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The Swedish cabin on the frontline of a possible hybrid war

theguardian.com

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Re: The Swedish cabin on the frontline of a possible hybrid war

#11

Post by leobg »

> [T]he Guardian was given exclusive access to the Stockholm datacentre site. […] Daniel Aldstam, the chief security officer at GlobalConnect, which transports 50% of the internet capacity of the Nordics and runs the centre, described the approach to its location and ordinary outward appearance as “security through obscurity”.

How do you do that facepalm emoji on HN?

Re: The Swedish cabin on the frontline of a possible hybrid war

#12

Post by ninalanyon »

mrbluecoat wrote: post #7

Good thing they have a giant neon green spindle of fiber optic cable right next to the discreet cabin to help it blend in..

Why doe it need to blend in? It's not a secret installation. The cabin is discreet simply because the red paint is the traditional colour for pretty much all rural plank clad non-residential buildings in Scandinavia. I doubt that any thought went into the colour scheme.

Re: The Swedish cabin on the frontline of a possible hybrid war

#14

Post by dghlsakjg »

mrbluecoat wrote: post #7

Good thing they have a giant neon green spindle of fiber optic cable right next to the discreet cabin to help it blend in..

Undersea cables are also marked explicitly on all nautical charts. If a rented pleasure boat can, with plausible deniability as to intentionality, drag a hook across the sea floor and easily get away, the cabin isn’t the issue.

This isn’t the main weak point.

Re: The Swedish cabin on the frontline of a possible hybrid war

#15

Post by askonomm »

Probably a stupid question, but why don't we encase the (undersea) cable in some metal container or something so that it would not be so easy to break? Is it due to economics? Is the constant fixing in the end cheaper than making it hard to break, or perhaps it needs maintenance anyway often enough to make it a hassle?

Re: The Swedish cabin on the frontline of a possible hybrid war

#16

Post by sandermvanvliet »

askonomm wrote: post #15

Probably a stupid question, but why don't we encase the (undersea) cable in some metal container or something so that it would not be so easy to break? Is it due to economics? Is the constant fixing in the end cheaper than making it hard to break, or perhaps it needs maintenance anyway often enough to make it a hassle?

Because it would need to be pretty beefy in order to stop an anchor dragged by a big(-ish) ship and would be uneconomical.

If it does get damaged then repair would also be more expensive than current methods

Re: The Swedish cabin on the frontline of a possible hybrid war

#17

Post by chiph »

askonomm wrote: post #15

Probably a stupid question, but why don't we encase the (undersea) cable in some metal container or something so that it would not be so easy to break? Is it due to economics? Is the constant fixing in the end cheaper than making it hard to break, or perhaps it needs maintenance anyway often enough to make it a hassle?

They are armored when they get close to land. But at depth they are not because of weight & economics. Even if a cable were armored for the full length - I'm not sure it would withstand an intentional anchor-dragging.

Someone needs to do an A/B test. (no not really)

Re: The Swedish cabin on the frontline of a possible hybrid war

#18

Post by gruez »

askonomm wrote: post #15

Probably a stupid question, but why don't we encase the (undersea) cable in some metal container or something so that it would not be so easy to break? Is it due to economics? Is the constant fixing in the end cheaper than making it hard to break, or perhaps it needs maintenance anyway often enough to make it a hassle?

You have to encase the entire length of the cable, which can be hundreds of miles, but the attacker only needs to attack a single spot. The nordstream pipeline attacks have shown that planting explosives on undersea infrastructure isn't exactly hard, so you end up paying an enormous price to add a knee-high barrier for a would-be attacker.

Re: The Swedish cabin on the frontline of a possible hybrid war

#19

Post by efnx »

askonomm wrote: post #15

Probably a stupid question, but why don't we encase the (undersea) cable in some metal container or something so that it would not be so easy to break? Is it due to economics? Is the constant fixing in the end cheaper than making it hard to break, or perhaps it needs maintenance anyway often enough to make it a hassle?

They mention at the end that it makes it heavier and harder to deploy, as well as how rare it is that they get damaged.

But I think this is the point of the article - that we start thinking with “a wartime mindset”. Which is a shame, but maybe necessary given the state of the world.

Re: The Swedish cabin on the frontline of a possible hybrid war

#20

Post by unwind »

ninalanyon wrote: post #12
mrbluecoat wrote: post #7

Good thing they have a giant neon green spindle of fiber optic cable right next to the discreet cabin to help it blend in..

Why doe it need to blend in? It's not a secret installation. The cabin is discreet simply because the red paint is the traditional colour for pretty much all rural plank clad non-residential buildings in Scandinavia. I doubt that any thought went into the colour scheme.

It's called Falu red [1], btw. Made from mining residual products and originally liked because it resembled luxurious brick.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falu_red

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