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Submarine cables linking Africa-Asia-Europe severed
- 10u152 3y agoI don’t know enough to speak to the geopolitical issues, but from a technical aspect, repair of this won’t be cheap or fast.
- julienfr112 3y agoEven more so if you have houdis drones buzzing around.
- ptero 3y agoWhy? An honest question, I thought undersea cable repair is a common, straightforward procedure. In this case the repair ship might need some air defense, but US or UK could easily provide that.
- newsclues 3y agoIt’s a high risk job even with naval escort. Risk drives up prices.
- baq 3y agoWelding undersea fiber under fire isn't in any of the technicians' job description, so while they say that everybody has a price, it's possible that the bid-ask is wide enough that you could park an Ever Given sideways there and there'd still be room. These folks probably make enough already.
- lobsterthief 3y agoSo then it’s possible a US military option (involving the Army Corp of Engineers) will be required to fix it. Those soldiers have experience doing work in the line of fire and have no ability to refuse.
- hnbad 3y agoBased on news coverage I've read: - 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.
- stoltzmann 3y agoThey're actually not booked out a long time in advance. Usually in case of a fiber cut on a major subsea cable, the crews will be out to fix it within a couple days at max. 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.
- nubinetwork 3y agoOther related threads https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39506931 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39506931 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39518045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39518045
- raverbashing 3y agoSounds like the sources of financing need some kinectic disincentive as well
- miyuru 3y agoI am in South Asia and some Europe bound traffic goes though US and Japan now.
- ActionHank 3y agowow
- pelagicAustral 3y agoLets just quickly blame someone and then make the investigation inconclusive.
- op00to 3y agoThe Houthis themselves threatened to cut cables.
- zmgsabst 3y agoI think that’s part of the joke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVbEoZXhCrM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVbEoZXhCrM https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/7/sweden-ends-nord-stream-probe-citing-lack-of-jurisdiction https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/7/sweden-ends-nord-str... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68401870 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68401870
- baq 3y agoIt's US. Or Russia. Or Iran. Or China. I blame our great leaders who can't figure out that peace is better than war.
- actionfromafar 3y agoSome are more equal than others.
- fuoqi 3y ago[flagged]
- mulmen 3y ago> (if you seriously believe that Russia has blown up its own pipeline in the NATO backwater, we have nothing to discuss). The only thing to discuss is evidence.
- actualwitch 3y agoSo in this thread we have one person claiming out of nowhere that one attack on underwater infrastructure is definitely a false flag, and you are claiming that another one is definitely not a false flag, all without a shred of evidence. How is this any better than just piping llm outputs directly to comment box? This sort of discussion is worthless.
- zmgsabst 3y agoThis would be claiming that it is a false flag: The US blew up a Russian-German pipeline and then blamed Russia.
- lock-the-spock 3y agoYou should probably put this in quotes as OOP is disseminating russian propaganda.
- spacebanana7 3y agoI find it quite interesting - these discussions show that underwater warfare is much more like cyber warfare than air/land/surface sea. Attribution is genuinely difficult. Conclusive evidence is scarce. And to the extent it exists we're stuck with sources that aren't impartial. Arguments about motives & rationality add some value, but they don't create broad consensus.
- lock-the-spock 3y agoSorry but you seem to be repeating russian war propaganda. The U.S. sabotaging north stream makes zero sense and Russia was already arbitrarily and randomly limiting supply through North stream for months before. That Russia was involved is pretty much fact and established by several western intelligence reports. The only other possible part with a good cause would be Ukraine but they'd be stupid to sabotage the pipeline and alienate all their essential allies.
- arnavpraneet 3y ago[flagged]
- hnburnsy 3y agohttps://subtelforum.com/houthis-hit-underwater-communications-cables/ https://subtelforum.com/houthis-hit-underwater-communication...
- baq 3y agoWonder if the Spaceship will allow Musk to send up a serious satellite-based backhaul option. Sounds like there'll be some money to be made there, perhaps sooner than anticipated...
- tomalbrc 3y agoYou mean SpaceX? AFAIK Musk is nothing more but a shareholder at this point. Maybe you mean Gwynne Shotwell
- the_duke 3y agoYou mean https://www.starlink.com/ https://www.starlink.com/ ?
- throwaway31416 3y agoReplacing entire bundles of fiber connectivity that is most likely in the 100 Terabit range per cable with space based solutions is not economical. Laws of physics still apply even to space based connectivity technologies.
- baq 3y agoYeah I mean the whole point of my post is that maybe with laser inter-satellite links and a super heavy lift capability it might become economical at least for some use cases. E.g. the Pentagon might be quite interested.
- 3y ago
- throw0101b 3y agoSeacom has confirmed to some press outlets service issues (though they have not said anything about a cause): > 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 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://www.benjamindada.com/seacom-cable-damage-red-sea/ * https://techcentral.co.za/seacom-is-down-in-the-red-sea/240276/ 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/ 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/File:SEACOM_Global_Network.png * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEACOM_(African_cable_system)#Landing_points https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEACOM_(African_cable_system)#...
- cm2187 3y agoHow can they even technically achieve that? You need to locate the exact location and drop some charges at presumably fairy deep depths Are these cables accessible by divers?
- rightbyte 3y agoWhy make it complicated. You pull an anchor along the bottom of the ocean and cut the cable. 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.
- T-A 3y agohttps://news.usni.org/2024/02/19/houthi-lethal-underwater-drones-adds-new-threat-to-red-sea https://news.usni.org/2024/02/19/houthi-lethal-underwater-dr...
- Gare 3y agoBab-el-Mandeb strait is quite shallow, deepest part is only 310 m, with less than 200 m average depth.
- dvh 3y agoThis really makes China look weak.
- OJFord 3y agoI think this might be the cleanest-looking, fastest news site I've ever seen. 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.
- Waterluvian 3y agoIt loads fast but the article is still only 1/4 of the page.
- OJFord 3y agoI think maybe people are misunderstanding my second sentence. 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.
- 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." This rule was broken last year and it will happen again with more and more frequency.
- josefresco 3y agoWouldn’t it be almost impossible to assign blame? The ocean is big and submarines are not easy to find. Maybe if you had other evidence like SIGINT?
- vidarh 3y agoPeople will assign blame whether or not they have proof. E.g. the threshold for blaming the Houthi's like the article does is near zero since "everyone" already see them as a threat in the area, so assigning blame or not is down to how much force Western powers will use, not whether or not they use it.
- Moru 3y agoAll it takes is a ship "forgetting" to raise the anchor and running it over the cable, snapping it. Might have happened outside Finland last year [1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/estonia-says-chinese-ship-is-main-focus-probe-into-cables-damage-2023-11-10/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/estonia-says-chinese-sh...
- perihelions 3y agoAlso happened in Anguilla (Caribbean Sea) last year—some rich person's yacht ran over the ECFS cable [0]. Google went in afterwards and tested one of their moonshot projects—free-space laser communications [1]—as a temporary backhaul. [0] https://theanguillian.com/2023/02/rapid-response-from-flow-restores-major-outage-caused-by-sub-sea-fiber-break/ https://theanguillian.com/2023/02/rapid-response-from-flow-r... [1] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231101666271/en/Liberty-Networks-Deploys-Taara%E2%80%99s-Wireless-Optical-Communication-Technology-To-Increase-High-Capacity-Connectivity-In-The-Eastern-Caribbean-Region https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231101666271/en/Lib...
- stevenAthompson 3y agoWhat did they hope to accomplish by making the world slightly worse?
- ynniv 3y agoWho is "they"? Cite your sources and show your work.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Majestic121 3y agoFrom the article, "they" obviously implies the Houthis
- ynniv 3y agoIf you want to understand why something happened, you'll need to look a lot deeper than that. Asking why the Houthis would cut a cable is accepting the assumption that they did.
- pjc50 3y agohttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68231945 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68231945 (note date)
- ynniv 3y agoCould the Houthis sabotage these lines? They almost certainly would if they could. ... 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?
- josefresco 3y agoIt would benefit a budding satellite ISP to suddenly have a critical “land line“ in an active war zone severed and their long term sustainability questioned.
- batch12 3y agoAre you implying that starlink cut the cable or am I misunderstanding you?
- josefresco 3y agoNot Starlink directly of course, but a state or entity who will mutually benefit. Given Elon's recent public statements, I don't think I need to specify who.
- elzbardico 3y agoIf you can't see this is a false flag from Israel and/or the US, I have a bridge to sell to you.
- csomar 3y agoThe US doesn't need reasons to invade Yemen. In fact, the weak media coverage makes me suspect that they don't want to escalate by not making a big deal out of it.
- elzbardico 3y agoWho said Yemen? The prize for the neocons is Iran.
- csomar 3y agoThey need less reasons for Iran; they already have a truck load of casus belli. The reason they want to avoid a larger conflict with Iran is because a land mission is impossible. They already got kicked out of Afghanistan/Iraq by Iranian proxies.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoThe Taliban are not Iranian proxies, as far as I can tell. If you claim they are, I'd like to see some sources.
- pjc50 3y agoThe neocons are not currently in power, and the Republicans have been taken over by a much weirder faction.
- elzbardico 3y agoThey are not? What about Victoria Nuland, the Kagan Brothers and all other straussians that are always close to the power no matter which faction from the Uniparty is currently occupying the White House?
- _8j50 3y agoI suppose a proxy war between the westand Iran via Yemen is inevitable for 2025 now. Why they would piss of China and India as well I have no idea. US will see more internet traffic now which is nice for the US. Maybe they want to ambush the slow repair vessels that will have to come that way? It can take them a couple of months at times to arrive. There isn't a whole lot of them, they cost in the 100's of millions to construct as well.
- mc32 3y agoThese incidents are interesting due to because of how people like to assign blame or not. 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.
- sharpshadow 3y agoMaybe because the Houthis clearly stated that all their efforts are linked to the Gaza conflict.
- lock-the-spock 3y agoNothing illogical, Russia had been limiting supply due to supposed technical reasons for months before, with a clear intention to empty European/German reserves. Look at the charts of gas flows and storage prior to the war and the literally hindreds or news articles on this.
- hnbad 3y agoI'm 50/50 on whether Nordstream 2 was Russia or someone opposed to Russia because Russia's response to it has been indistinguishable from its usual disinfo dance when trying to shift blame for something they have done. I don't think it made strategic sense but neither did invading Ukraine (and especially not right before the start of mud season). 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.
- mc32 3y agoThe difference I’m seeing is on one there is a readiness to accept attribution despite the uncertainty and in the other there is a reluctance to accept attribution even if the likelihood is slightly higher (they said they’d do something like this —which certainly would need some confirmation).
- maaaaattttt 3y agoMaybe too tangential, but here is my question anyways: 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. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fon_Wireless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fon_Wireless
- zmgsabst 3y agoI think you’re looking for community mesh networks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_networking 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Wireless But they’re doing a crypto one too — maybe that’ll work better. https://www.helium.com/ https://www.helium.com/ There’s also a HAM radio option. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMPRNet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMPRNet
- bigfishrunning 3y agoHam radio is kind of the only (legal) option for any kind of range. Everyone should get a license and practice up.
- westmeal 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]