I have just scanned this whole thread - it is the most amazing analysis of technical details I have e ver seen national security also sean I am taking this in the sense of what the hell could these russian diplomats be doing? I have been a nanog reader since this list began in the spring of 1995 i believe remember i am parsing comments from the russian side as well i met aleksei soldatov at the kurchatov institute for the first time in april 1992. about 3 days earlier i met the demos guys who told soldatov suggested to soldatov that he should met me at kurchatov I followed the development of the russian internet very closely between April 1992 and 1999 not much after that. meanwhile i am well aware of international fiber optic cables geographic issues of same — see telegeography for example, His coordinates etc interception of cable via submarine etc see the US Sub named Jimmy carter I visited Russia for the first time in 1964 my dissertation completed in 1972 dis on site work for the Phd in Russia for 2 months summer of 1970 including pushkinskii Dom Thanks to steve Goldstein of NSF I received an invite to attend the second Nato sponsored conference on the future e of the russian internet met larry land weber there at Golitsyno - the conf was sept 30 to Oct 2 1994 The point? I have long experience with my Cook Report on Internet Protocol in April 1992 issue #1 and an even lon\ger experience with russian history language and culture I am also well aware this message will be readable by a ver large number of people both here and abroad. even visited the westin bldg In i think 1994. take a bow Sean!! :-)
On Jun 11, 2017, at 11:38 AM, Gordon Cook <cook@cookreport.com> wrote:
Hi Sean
You and I first met when i was at OIA about 1992 LOONG TIME ago
Always thought of you as brilliant collector of info as well as analyst there of
this question of yours is absolutely brilliant
look at the responses (more) than 45!!!
On Jun 1, 2017, at 2:02 PM, Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> wrote:
There must be a perfectly logical explanation.... Yes, people in the industry know where the choke points are. But the choke points aren't always the most obvious places. Its kinda a weird for diplomats to show up there.
On the other hand, I've been a fiber optic tourist. I've visited many critical choke points in the USA and other countries, and even took selfies :-)
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/01/russia-spies-espionage-trump-239003
In the throes of the 2016 campaign, the FBI found itself with an escalating problem: Russian diplomats, whose travel was supposed to be tracked by the State Department, were going missing.
The diplomats, widely assumed to be intelligence operatives, would eventually turn up in odd places, often in middle-of-nowhere USA. One was found on a beach, nowhere near where he was supposed to be. In one particularly bizarre case, relayed by a U.S. intelligence official, another turned up wandering around in the middle of the desert. Interestingly, both seemed to be lingering where underground fiber-optic cables tend to run.
According to another U.S. intelligence official, “They find these guys driving around in circles in Kansas. It’s a pretty aggressive effort.”
It’s a trend that has led intelligence officials to conclude that the Kremlin is waging a quiet effort to map the United States’ telecommunications infrastructure, perhaps preparing for an opportunity to disrupt it.