Hum Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 Conspiracy theories of deliberately cutting communication lines to West Asia, primarily Iran, gained ground in the media and blogs as reports of another undersea cable cut ? the fifth successive one in just a week's time ? started emerging in cyberspace. While the extent of Iran's isolation was unclear, many blogs alleged that the cable cuts and outages in West Asia were a ploy by an intelligence agency to disrupt Iranian commerce, targeting an emerging petroleum exchange that the country was shortly hoping to roll out. The fifth cable cut could, in fact, have been a second cut on a different segment of the FALCON cable, owned by Reliance Communications, suggested other blogs and reports. Cables are normally laid in proximity to each other and an accident in one cable can result in severing many cables at a time. A cable-laying company has to undertake an expensive marine survey which costs anywhere between Rs 40 crore and Rs 120 crore, depending on the terrain. To cut costs, some cable companies skip the marine survey, noted an analyst who did not wished to be quoted. The successive damage of these cables, they add, is of major concern since almost 90 per cent of Internet traffic is routed through undersea cables, and only 10 per cent through satellites. The reason for the damage to the cables remains moot as the companies have claimed that they were cut after ships weighed their anchors over them. However, the Egyptian ministry (after monitoring the satellite surveillance pictures) had refuted these claims stating there were no ships in the vicinity 12 hours before and after the cable cut. One February 7, Reliance Communications claimed that the severing of the FALCON submarine cable ? which disrupted voice and telecommunication traffic between Dubai and Oman ? was caused by a ship?s anchor. The company also put up a picture of an abandoned anchor on its website. None of the analysts this paper spoke to wished to go on record, saying it is "a sensitive matter". However, they pointed out that the ocean bottom does pose great challenges to the telecommunication hardware, which must survive for 25 to 35 years in the harsh undersea environment. Undersea cables undergo a battery of qualification tests that are now contained in the ITU-T international standard. They are very strong. A modern undersea or submarine communications cable is made up of a core of optical fibres, shielded with multiple layers of copper, aluminum, polycarbonate, stranded steel wires, mylar and polyethylene. Meanwhile, FLAG Telecom, a wholly-owned company of Reliance Communications, said it has begun work on its three undersea cables which were cut. The India-based company operates the Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) ? a 17,500 mile fibre optic cable which turns from the eastern coast of North America to Japan. It has also announced that it will lay a new, much stronger cable between Egypt and France. The new data link will be also laid on a different route. The new cable will be 1,900-mile-long and would allegedly take more than 18 months to complete. FLAG Telecom also said that a ship loaded with spares, marine experts and optical engineers reached the site on Wednesday. The crew has recovered one end of the cable and cable-joining work is in progress. The repair work will be completed by Sunday. source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shakey_snake Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 Area 51? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coldgunner Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 IMO Iran are cutting themselves off... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boffa Jones Veteran Posted February 11, 2008 Veteran Share Posted February 11, 2008 Area 51 for sure. Apparantly one of Iran's universities went offline and that is it. So really.. come on now. Also the cuts are fixed within 2 weeks if not sooner so this is just looking for something where there isn't anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hum Posted February 11, 2008 Author Share Posted February 11, 2008 5 cables in a week's time does stretch disbelief a bit. However, I don't quite see how this pins down Iran. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred Derf Veteran Posted February 11, 2008 Veteran Share Posted February 11, 2008 I do not see anything other than wild speculation on what could be (and likely is) coincidences. [Thread Moved from RWI to A51] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curme Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 If you were a country, would you do something so obvious? Or is that just what they want to to think? To think what the unthinking part isn't thinking of? EDIT: Remo Williams? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylejn Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 5 cut cables in a week's time is more than coincidence. Now, that doesn't necessarily imply foul play, but something is definitely going on; maybe a grossly incompetent ship captain has been drunk for the past week and has somehow been ripping up all the cables by dragging his anchor along the ocean floor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Montage Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 5 cut cables in a week's time is more than coincidence. 5 cut cables in a week's time is pretty much how I would define "coincidence". People saying "It can't just be coincidence". It 100% is coincidence - that's what coincidence means! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magik Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 5 cut cables in a week's time is pretty much how I would define "coincidence".People saying "It can't just be coincidence". It 100% is coincidence - that's what coincidence means! Maybe if it were just a couple, say 2 or 3, but 5 greatly reduces the chances that it is a coincidence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djDaemon Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 As I understand it, these cables are cut very frequently. This time, however, one of the cuts resulted in a somewhat significant outage, which raised awareness of the subsequent - and completely normal - cuts to the conspiracy level. There's nothing strange going on. Well, except for the crazy theories, anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goji Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 IMO Iran are cutting themselves off... Agreed. I think the thought police are working on overdrive in the country. Instead of filtering and regulating, why not just completely deny it to the people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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