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posted by janrinok on Thursday November 21, @07:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-ultimate-in-cord-cutting dept.

EU leaders suspect sabatoge:

An internet cable connecting Finland to Germany and another one between Lithuania and Sweden, both running under the Baltic Sea, were cut within 24 hours of one another. While accidental damage on undersea cables happens, CNN says these are rare events. So, the disruption of two cables around 65 miles apart and happening nearly simultaneously is a sign of sabotage, says German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.

"Nobody believes that these cables were accidentally severed," said Pistorius. "We have to know that, without knowing specifically who it came from, that it is a hybrid action, and we also have to assume that, without knowing by whom yet, that this is sabotage." The Finnish and German foreign ministers have also issued a joint statement, saying, "The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicious of intentional damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times." They also add, "Our European security is not only under threat from Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors."

These events came a few months after NATO warned that Russia was developing strategies to disrupt the global internet, with the latter mapping undersea fiber optic cables as future reference. Right before the suspected sabotage occurred, the US government also recently allowed Ukraine to use some long-range US weapons to attack targets in the Kursk region inside Russia, enflaming tensions further and heightening suspicions of Russian involvement.

[...] Despite these attacks, internet disruption remains limited. Telia Lithuania, the company that runs the Lithuania-Sweden cable, says that the damaged cable handled about a third of Lithuania's internet capacity but that traffic has already been restored even though the cable is yet to be repaired. Cinia, the company behind Finland-Germany fiber optic cable, also confirmed that service through that line was down. It also said that its telecommunications network is run through multiple links, thus limiting disruption.

Update 11/20/2024 03:38 PT: The Danish Navy has boarded and detained the Chinese Bulk Carrier Yi Peng 3 in the Danish Straits, near the exit of the Great Belt, according to reports in Eurasia Daily and Defence24. The detention reportedly took place on the evening of November 18. Officials have not verified those reports, however. According to Financial Times sources, Swedish authorities are "carefully studying the Chinese vessel."

Related:


Original Submission

Related Stories

Could Russian Subs Stop the Internet? 23 comments

Inside the Pentagon and the nation's spy agencies, the assessments of Russia's growing naval activities are highly classified and not publicly discussed in detail. American officials are secretive about what they are doing both to monitor the activity and to find ways to recover quickly if cables are cut. But more than a dozen officials confirmed in broad terms that it had become the source of significant attention in the Pentagon.

"I'm worried every day about what the Russians may be doing," said Rear Adm. Frederick J. Roegge, commander of the Navy's submarine fleet in the Pacific, who would not answer questions about possible Russian plans for cutting the undersea cables.

Cmdr. William Marks, a Navy spokesman in Washington, said: "It would be a concern to hear any country was tampering with communication cables; however, due to the classified nature of submarine operations, we do not discuss specifics."

In private, however, commanders and intelligence officials are far more direct. They report that from the North Sea to Northeast Asia and even in waters closer to American shores, they are monitoring significantly increased Russian activity along the known routes of the cables, which carry the lifeblood of global electronic communications and commerce.

Just last month, the Russian spy ship Yantar, equipped with two self-propelled deep-sea submersible craft, cruised slowly off the East Coast of the United States on its way to Cuba — where one major cable lands near the American naval station at Guantánamo Bay. It was monitored constantly by American spy satellites, ships and planes. Navy officials said the Yantar and the submersible vehicles it can drop off its decks have the capability to cut cables miles down in the sea.

See also a BBC story here.


Original Submission

UK Official Warns of Russian Risk to Undersea Cables 33 comments

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".

Related: Brazil, Europe Direct Cable to avoid US spying
Undersea Cables Wiring the Earth
Spies Would Need SUPER POWERS to Tap Undersea Cables.
160 Tbps Transatlantic Cable Planned
Microsoft, Facebook, and Telxius Complete 160 Tb/s Atlantic Ocean Cable


Original Submission

Opinion: What's Really Up With Data Disconnects in the Deep Blue Sea? 11 comments

There's always a catch if you blame it on trawlers:

Both the Taiwanese island and the Vietnam outages have symbolic significance beyond the costs and inconvenience. Vietnam is profiting from technology companies wanting to diversify from reliance on China's manufacturing base, while Taiwan focuses China's increasingly militant ire for merely existing. As for Shetland, it may be a remote sheep poo repository, but it's also a key part of NATO's watch on Russian adventurism. It is home to RAF Saxa Vord, the UK's northernmost radar station, one that watches the key entrance to the North Atlantic between the UK and Iceland.

Is it plausible that some or all of the submarine cable breaks are deliberate attempts to unsettle rivals to Russia and China? It seems prime conspiracy theory territory, especially as the main victims of the Shetland break were crofters denied Netflix and shops unable to process contactless payments for whisky. Where's the evidence?

There are very good reasons that what is known isn't published. The unique vulnerability of the submarine cable network to sabotage and subterfuge was noted in 2020 by a confidential NATO report on US-Europe fiber connectivity. It was not good news: all of the cables are privately owned, so there was no cohesive security. Quite the opposite, as the precise locations of the cables, which carry 97 percent of US-Europe data, are public, and both Russia and China have been developing capabilities to disrupt underwater infrastructure.

NATO also said at the time that it was building capabilities to monitor and protect submarine cables, but at this point the politics of peacetime antagonism kicked in. It's hard to monitor the many thousand kilometers of fiber for physical attack, or to distinguish between an accidental snagging by a trawler from a deliberate state action, but these are skills that were finely honed in the Cold War and have not atrophied. Back then, the US deployed a huge undersea acoustic monitoring system called SOSUS to track Soviet submarines. It worked very well, and as the threat's still there it's fair to say that its replacement, augmented by intensive satellite and other electronic surveillance, is much better.

Chinese Ship's Crew Suspected of Deliberately Dragging Anchor for 100 Miles to Cut Baltic Cables 40 comments

Chinese Ship's Crew Suspected of Deliberately Dragging Anchor for 100 Miles to Cut Baltic Cables:

A Chinese commercial vessel that has been surrounded by European warships in international waters for [several weeks] is central to an investigation of suspected sabotage that threatens to test the limits of maritime law—and heighten tensions between Beijing and European capitals.

Investigators suspect that the crew of the Yi Peng 3 bulk carrier—225 meters long, 32 meters wide and loaded with Russian fertilizer—deliberately severed two critical data cables last week as its anchor was dragged along the Baltic seabed for over 100 miles.

Their probe now centers on whether the captain of the Chinese-owned ship, which departed the Russian Baltic port of Ust-Luga on Nov. 15, was induced by Russian intelligence to carry out the sabotage. It would be the latest in a series of attacks on Europe's critical infrastructure that law-enforcement and intelligence officials say have been orchestrated by Russia.

"It's extremely unlikely that the captain would not have noticed that his ship dropped and dragged its anchor, losing speed for hours and cutting cables on the way," said a senior European investigator involved in the case.

Related: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=24/11/20/2252220


Original Submission

Baltic Undersea Cable Likely Damaged by External Force, Latvia Says 21 comments

An undersea fiber optic cable between Latvia and Sweden was damaged on Sunday, likely as a result of external influence, Latvia said, triggering an investigation by local and NATO maritime forces in the Baltic Sea:

"We have determined that there is most likely external damage and that it is significant," Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina told reporters following an extraordinary government meeting.

Latvia is coordinating with NATO and the countries of the Baltic Sea region to clarify the circumstances, she said separately in a post on X.

Latvia's navy earlier on Sunday said it had dispatched a patrol boat to inspect a ship and that two other vessels were also subject to investigation.

From Zerohedge's coverage:

Over the past 18 months, three alarming incidents have been reported in which commercial ships traveling to or from Russian ports are suspected of severing undersea cables in the Baltic region.

Washington Post recently cited Western officials who said these cable incidents are likely maritime accidents - not sabotage by Russia and/or China.

Due to all the cable severing risks, intentional and unintentional, a report from late November via TechCrunch [linked by submitter] said Meta planned a new "W" formation undersea cable route around the world to "avoid areas of geopolitical tension."

Related:


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by pTamok on Thursday November 21, @07:45PM (15 children)

    by pTamok (3042) on Thursday November 21, @07:45PM (#1382751)

    That the Danes have boarded a Chinese registered* vessel. China has a tendency to respond to things they can describe as 'provocations', so the Danes must have very good reasons for doing so.

    The largest container ships in the world are owned and operated by Mærsk, a Danish company - modifying the schedule of one of those costs Mærsk a lot of money, and I wouldn't put it past the Chinese to indulge in a little tit-for-tat. I'm sure that Maersk are not happy at this turn of events.

    If a Chinese ship has being doing sabotage ( a big if ), then what does that say about the relationship between the Chinese and the Russians, for example.

    All very odd.

    *I'm assuming it is Chinese registered

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Frosty Piss on Thursday November 21, @08:46PM

      by Frosty Piss (4971) on Thursday November 21, @08:46PM (#1382753)

      Since the majority of cheap Chinese consumer crap is shipped all over the world for the most part on Mærsk, perhaps Mærsk has more leverage than you think.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Thursday November 21, @09:04PM (1 child)

      by VLM (445) on Thursday November 21, @09:04PM (#1382761)

      then what does that say about the relationship between the Chinese and the Russians

      Possibly a lot, but possibly nothing at all, after all the best way to test a new weapon is to be certain someone else will get blamed.

      Going the other way around, in the modern era of cheap OTDR to measure the location of a break accurate to the meter almost instantly, and AIS monitoring the position of ships accurate to the meter, it does take a certain kind of stupid to float right over the top of your own weapon deployment; so possibly it indicates there's no relationship at all because it would be "ha ha funny" to make the Chinese take all the blame. OTOH if they were an innocent merchant they'd want to get inspected and get the heck out of there because they have commerce to do; so being all "weird" about it would almost prove they were up to something.

      Also never overlook the incredible power of human stupidity and mere coincidence. Whoops a Daisy forgot to tighten the clamps on our shipping container full of collectible "Supreme" lead bricks and it landed on top of somebodies fiber... what me worry? Oh no that wasn't me I was just innocently sailing right overhead LOLs.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Thursday November 21, @10:59PM

        by krishnoid (1156) on Thursday November 21, @10:59PM (#1382781)

        Two crushes or breaks within 24 hours of each other, maybe. Two cuts in that time period, you're getting up there [goodreads.com].

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 21, @09:09PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 21, @09:09PM (#1382764)

      This is not the first time a Chinese ship cut marine cables around there, intentionally (don't get me started on any bullshit excuses), for their orc friends.
      ------
      Slava Ukraini! Slay the orcs!

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Thursday November 21, @09:24PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 21, @09:24PM (#1382766) Journal

        The age of men is over. The time of the Orc has come.

        --
        Fact: We get heavier as we age due to more information in our heads. When no more will fit it accumulates as fat.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by corey on Thursday November 21, @09:17PM

      by corey (2202) on Thursday November 21, @09:17PM (#1382765)

      Yeah I didn’t see that it’s been boarded yet. Just watched.

      But I’ve seen interesting discussions and opinions that the Chinese are more involved in Ukraine than we realise. Firstly, NK can’t do anything without approval from Uncle Winnie. They have engaged in the Ukraine invasion completely (armament, troops).

      Smells like some geopolitics at play.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by driverless on Thursday November 21, @10:03PM (8 children)

      by driverless (4770) on Thursday November 21, @10:03PM (#1382772)

      The big question about ever-popular blame-China is why would they do this? I mean, you can invent all sorts of conspiracy theories but why would they engage in something that's pure provocation while having almost no effect apart from the provocation itself?

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Thursday November 21, @10:31PM (6 children)

        by krishnoid (1156) on Thursday November 21, @10:31PM (#1382778)

        Testing the [sic] waters?

        • (Score: 2) by RedGreen on Friday November 22, @12:30AM (5 children)

          by RedGreen (888) on Friday November 22, @12:30AM (#1382794)

          "Testing the [sic] waters?"

          Exactly seeing how far the spineless bastards we have in charge will let them go, same as their Russian, Iranian and North Korean buddies have been doing. So far they have proven the slimy bastards we have in charge will do as little as possible to defend our interests. They are more than happy to allow it to happen as long as their parasite corporate buddies get to make boat loads of cash exploiting their slave labour to kill our jobs. Keeping the compliant little serfs in check in our countries they want.

          --
          "I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
          • (Score: 2, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 22, @01:13AM (4 children)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday November 22, @01:13AM (#1382799)

            BRICS is more than a currency, it's choosing a side.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
            • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22, @08:06AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22, @08:06AM (#1382813)

              BRICS doesn't have a currency, has no plans to have a currency, and there is no feasible pathway to having a currency. Adopting a national currency as an exchange unit would give one country undue power and influence on top of introducing a single point of failure, which is against the wishes of many members and prospective members who suffer under the "rules based order". Creating a currency solely for the purposes of exchange can also introduces vulnerabilities (currency trading/speculation attacks) unless it's for purely internal accounting use, in which case it wouldn't be available for the vast majority of commercial trade between members. The members also don't want to be too closely tied together or forced into circumstances where they can't afford to take their ball and go home - not an alliance or political organization, everyone just wants to facilitate trade between each other.

            • (Score: 3, Touché) by fraxinus-tree on Friday November 22, @08:08AM (2 children)

              by fraxinus-tree (5590) on Friday November 22, @08:08AM (#1382814)

              Since when BRICS is a currency? Do you know anyone trading in BRICS? A bank serving loans and deposits in BRICS? Coinage or notes issued? Exchange rates to some other currency, at least?

              • (Score: 4, Funny) by driverless on Friday November 22, @11:44AM

                by driverless (4770) on Friday November 22, @11:44AM (#1382829)

                Do you know anyone trading in BRICS?

                About 180 million Minecraft players?

              • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 22, @12:21PM

                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday November 22, @12:21PM (#1382837)

                Well, technically one might call it an anti-currency then. A central theme of BRICS (as written up in the news sources I have seen) is to break the US dollar's hegemony.

                --
                🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Friday November 22, @01:27PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 22, @01:27PM (#1382848) Journal
        Or pure incompetence. Someone may have dragged an anchor more than 65 miles.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Thursday November 21, @08:01PM (1 child)

    by looorg (578) on Thursday November 21, @08:01PM (#1382752)

    I have not seen anything about any boarding the vessel as of yet. It's more or less just being told to stay, under the watchful eye of the Danish navy. The Swedish navy and coastguard has examined both spots and sent reports to the involved parties. It's somewhat suspicious that it's one ship passing both spots at more or less the same time as each of them break.

    It doesn't seem to be a very important cable and it has not had any significantly bad effects on traffic. That have already been rerouted. Possibly those routes are significant somehow, to someone -- as in they might not be the usual cables that gets monitored for traffic. Still it says something about how quickly they are responded to and what kind of action is taken. So as a test it makes sense.

    It's a Chinese ship with a Russian captain, that seems like somewhat of an odd combination.

    Everyone suspected and blamed denies all involvement. Which is very reminiscent of when the Nord Stream pipes just sort of magically blew themselves up ...

    (google translate at your own leisure)
    https://omni.se/forsta-preliminart-resultat-har-skickats-till-polisen/a/dRrGGB [omni.se]
    https://omni.se/kina-nekar-till-kabelsabotage/a/ala37a [omni.se]

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Frosty Piss on Thursday November 21, @08:52PM

      by Frosty Piss (4971) on Thursday November 21, @08:52PM (#1382757)

      It doesn't seem to be a very important cable and it has not had any significantly bad effects on traffic.

      Perhaps it's simply a "proof of concept" as in "Hey people, we can do this if we want. The Orcs are on shaky ground politically. Regardless of how the Orange Orangutan feels at any particular second, the EU may have different ideas.

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 21, @09:58PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 21, @09:58PM (#1382769)

    Nobody dares to question the Americans, possibly operating submersibles. No, they would never want to provoke anything, right? Even if it's to sabotage the incoming administration's agenda?

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Rich on Thursday November 21, @11:12PM (5 children)

    by Rich (945) on Thursday November 21, @11:12PM (#1382784) Journal

    The cuts themselves are a minor to medium annoyance and, unlike gas pipelines, can be repaired in weeks.

    The classic American way is that some fishing boat accidentally cuts a cable with its anchor, and before the cut is repaired, the USS Jimmy Carter splices a tap elsewhere into the cable. (Point being that it's much easier to insert the tap into a dead than into a live cable). E.g. a somewhat recent case in the mediterranian, off shore Egypt.

    So the investigation after such an incident shouldn't be finger pointing at the enemy-du-jour, but instant surveillance of the entire cable run to figure out where a tap might be inserted, and who tries to do it. As of today, the only known perpetrator is the US, but the Chinese certainly want to catch up in this area and might have given it a try. I don't think the Russian navy is in a state to pull off the splicing.

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by vux984 on Friday November 22, @12:30AM (1 child)

      by vux984 (5045) on Friday November 22, @12:30AM (#1382795)

      Why do you say that? Russia has recently deployed a bunch of ships to the bottom of the sea. ;)

      • (Score: 2) by Rich on Friday November 22, @02:56AM

        by Rich (945) on Friday November 22, @02:56AM (#1382800) Journal

        Well, obviously, they have to splice their ships before they can splice any cables.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by pTamok on Friday November 22, @09:13AM (1 child)

      by pTamok (3042) on Friday November 22, @09:13AM (#1382819)

      There's not a lot of point in tapping an optical fibre, unless you have the means to get (at least some of) the data copied elsewhere.

      From the bottom of the sea, that is rather difficult.

      You either need another optical fibre capable of carrying the volume of data you generate going away and landing somewhere friendly, or you need some kind of data processing facility that analyses the tapped data and sends a summary (how - usb drives floated up occasionally?) somewhere. Then the problem becomes how to power the data-processing filtering capability. Powering sub-sea communications cables is an art in itself.

      I'm not saying it can't be done. It's just rather difficult.

      It is a lot easier to add a tap at the landing point, with the full knowledge of the landing-point's government. Even better if you share all the data with the landing-points government. It, of course, need not be publicised.

      I know certain governments require all cross-border communications systems to have a 'government tap', financed by whoever is installing the system. You can't refuse.

      Rather than installing a tap, the obvious thing to do is to install a non-attributable cable-cutter that can be triggered remotely at some point in the future. Even better if it can be installed in such a way that a ROV inspection won't easily find it. Triggering such a cutter while somebody else's 'interesting' ship is overhead just 'muddies the waters' so to speak. Just having the facility to disrupt somebody else's communications, if deemed necessary, is also useful.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Friday November 22, @12:04PM

        by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday November 22, @12:04PM (#1382832)

        A lot of the North/Baltic Sea can be reached by divers

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23, @03:55AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23, @03:55AM (#1382943)
      Another classic American way is to get someone else to do it and make it look like someone else did it.

      I mean which of you believe the Western media that the Russians blew up those gas pipelines when they could have just shut off supply and achieved the same thing if not more since they can easily turn the gas supply back on.

      It's like your power company blowing up their power cables because they are unhappy with you, instead of just shutting off supply and asking you to do what they want before they resupply power to you.
  • (Score: 1) by pTamok on Friday November 22, @08:56AM (2 children)

    by pTamok (3042) on Friday November 22, @08:56AM (#1382818)

    As far as I can determine (which isn't very far), it looks like the Chinese ship has not been boarded, so the original article should have it's update modified, as it is giving the wrong impression. The link under 'Update' says nothing about boarding when I read it about 5 minutes ago.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Friday November 22, @11:54AM (1 child)

      by pTamok (3042) on Friday November 22, @11:54AM (#1382830)

      OK, this site reports that a pilot was accepted on board, which is not quite the same as boarding by military personnel.

      Maritime News: Bulk Carrier “Yi Peng 3” Suspected in Sabotage of Undersea Cables in the Baltic Sea [marinetraffic.com]

      MarineTraffic data confirms that a Danish pilot boarded the ship on 19 November at 07.53 UTC.

      This article RIPE Labs: Does the Internet Route Around Damage? - Baltic Sea Cable Cuts [ripe.net] says that the first cable (BSC East-West Interlink) stopped working at just before 08:00 UTC on 17th November, and the second (C-Lion1) stopped working at a little after 02:00 UTC on the 18th November.

      According to the first article, the no AIS signals were received from the ship between 15:11:24 UTC and 22:41:44 UTC on the 17th. There are maps of the AIS track in the article. I don't have links to a map showing the disposition of the BSC and C-Lion cables to compare with the reported ship track (note, what is reported by AIS might not correspond with reality).

      • (Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday November 23, @03:00PM

        by looorg (578) on Saturday November 23, @03:00PM (#1382989)

        There seems to be a bit of a build up of ships arriving tho. The Danish are there, the Germans arrived this morning, the Swedish left port this morning to. So unless they are all out there by accident having a bit of look they could be building up towards something.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22, @03:55PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22, @03:55PM (#1382876)

    >>Despite these attacks, internet disruption remains limited.

    Remember the internet was designed to route around nukes. That's one thing from DARPA well worth the investment.

    • (Score: 2) by gnuman on Saturday November 23, @10:22PM

      by gnuman (5013) on Saturday November 23, @10:22PM (#1383082)

      Remember the internet was designed to route around nukes. That's one thing from DARPA well worth the investment.

      Was designed vs. is designed are two different things. The current internet *is not* designed to route around nukes. The NOCs are all basically in cities ...

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