On Thu, 31 Jan 2008, Martin Hannigan wrote:

...

From what I read about this cut, the way it happened seemed to have figurative odds of 1:1,000,000. It looks like "authorities" moved the anchorage area for some undefined reason. Cables are documented on marine charts and, at least theoretically under international standards, Captains and Pilots are lawfully required to refer to them before dropping the hook. Having some experience in marine operations, it would be 'curious' for a Captain or Pilot to not notice that there was a cable marking so close to their re-designated anchorage based on the chart that they would need to refer to for low tide depths and other (un)common hazards to insure that they weren't in imminent danger.

I'll leave the international law opinions to the lawyers rather than the network engineers :-)

I'm sure that there is more to this story than meets the eye.

Single cable cuts are very interesting anymore because most networks have figured out most of those issues, usually by network darwinism. Stuff breaks "normally." There are the usual exception to the rule networks. What makes this incident more interesting, as I indicated if its not one cable its another cable, was the double international cable cuts. Likewise, what made Tawain 2006 interesting wasn't an earthquake affected a cable, but there were multiple cable cuts in the region. Quick, everyone get out your international cable maps and speculate where in the world the next double (or triple, quad, etc) cable cut could happen. Due to regional politics, I don't think there are many overland geographic diverse routes between countries to backup the undersea routes. If I remember the Wired article, FLAG did try to build some overland geographic diversity through the region. Stuff happens. Although it will take a couple of weeks to repair these cables (which seems to be the new "normal" repair time), I expect most user traffic will be re-routed through less optimal but functional routes within a few days. Again, with the usual exception to the rule networks.

On Thu, Jan 31, 2008 at 9:30 AM, Hank Nussbacher <hank@efes.iucc.ac.il> wrote:

I think more interesting is the landing stations where numerous cables intersect. They may be diverse in the water, but they cluster around each other when they hit the landing stations.

Exactly; which have historically been in the same strategic locations. Suez, Singapore, Cape Town; it's the strategic map of the British Empire. "Five strategic keys lock up the world", as Lord Fisher said. (Dover, Gibraltar, Singapore, Cape Town, and Suez). The similarity is truly uncanny.

On Jan 31, 2008 4:30 AM, Hank Nussbacher <hank@efes.iucc.ac.il> wrote:

\

I think more interesting is the landing stations where numerous cables intersect. They may be diverse in the water, but they cluster around each other when they hit the landing stations.

-Hank

They aren't that diverse in the water either and many cables cross each other and cluster before they hit landing stations including out in the middle of the sea. The Teleography maps, for example, are not route maps, they are showing a cable A and Z end with a relative route. The International Cable Protection Committee has some literal maps available that show just how much of a mess it all is. US East Coast to UK West Coast is a great example. -M<

http://www.kisca.org.uk/Web_SWApproaches.pdf And if you enlarge the map, you can see little dots on the lines representing the cables that denote repairs. Lots and lots of repairs. Treacherous waters. Roderick S. Beck Director of European Sales Hibernia Atlantic 1, Passage du Chantier, 75012 Paris http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com Wireless: 1-212-444-8829. Landline: 33-1-4346-3209. French Wireless: 33-6-14-33-48-97. AOL Messenger: GlobalBandwidth rod.beck@hiberniaatlantic.com rodbeck@erols.com ``Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.'' Albert Einstein. -----Original Message----- From: Rod Beck Sent: Thu 1/31/2008 1:05 PM To: Martin Hannigan; Hank Nussbacher Cc: Sean Donelan; nanog@merit.edu Subject: RE: Sicily to Egypt undersea cable disruption http://www.kisca.org.uk/Web_SWApproaches.pdf -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu on behalf of Martin Hannigan Sent: Thu 1/31/2008 12:48 PM To: Hank Nussbacher Cc: Sean Donelan; nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Sicily to Egypt undersea cable disruption On Jan 31, 2008 4:30 AM, Hank Nussbacher <hank@efes.iucc.ac.il> wrote:

\

I think more interesting is the landing stations where numerous cables intersect. They may be diverse in the water, but they cluster around each other when they hit the landing stations.

-Hank

They aren't that diverse in the water either and many cables cross each other and cluster before they hit landing stations including out in the middle of the sea. The Teleography maps, for example, are not route maps, they are showing a cable A and Z end with a relative route. The International Cable Protection Committee has some literal maps available that show just how much of a mess it all is. US East Coast to UK West Coast is a great example. -M<

On Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 11:35:03AM -0500, Martin Hannigan wrote:

The distances are consistent with repeaters/op amps. And the chart legend notates the same.

I think you need to zoom right in and look for yellow dots, rather than red dots. Simon -- Simon Lockhart | * Sun Server Colocation * ADSL * Domain Registration * Director | * Domain & Web Hosting * Internet Consultancy * Bogons Ltd | * http://www.bogons.net/ * Email: info@bogons.net *

Hi Martin, Look more closely. I agree the red dots are repeaters. The yellow dots are repairs. And the yellow dots are bunched, which what you would expect for repairs. Not evenly spaced. Roderick S. Beck Director of European Sales Hibernia Atlantic 1, Passage du Chantier, 75012 Paris http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com Wireless: 1-212-444-8829. Landline: 33-1-4346-3209. French Wireless: 33-6-14-33-48-97. AOL Messenger: GlobalBandwidth rod.beck@hiberniaatlantic.com rodbeck@erols.com ``Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.'' Albert Einstein.

On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 13:20:07 -0000 "Rod Beck" <Rod.Beck@hiberniaatlantic.com> wrote:

Cables are mostly damaged by fishing in coastal areas (continental shelf) or by deep undersea currents that erode the polyurethane jacket that protects them. So it is crucial that the cable be buried at least one meter and preferably two meters in coastal waters. The big fishing boats scrape sea floor - the ecological equivalent of surface or 'strip' mining. These boats scrap the ocean floor and can hit the cables or even sever them.

In some areas, shark bites are a threat, too -- see http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel1/48/1267/00029600.pdf (subscription required for the full text), or http://www.tscm.com/phone/oceanic_cable.html --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb