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Russia a 'risk' to undersea cables, defence chief warns
The UK's most senior military officer has warned of a new threat posed by Russia to communications and internet cables that run under the sea. Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, the chief of the defence staff, said Britain and Nato needed to prioritise protecting the lines of communication. He said it would be an "immediately and potentially catastrophic" hit to the economy if they were cut or disrupted.
The cables criss-cross the seabed, connecting up countries and continents. [...] Speaking to the Royal United Services Institute defence think tank, Sir Stuart said the vulnerability of undersea lines posed a "new risk to our way of life".
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday December 16 2017, @08:27AM (1 child)
Like there aren't any other countries who don't like the USA or a (mostly) free Internet.
Remember that you don't have to damage the undersea cables where they come ashore. It's just easiest since the cables are in shallower water. Any nation with enough resources to operate in deeper water could pull it off. Hells, if it ever did happen I would have to wonder if it was a false flag op by the USA to make whatever county was Evil that week look bad. It would depend on when, where, how much it actually hurt the economies of the affected nations and who gets blamed within the first week.
I wouldn't be surprised if there were already some kind of "kill boxes" placed by some county or another on the cables in deeper water, ready to break them on a remote command.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 16 2017, @10:54AM
One of the things US Navy T-AGOS class cable repair ships were/are tasked with is the detecting and mapping of possible undersea mines in proximity to cable paths, primarily SOSUS-related cables but also civilian comms cable too.Much cheaper and less tedious than sending fancy attack subs to do it.
Most Soviet-era submarines were perfectly capable of deploying deep-sea "sleeper" mines at depths beyond the ability of non-destructive countermeasures. Unconfirmed rumors had it that some of said mines were fission weapons, but they were too easy to detect.
There is no reason to believe that any nation with a submarine couldn't lay whole baskets of explody easter eggs around undersea cables.
Child's play, really.