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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:
- Opinion: What's Really Up With Data Disconnects in the Deep Blue Sea?
- UK Official Warns of Russian Risk to Undersea Cables
- Could Russian Subs Stop the Internet?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Rich on Thursday November 21, @11:12PM (5 children)
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)
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
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)
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
A lot of the North/Baltic Sea can be reached by divers
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23, @03:55AM
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.