http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/ConnectingTheDots.htm In the last week there were a bunch of unexplained underwater communication cable cuts, distrupting businesses all over the middle East: 1) one off of Marseille, France 2) two off of Alexandria, Egypt 3) one off of Dubai, in the Persian Gulf 4) one off of Bandar Abbas, Iran in the Persian Gulf 5) one between Qatar and the UAE, in the Persian Gulf 6) one in the Suez, Egypt 7) one near Penang, Malaysia 8) initially unreported cable cut on 23 January 2008 (Persian Gulf?) Three things stand out about these incidents: 1) all of them, save one, have occurred in waters near predominantly Muslim nations, causing disruption in those countries; 2) all but two of the cut/damaged cables are in Middle Eastern waters; 3) so many like incidents in such a short period of time suggests that they are not accidents, but are in fact deliberate acts, i.e., sabotage. If I have to pick one reason, it would be this: It is little known by the American people, but nevertheless true, that Iran intends to open its own Oil Bourse this month (February 2008) that will trade in “non-dollar currencies”.
Nah, it's obviously the work of the Cloverfield Cable Monster. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Well, after further researching the topic, it looks like that one cable was just powered down, and in other 2 cases it was doublecut. Also, it is fairly common to cut cables, apparently, we just don't hear about it. So looks like it was just false alarm....
I remember hearing about that too. I was wondering who has the resources and the inclination to do such a thing.
Funny, but you posted this after my post saying that it was just an accident, false alarm... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I heard about this one, could it be some underwater sea fish thing that eats cabling? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
As much junk as there is orbiting the earth, wouldn't there be even more in the oceans? What if a random hunk of metal washed across part of a cable? Could all that garbage do the damage?
Challenger78: "EDIT: YAY ! 2000 and 1nth post." http://www.moviesounds.com/2001/2001theme.wav They're tough steel cables, with the fibre-optics buried in the core. But they have a limited life, because they do get flexed around where they are suspended over depressions, where currents are variable, and when siesmic events move things around. They most often get hit by anchors, and fouled in dragnets. If you haven't seen a large ship's anchor up close, it's hard to appreciate their size and weight, and how much damage they do to everything they land on, or are dragged over. Just a dent in a cable is enough to cause localized bending, and progressive wear of the glass core, sometimes leading to failure of the core long after the initial bruise. If our land-based data lines were just laid on the open ground, we'd be repairing them more often too.
Apparently it is quite common to cut underwater cables. The differences were the timing and the 3-5 (??) cuts' closeness in time...
