Ars Technica had a great piece on how these undersea cables: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/05/how-th...
Russian ship loitering near undersea cables
11–20 of 66 posts
Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables
#12Well, how accurate are those cable lines?
There are very accurate maps available publicly.
When a ship lays anchor it's not just the end but can end up being a mile of chain as the real holding force(with the ship bouncing around). Fishermen are able to damage cables as well
Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables
#13Looks like the site is down. Mirror: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Iq7DDCu...
That was fast (site going down)... and suspicious perhaps, considering the ship is basically purpose built for SIGINT and being able to find, loiter and muck around with whatever it wants in terms of undersea cables.
[0] - http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/26/world/europe/russian-prese...
Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables
#14Cyprus must have an extremely good internet connection :)
For the benefit of a certain low-key UK military base:
http://espresso.repubblica.it/inchieste/2013/11/04/news/the-history-of-british-intelligence-operations-in-cyprus-1.139978?refresh_ceRe: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables
#15Looks like the ship is currently off the coast of Lebanon.
You can watch/follow this ship in semi-real time as long as it's transponder is active/in-range of a receiver (and not being spoofed):
http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:121...
Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables
#16Russia is doing a lot of fearmongering in the run-up to the US elections. I stumbled across some agitprop on Twitter yesterday, where I read that Russia was recalling all students who were studying abroad. Out of curiosity (to say the least) I tracked down the source article, which was a) not available in English, and b) just Russians criticizing privileged Russians who sent their kids abroad to study. Looking around the rest of the agitprop stuff that I could find at a cursory glance, there is a ton of literal FUD going around right now, to the tune of "WWIII imminent."
Wonder who they're trying so hard to influence?
Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables
#17Seems like at this point you're really depending on encryption to keep your data safe. You have to assume one or more entities is poring through your bits looking for interesting information.
Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables
#18Neal Stephenson wrote a bit about this in Cryptonomicon; laying new undersea cable is both expensive and time consuming, but the cost of cutting existing ones is fairly low. So if any sufficiently-funded individual, corporation, or nation-state wanted to hold a gun to the world's head, cutting undersea data cables wouldn't be a bad way to do it. The problem is, you can't make that kind of threat in a subtle way, so t…
The greek research network ran a number of high speed cables that were not infrequently cut off by careless fishermen. Used to mean a day of slow network until they find the damage and fix.
"Backhoe fade" (whether occasioned by backhoes or otherwise) is categorically different from a state actor deliberately cutting another state's undersea cables.
Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables
#19Neal Stephenson wrote a bit about this in Cryptonomicon; laying new undersea cable is both expensive and time consuming, but the cost of cutting existing ones is fairly low. So if any sufficiently-funded individual, corporation, or nation-state wanted to hold a gun to the world's head, cutting undersea data cables wouldn't be a bad way to do it. The problem is, you can't make that kind of threat in a subtle way, so t…
I'm less concerned about denial of service via cutting cables, and more concerned about the tapping of cables for wholesale data snarfing.
I don't think you have to choose.
Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables
#20Russia is doing a lot of fearmongering in the run-up to the US elections. I stumbled across some agitprop on Twitter yesterday, where I read that Russia was recalling all students who were studying abroad. Out of curiosity (to say the least) I tracked down the source article, which was a) not available in English, and b) just Russians criticizing privileged Russians who sent their kids abroad to study. Looking around…
Seems like I see a lot more fearmongering ABOUT Russia.