Microsoft, Facebook, and Telxius have completed the Marea subsea cable, which connects Virginia Beach, Virginia, U.S. to Bilbao, Spain:
The Marea cable's new "open" design allows it to evolve with technology, ensuring the highest performance for users now and well into the future, even as the global population of internet users grows. And make no mistake, the demand is growing. Just think of the many high-bandwidth applications and content you use today such as Skype and Facebook Live, and the volume of streaming videos, movies and music consumed daily. This ability to interoperate with many different kinds of networking equipment brings significant benefits including lower costs and easier equipment upgrades, leading to faster growth in bandwidth rates.
Completed in less than two years — nearly three times faster than is typical — Marea is a powerful example of the important role the private sector has to play in connecting the world. It also set a new standard for subsea cables because it is designed to meet today's demand and evolve with the progress of tomorrow, allowing companies offering digital services to be better equipped to handle cross-border internet traffic, which is expected to increase eightfold by 2025.
VentureBeat notes:
Elsewhere, Google and Facebook last year partnered on a new submarine cable project between Los Angeles and Hong Kong, while a new Google-backed transpacific internet cable from Japan to Oregon opened for business. Earlier this year, Google revealed it was also backing Indigo, a new undersea cable between Asia and Australia.
It was no surprise to learn that Amazon — a competitor in the cloud services space alongside Google and Microsoft — made its first major subsea cable investment last year when it plowed money into the transpacific Hawaiki cable, which should improve latency for Amazon Web Services (AWS) users in Australia and New Zealand.
[...] Though the cable should help bring greater speeds to connections between North America and Europe, it may also have a knock-on effect for Asia and Africa, which are connected via the same landmass.
Also at PC Magazine, eWeek, ZDNet, and Data Center Knowledge.
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(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday September 24 2017, @01:40AM (7 children)
Is this for faster spying and hacking by the NSA?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Sunday September 24 2017, @02:00AM (6 children)
Yup. Cable taps courtesy of the USS Jimmy Carter.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/07/the-creepy-long-standing-practice-of-undersea-cable-tapping/277855/ [theatlantic.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday September 24 2017, @03:22AM (3 children)
Jimmie is based in Washington State.
I remember reading about this cable being much harder to tap because of the construction of the cable shield itself. But that probably doesn't matter these days since Google found out that the NSA was tapping their inter-datacenter traffic, and decided to encrypt everything
Of course even that is mostly for show because they roll over for every NSA letter these days.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Sunday September 24 2017, @09:47AM
To be precise, Jimmy is based at Bangor on Hood Canal, which connects to all that other wavy, watery stuff. Subs pretty much go wherever there's enough H2O. Sneaky buggers.
There's also the resource of T-ARC type craft like the USNS Zeus (conveniently based at Norfolk), which ostensibly serves to help maintain the SOSUS system but is quite capable of "repairing" oceanic fiber optic lines. Similar commercial craft can easily be contracted by No Such Agency. Always money for a few small "repairs".
Sure the TLA's have lots of intercept vectors, but TFA relates directly to oceanic means.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @03:37PM (1 child)
"Google found out that the NSA was tapping their inter-datacenter traffic, and decided to encrypt everything"
while they were acting so outraged about their own stupidity(or complicity) in not encrypting their users' data to begin with they were on year 8 or so of "strong arming" the whole internet to use tls1.0 because they wouldn't ever update googlebot to use tlsv1.1 and v1.2. this was while people had to temporarily downgrade to rc4 to avoid beast, even though rc4 was probably breakable by the nsa. rc4 was only necessary when one couldn't use tlsv1.1 or 1.2. later, it was solved client side but for a while millions were just vulnerable. one could have chosen to be vulnerable to beast instead of rc4 breaking but you get the point. also, the whole point of beast could have been "kettling" people to rc4. either way, google is a prism partner and was more than doing it's part when this whole "outrage" happened.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 25 2017, @10:37AM
If anyone didn't know, Microsoft is also part of PRISM. [aclu.org]
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Sunday September 24 2017, @02:44PM (1 child)
Why would they bother tapping it underwater? One end of it is inside mainland USA. They'll just tap it there.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Sunday September 24 2017, @04:07PM
You don't need a NSL or warrant from FISA under water.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @01:51AM
Pr0n
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday September 24 2017, @02:43AM (4 children)
While I don't know much, or anything, about bathymetry (underwater topography) it does look a bit odd to draw cable from Virginia Beach to Bilbao. It's not exactly the shortest route. If one look at the map it seems to be almost in France and then they just decide to pull it back down to Spain. Drawing it to Portugal looks to be a shorter distance to. I guess Microsoft and Facebook except to serve a lot of queries from Spain.
Also Bilbao is the largest city in the Basque country. I'm sure that after decades of fighting domestic terrorism with/vs ETA there is no short supply of various intelligence operatives, analysts and suitable facilities in the area for a tapping station. After all ETA is supposed to have disarmed in April of 2017 so they must have something else to fill their days with. Such as Facebook monitoring for terrorists or something similar.
https://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/submarine-cable/marea [submarinecablemap.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday September 24 2017, @03:43AM
Don't discount last minute political, tax or legal wrangling.
That last leg is chump change.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @08:03AM
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=13764&cid=351841#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Sunday September 24 2017, @01:08PM (1 child)
After Snowden, there was talk about drawing a cable from Brazil to Spain or Portugal, which makes a lot more sense.
That would presumably bypass US influence.
So suddenly now there's a convenient cable between USA and Spain, and built in 1/3 the normal building time, like they were a bit in a hurry :-)
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @07:42PM
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
(Score: 2) by lx on Sunday September 24 2017, @04:04AM (1 child)
-Cable?
-Cable fully operational sir!
-Wiretaps?
-Taps are in place and functional.
-Evil bit?
-Evil bit set.
-OK let's do this.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday September 24 2017, @08:25AM
(Oh, shit. Somebody encrypted the evil bit!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @03:23PM
"Just think of the many high-bandwidth applications and content you use today such as Skype and Facebook Live"
lmao!