: bubba driving his backhoe ship Now that'd make a great NANOG shirt! :-) scott --- ops.lists@gmail.com wrote: From: "Suresh Ramasubramanian" <ops.lists@gmail.com> To: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@cs.columbia.edu> Cc: "Scott Francis" <darkuncle@gmail.com>, nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Another cablecut - sri lanka to suez Re: Sicily to Egypt undersea cable disruption Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 07:09:50 +0530 On Feb 2, 2008 4:07 AM, Steven M. Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu> wrote:

Yah. I'm a security guy, and hence suspicious by nature -- our slogan is "Paranoia is our Profession" -- and I'm getting very concerned. The old saying comes to mind: "once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but the third time is enemy action". The alternative some common mode failure -- perhaps the storm others have noted.

Quite a few other lists I look at (especially those with a "critical infrastructure protection" type focus - seem to feel the same as you do. And at least one list has already started the "maybe al qaeda is behind this" idea running. The fun part is that quite a lot of these cables are in international waters, so it just might turn into a high level multiple UN agency conference, sooner or later with ideas like a bunch of navy or coast guard cutters tasked to patrol on the borders of cable landing areas and head off shipping that wants to anchor, trawlers that want to drag nets across the ocean floor, bubba driving his backhoe ship .. [and that still doesnt keep away sharks that want to sharpen their teeth on undersea cables...] srs