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Three of Vietnam's five undersea internet cables are down
- rurban 2y agoVideo streams out of Saigon still good
- tetrisgm 2y agoWho would be the most logical adversary who would cause this? Seems very unlikely for 3/5 to just happen.
- maxbond 2y agoI had the same reaction, but it looks like they might not be independent [1]. There's also this remark in the article: > Undersea internet cable problems are not rare in Vietnam, which early last year saw all of its five cables disrupted for weeks. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40711934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40711934
- chgs 2y agoThese things happen. A couple of months ago there were major problems. East Africa to Europe comms because of multiple failures. Not everything is a conspiracy or enemy actio. Sometimes it’s just bad luck.
- ethbr1 2y agoThat said, undersea cables do make a great gray warfare target. Tons of area to effect a break, and only need to break at a single point. Attribution is difficult due to most of the sea being unwatched by most countries. Economic impact, so less likely to result in escalation even if attributed. Commercial shipping breaks cables all the time, so excellent plausible deniability. End result: "a shame if something happened" situations like that Russian trawler doing back and forths across a Norwegian link.
- bee_rider 2y agoSurely nobody is stupid enough to mess with Vietnam at this point. It never goes well.
- newsclues 2y agoChina
- Arrath 2y agoIt need not be an adversary, these cables are just laid across the seabed aren't they? Uncaring dragnet fishermen could be a potential culprit. God knows they cause enough damage to everything else down there. Or as other commenters say, all three cables terminate in one city, so it could be a problem there.
- dkokelley 2y agoThere could be a common cause (all 3 cables terminate in the same city, could follow a similar path where a single event/failure occurred, etc.). Another possibility is that these cables provided an ideal training environment to test the capabilities of an adversary to cut off a region from the rest of the world. I'd think an adversary in wartime would cut all 5 cables. Vietnam could be the victim of an aggressor who just wants to practice/prove capabilities without much fear of repercussions. I don't know who would benefit from crippling Vietnam's internet infrastructure today, but it could still benefit another nation to see/prove that it could.
- viraptor 2y agoSharks https://www.vedantu.com/blog/why-are-sharks-attacking-marine-internet-cables https://www.vedantu.com/blog/why-are-sharks-attacking-marine...
- tetrisgm 2y agoDamn. Sharks vs Vietnam was not on my list, but it sounds like a great movie waiting to happen
- refurb 2y agoIn Vietnam, which seems to have internet “problems due to undersea cables” several times per year, it’s always “sharks”. Which is just code for “the government is doing it intentionally”. These “problems” seem to coincide with major political events.
- toast0 2y agoProbably sharks as someone else already posted. But could be backhoes; backhoes hate the internet.
- Arrath 2y agoToo specific, backhoes are opportunistic predators of any and all utilities.
- swader999 2y agoMy mom. She's been on a rant lately about me gaming too much.
- tetrisgm 2y agoWhy the down votes? It's a fair question to ask. It's not like we all know about the undersea cables in Vietnam, and the volume of the problem makes it plausible it'd be a state actor. It's OK to ask questions.
- maxbond 2y ago(ETA: See response, my hypothesis was incorrect.) Judging by this map: https://www.fiberatlantic.com/ https://www.fiberatlantic.com/ Three cables are connected to the city of Vūng Tàu, and the other two are further north. So there's probably a central point of failure in Vūng Tàu that gave out.
- alephnerd 2y agoThe AAG in Vung Tau is active. It's the AAE-1 (Vung Tau), TGN-IA (Vung Tau), and APG (Da Nang) that are down. Also, this happens all the time to VN because the southern portion of that Sea has heavy traffic from freight shippers, oil drilling vessels, fishing fleets, and ofc naval deployments. If you're ever flying from HK to ASEAN over the SCS on a clear day, it's a treat seeing all the ships relatively jam packed as far as the eye can see. Saigon Port and neighboring Vung Tau Port are themselves the busiest and 3rd busiest ports in VN. Most likely a freighter hit a single point of failure. VN has relatively few (5) undersea internet cables for the size of market it is (eg. Thailand has 8 cables, PH has 17, Myanmar has 4, Cambodia 3) and most are newish (last 15 years), but there are like 3-4 new undersea cable projects that should come online within the next year. Edit: AAE-1 has been down for months now because the MV Rubymar was hit by a Houthi missile and sank in the Red Sea cutting that and multiple other cables. In reality it's most likely a freighter that cut the TGN-IA and APG.
- maxbond 2y agoInteresting. I do see there's a point where TGN-1A and APG cross, so perhaps a ship dragged a net across both in that vicinity? I'm well out of my depth here, but I would imagine that ships don't drag their anchors very far, but might drag a net for a long distance. So if they were around the point where they overlap, they would only have to drag it a couple miles to hit both.
- alephnerd 2y agoI'm not a maritimer so I'm speculating, but it is a very active shipping corridor (33% of global shipping), so I wouldn't be surprised if someone messed with a net or anchor somewhere, and inadvertently cut both cables.
- hatthew 2y agoTangentially related: "The invisible seafaring industry that keeps the internet afloat." Article: https://www.theverge.com/c/24070570/internet-cables-undersea-deep-repair-ships https://www.theverge.com/c/24070570/internet-cables-undersea..., discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40075402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40075402
- dark-star 2y agoWell, if they were "up", they wouldn't be UNDER-sea cables now would they? Sorry... i'll show myself out
- Optimal_Persona 2y agoWell - I had no idea goose feathers were an appropriate medium for long-range data transmission. You learn something new every day!! ;-)
- whydoineedthis 2y agoI'm in Vietnam right now and the internet is blazing fast - way better than my Cox back home.
- wettywoop 2y agoCame here just to say F Cox internet! Screw them they’re such a trash ass ISP