curious to know what is more expensive to roll out capacity for. starlink launches are expensive but so is doing work under the sea.
- sandworm101 3y agoStarlink uses wireless connections, be them laser or radio. That just cannot scale in the same way that fiber can. It's an apples and oranges comparison.
- davidmurdoch 3y agoWhy can't space optics scale as well as undersea fiber optics?
- ceejayoz 3y agoBecause there's a non-space part of the route you have to deal with. Lasers + clouds = unfun.
- Symmetry 3y agoI'm sort of assuming this was an attempt to tap the cables that went badly.
- pinko 3y agoThen why damage to the gas line?
- hef19898 3y agoGas is expensive, "they" wanted to tap that one, too.
- petre 3y agoWinter is coming, but climate change currently works against Russian blackmail attempts. The Ukrainians could blow off or simply close the Druzhba pipeline or any other pipeline going to Europe through their territory. But they don't.
- tialaramex 3y agoI doubt it, a huge proportion of all traffic these days is the Internet and BCP 188 means it doesn't matter whether you think you're the good guys. "Pervasive Monitoring is an Attack" When cables mostly moved unencrypted speech this was plausible but that hasn't been true for a long time.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- AndroTux 3y agoRelevant article from yesterday regarding which ships were near these cables and pipeline during the time of the event: https://news.err.ee/1609134998/chinese-vessel-even-nearer-to-balticconnector-pipeline-at-time-of-leak https://news.err.ee/1609134998/chinese-vessel-even-nearer-to...
- 2-718-281-828 3y agorather unlikely that a ship used for such an attack would make itself visible via AIS given that this isn't even mandatory to begin with.
- serf 3y agonot only is it not mandatory, it's fairly easily spoofed and has been for the sake of subterfuge in the past[0] [0]: https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/s_2019_171.pdf https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D2...
- 2-718-281-828 3y agoif all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
- dontbenebby 3y agoAre we gonna do the thing where anyone who says Putin can't do whatever he wants is "in the CIA" and thus suspect and force autistic teens to look up publicly available vessel navigation data with a glorified set of links over a Youtube that is a Bellingcat cert? This is a war, it's time to let military intelligence talk to whichever reporter they picked up at the start of their tour in a bar to feed the good leads and maybe wait a day or two for things that can wait.
- mjan22640 3y agoplease dont use autistic as an insult
- lawn 3y agoWhat a coincidence that this happened at the same time as the gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia. I wonder who could it be? Well, it's not really a mystery now is it?
- betaby 3y agoCable cuts near Singapore and Hong Kong are happening let say weekly and there is not much to investigate there: those are due to anchoring or trawling.
- belter 3y agoI bet Orcas have now something to do with it...
- HlessClaudesman 3y agoAfricanized Orcas...
- dewey 3y agoI'm sure you can see how this is a bit more newsworthy than regular cable cuts that are business as usual.
- mc32 3y agoDue to political opportunity to exploit a regular accident or sabotage opportunity?
- betaby 3y ago... and there as well https://www.iltalehti.fi/kotimaa/a/1cc1c10e-c137-4111-bd6e-220d9a237dd3 https://www.iltalehti.fi/kotimaa/a/1cc1c10e-c137-4111-bd6e-2...
- funnymony 3y agoSomewhat relevant. Estonia has a law that financial instutions should have servers located on Estonian soil. (Exactly for this kind of scenario)
- sandworm101 3y agoA great idea in principal, but having a local server doesn't necessarily mean said server will continue functioning once severed from the rest of the internet. Things like DNS and timing signals are an issue. Until it is tested, and retested after every update, I wouldn't trust any financial server to keep ticking along once so disconnected.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jjtheblunt 3y agoperhaps misunderstanding, but you could get time signals from GPS (or GLONASS)
- jazzyjackson 3y agosure, just a matter of what servers are configured to do ahead of time and what happens when assumptions fail - are the servers tested against a situation where they can't get the time as expected etc
- traceroute66 3y ago> you could get time signals from GPS (or GLONASS) You forgot to mention Galileo ... GLONASS may not be politically attractive :) But beyond the GNSS ecosystem, there are of course other interesting options: Safran STL[1] which uses LEO sats. Apparently it works well in places where you can't get a good GNSS signal (i.e. indoors without an external antenna). (This was previously Orolia STL, but they were acquired by Safran). Most national time labs also offer a leased-line service, e.g. NPL (UK)[2] There is also a very niche (read: VERY expensive) commercial timing-as-a-service product from a company called Hoptroff[3]. You license both the service/connection plus their software clients, so the $$$$$$ add up. Definitely one of those "if you have to ask you can't afford it" vendors. [1] https://safran-navigation-timing.com/product/stl-option https://safran-navigation-timing.com/product/stl-option [2] https://www.npl.co.uk/npltime https://www.npl.co.uk/npltime [3] https://www.hoptroff.com/ https://www.hoptroff.com/
- wolverine876 3y agoSweden is getting the worst of both worlds: Agression as a NATO member, without NATO membership.
- avgcorrection 3y agoIn journalism you put the most important (what you want readers to take away) at the top of the article. > Sweden said its undersea cable with Estonia was damaged at roughly the same time as a Finnish-Estonian pipeline and cable. Sweden and Finland have both moved to join NATO since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The rest of the article comes up with no evidence of (1) deliberateness except that it happened at about the same time as the Finland–Estonia one, nor (2) who it could have been if (1).
- nikolay 3y agoSince when DW is a place for good journalism?! I have the feeling that good and fair journalism today is almost completely extinct with some remanence of it in existence only in Great Britain!
- betaby 3y agoWell, the explanation is rather banal https://www.iltalehti.fi/kotimaa/a/1cc1c10e-c137-4111-bd6e-220d9a237dd3 https://www.iltalehti.fi/kotimaa/a/1cc1c10e-c137-4111-bd6e-2...
- jscipione 3y ago[flagged]