On Fri, 1 Feb 2008 22:42:02 -0000 "Rod Beck" <Rod.Beck@hiberniaatlantic.com> wrote:

Well, when you have all these cables running through narrow straits or converging to the same stretch of beach, it does not strike me as at all extraordinary.

But they aren't near each other. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/business/worldbusiness/31cable.html says that the first two cuts were in the Mediterranean, near Marseille and Alexandria; the third was in the Persian Gulf, near Dubai (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Internet-Outages.html). --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

On Fri, 1 Feb 2008 23:07:16 -0000 "Rod Beck" <Rod.Beck@hiberniaatlantic.com> wrote:

Hi Steve,

TransAtlantic cables average three repairs a year. That's the industry average. So given 7 high capacity cable systems, that's 21 repairs a year.

Now, not all damaged cables go out of service. In fact, most stay in service until the repair begins.

But the public rarely hears about a TransAtlantic cable going dark. Yet it does happen quite regularly in the business.

Why? Because there are seven very high capacity (multi-terabit) systems to route traffic across! There is no need to announce to the public that a cable been cut.

That is not the case in the Midterranean or the Persian Gulf.

You have only a few systems (relatively low capacity) serving a huge population. In fact, I suspect Flag is probably the sole provider for many of these countries.

So yes, when the only guy in town falls down, it's going to be noticed.

I hope you're right. As I noted, by profession I'm paranoid. I've even contemplated the uses of deliberate cable cuts; see http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/papers/reroute.pdf for some thoughts from five years ago. But I hope you're right. --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

Martin Hannigan wrote:

On Feb 1, 2008 2:25 PM, Ahmed Maged (amaged) <amaged@cisco.com> wrote:

...

"Does look normal to me" is far from a global conspiracy theory.

Thank you for the translation but I think you got it wrong.

I agree, there should be a sanity check as I understand that they are within close proximity of each other. Two ships slipping anchors and causing cable breaks in the same area is odd, but if there's a storm in the area, that would not be that much of a surprise. There should be some logic to the madness.

I think that the moral of the story is that "more" operators should try to better understand what diversity means beyond the metro. The challenge is getting the information. The Teleography series of internet/sub maps are interesting. They don't demonstrate diversity though, since they show figurative routing. Those nice and straight lines are a pipe dream.

-M<

-M<

Well, when you have all these cables running through narrow straits or converging to the same stretch of beach, it does not strike me as at all extraordinary.

An important factor is cooperation. Is there cooperation between the fiber optic guys and fishing associations to minimize hits?

I would wager there is close to zero.

Roderick S. Beck

Wouldn't that be a pretty narrow tightrope to walk from a security standpoint? The undersea cable maps are deliberately vague, specifically to try to avoid making them easy targets of terrorism. Which is the bigger threat? Boat anchors and fishing nets because of inaccurate maps or deliberate sabotage because of accurate maps? I guess you pick your poison. Andrew ...don't we rehash these same issues every time there's an undersea cable failure?

RodBeck said:

Telecommunication facilities have rarely been targets of terrorism. There is only one known case - the Tamil Tigers destroyed a central office in Sri Lanka some years back. My guess is that terrorists want to kill people, not destroy optical muxes, >Class 5 switches, and the like.

Actually, last year, Scotland Yard claimed Al Qaeda planned on blowing up one of the Telehouse facilities in the UK: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/garfinkel/17561/ Randy

On Feb 2, 2008, at 8:56 AM, George William Herbert wrote:

However, despite the "attractive target" angle of what got busted, and the proximity of the breaks to Islamic Terrorist problem spots, I don't see a statistical or evidentiary case made that these were anything but the usual occasional strings of normal random problems spiking up at the same time

My instinctive reaction was to recall the Auric Goldfinger quote as smb did - after reflection, however, it's highly unlikely that these issues are the result of a terrorist group action simply because, just like the economically-driven miscreants, the ideologically-driven miscreants have a vested interest in the communications infrastructure remaining intact, as they're so heavily dependent upon it. There are always corner-cases like the Tamil Tiger incident, and people don't always act rationally even in the context of their own perceived (as opposed to actual) self-interest, but I just don't see any terrorist groups nor any governments involved in some kind of cable-cutting plot, as it's diametrically opposed to their commonality of interests (i.e., the terrorist groups want the comms to stay up so that they can make use of them, and the governments want the comms to stay up so that they can monitor the terrorist group comms). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Roland Dobbins <rdobbins@cisco.com> // 408.527.6376 voice Culture eats strategy for breakfast. -- Ford Motor Company

George William Herbert wrote:

And, significantly, AQ would benefit from a telecommunications (and other things) disconnect from the West to the Middle East, in both tactical and strategic senses.

Funny, I was thinking the same thing about the Pentagon...

Hi Michael: On Feb 1, 2008 6:44 PM, Michael Painter <tvhawaii@shaka.com> wrote:

Here's at least one:

http://www.ofcc.com/procedures.htm

Yes, this is the idea. My experience is that fisherman coops, similar to this one for network operators, are contacted during the desk top study "DTS" phase so that the parties can negotiate the best routes insuring that fisheries aren't disrupted or displaced and that the cable finds an agreed upon and effective route around risks that the fisherman have unique views into. There's also public permitting processes that occur and you want harmony. Groups of people angry at your submarine cable is not a good way to start a business and a submarine cable is a business (see "Rod Beck" ;-P ) -M<