Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Russian ship loitering near undersea cables

hisutton.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 66 posts

Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables

#51

Post by zigzigzag »

themodelplumber wrote: post #16

Russia 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…

Wait, so a garbled story that tries to convince people Russia is threatening ends up in western media (not just Twitter) ... and that's Russias fault?

Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables

#52

Post by crb002 »

themodelplumber wrote: post #16

Russia 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…

Putin recalled Russian military family members. For those that don't understand Russian culture that's Defcon 3.

Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables

#53

Post by rurban »

15thandwhatever wrote: post #7
leggomylibro wrote: post #5

Neal 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.

Either tapping, as the US does, or cutting the US tap off.

Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables

#54

Post by xXx_swat21_xXx »

lithos wrote: post #35
xXx_swat21_xXx wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you could source that very accurate map that's available publicly I'd be very appreciative; I can only find the paper version for sale and don't want to pay $100 for something that will only arrive in a few weeks. The lines on the images that are being circulated are not accurate in the least, they are very rough estimates.

Paper and $100 is still very public, we're just spoiled. It's also going to cost you less time contacting/accessing each website individually. You might have some luck with RL social networking. Or could settle for info graphic form(and link/contact info) at submarinecablemap.com

That's the problem. SubmarineCableMap.com and similar web sites show logical, not physical, representations of the underwater cables. Cables are not that neat and tidy. A proper nautical chart would; I'll pay for it, if I find a downloadable digital one for sale.

I apreciate @CovertShores's diagram showing a general area where cables are believed to be, but we can do better with a nautical chart showing exactly where the cables are, to prove or disprove the RV Yantar is over top of them.

RV Yantar's slow methodical movements suggest they're doing something, but I don't know that it suggests they're tapping cables. It looks more like a search pattern using underwater equipment that moves very slowly.

Towed sonar arrays can usually move ~4kn, so I don't think it's towed sonar. I believe it's a remote operated vehicle sniffing along the ocean's floor, on a tether, and they need to move the ship slowly, at 0.5kn to "keep up" with the ROV at the end of the line.

Are they looking for the cables themselves? Maybe. Are they looking for pre-existing taps on those cables? If they're doing anything to do with underwater cables, I think so. Are they putting their own taps on the lines? Maybe, I can't disprove that, but I'd like charts to show exactly where those underwater cables are, to see if they're even doing something cable related - which is total speculation at this point.

If the cables are shown to be 10 miles away, they're clearly looking at something else.

Isn't it possible the Russians want you to think they're looking at cables, and not helping a stuck submarine, or other unmentioned possibility?

Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables

#55

Post by xXx_swat21_xXx »

rosser wrote: post #43
xXx_swat21_xXx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Russia was tapping Syrian cables... they'd do so on shore. They don't need to do it at the bottom of the ocean; it's the same way the United States taps cables in many allied countries. It is rumoured that Russian SIGINT tipped off the Erdogan government of the coup, not American SIGINT, which would suggest that Americans were complicit with the coup. To win further favour with the Erdogan government Russia would…

I think you may have misunderstood the grandparent comment's use of the word "evidence".

Why would Russia tap Turkey's telecom? Why would Russia tap Syria's telecom? Why would Russia tap Lebanon's telecom?

I've offered up motive for why they would be looking to un-do taps that are already there, but haven't heard any competing explanation to why Russia would tap commercial undersea cables.

The American military does not use commercial undersea cables for their trans-continental communications, by the way. So, if the RV Yantar is not near commercial cables, they could be near secret military cables, or Anti-Submarine Warfare equipment set up by the Americans, Israelis, Greeks - who knows.

I'm trying to point out that latching onto the idea that they're loitering above and tapping/sabotaging underwater commercial cables is only one of many things they could be doing. Since we don't even know the location of those cables, it's extremely speculative to say they're loitering above them to begin with.

Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables

#56

Post by xXx_swat21_xXx »

crb002 wrote: post #52
themodelplumber wrote: post #16

Russia 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…

Putin recalled Russian military family members. For those that don't understand Russian culture that's Defcon 3.

The western media has been fed a story that Russian diplomats' families have been recalled. No proof of that yet. No leaked emails, memos, letters, boarding passes of families, people moving out of their apartments, motorcades of diplomatic people rushing to the airports... nothing.

Who benefits from putting that story out there?

Why would you believe that story?

Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables

#57

Post by mikeweiss »

Bdiem wrote: post #50
15thandwhatever wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm less concerned about denial of service via cutting cables, and more concerned about the tapping of cables for wholesale data snarfing.

Is that a realistic threat model? What does the technology look like to tap into 800Gbit/s of fiber traffic - under water?

This, and if you can even capture that much traffic, all the good stuff is going to be encrypted anyway ;-)

Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables

#58

Post by willvarfar »

Bdiem wrote: post #50
15thandwhatever wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm less concerned about denial of service via cutting cables, and more concerned about the tapping of cables for wholesale data snarfing.

Is that a realistic threat model? What does the technology look like to tap into 800Gbit/s of fiber traffic - under water?

The USS Jimmy Carter submarine is equiped to do it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_tapping

The USA were caught tapping cables in the cold war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells

Now this doesn't mean that the Russians are right now tapping these cables; they could be simply mapping their precise location etc for later or using them as a training exercise.

The Russians have submarines for this kind of thing, and I bet they're regretting they sent a surface ship. See a list of some of the submarines used for tapping cables at the bottom of the Yandar article.

Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables

#59

Post by xXx_swat21_xXx »

willvarfar wrote: post #58
Bdiem wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a realistic threat model? What does the technology look like to tap into 800Gbit/s of fiber traffic - under water?

The USS Jimmy Carter submarine is equiped to do it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_tapping The USA were caught tapping cables in the cold war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells Now this doesn't mean that the Russians are right now tapping these cables; they could be simply mapping their precise location etc for later or using them as a training exercise. The Russians have submarines for this kind o…

...and the RV Yantar is part of the 29th Special Squadron of the Northern Fleet; the same group that operates those secret cable tapping subs. Probably not a coincidence.

Re: Russian ship loitering near undersea cables

#60

Post by [deleted] »

xXx_swat21_xXx wrote: post #55
rosser wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may have misunderstood the grandparent comment's use of the word "evidence".

Why would Russia tap Turkey's telecom? Why would Russia tap Syria's telecom? Why would Russia tap Lebanon's telecom? I've offered up motive for why they would be looking to un-do taps that are already there, but haven't heard any competing explanation to why Russia would tap commercial undersea cables. The American military does not use commercial undersea cables for their trans-continental communications, by the way…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN