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Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

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Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#121

Post by mrandish »

kortilla wrote: post #98
mrandish wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Were they actually stopped? I think the broad, practical answer to that is 'almost certainly'. I'm pretty sure if warships hadn't shown up and asked to come over and have a chat, the ship wouldn't still be sitting there. There's also probably a very technical legal answer which may indicate they weren't "stopped" at all based on the precise wording actually communicated and relevant maritime law. Interestingly, a l…

Thank you for sharing the story. I’m always fascinated by these industries that exist in international waters. Are there any books you recommend that capture what modern seafaring is like?

Sorry but I don't. This was many decades ago and I wasn't even a sailor. I was a teenager and my dad was able to arrange me spending two months one Summer aboard that freighter as a kind of informal, unofficial intern. I guess he thought it would be kind of like an outward bound experience. I'm not really sure how it even came together and I imagine it couldn't happen today. Things were a lot less structured back then, especially on an Indonesian freighter in the South China Sea. It was a lot of hard work and the conditions on board were rough, especially from the perspective of an American teenager among an all Indonesian crew but I learned an enormous amount about life in the real world.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#122

Post by nox101 »

nox101 wrote: post #118
blindriver wrote: post #4

It’s impossible to protect these cables so the only thing you can do is build in massive redundancy. Strategically it is probably cheaper to lay down many dozens of these cables in different locations than expect to protect them

I don't know the engineering required but wouldn't a few small exploding drones handle this? (by "handle" I mean break the cable). 20 cables, 20+ drones (send 100 for redundancy). We've had deep sea ROVs since the 80s. Communication is harder but we have autonomous navigation now so fire and forget?

Are the downvotes because this wouldn't work to sabotage the cables or because it would work?

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#123

Post by rkagerer »

kortilla wrote: post #103
rkagerer wrote: post #19

Can someone explain this excerpt to me? NATO is currently investigating future internet backup routes through satellites in the case of undersea cable failures. But that technology is only in a preliminary, proof-of-concept stage and may be many years from real-world relevance. We already have satellite links and can configure our networks to route through them when a primary route disappears. Why are they saying thi…

Starlink is the highest capacity satellite network by far and the entire constellation’s RF capacity would struggle to compete with a single undersea fiber cable. It’s hard to put into perspective how impressive modern fiber is. Each wavelength carries many gigabits per second so FDM lets you pack terabits/sec onto a single fiber. Undersea cables can easily bundle 50 fibers, with the primary constraint being the repe…

Ok that makes sense, and jives with what I thought.

Is there any proof of concept in the works that could radically change the equation?

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#124

Post by xyzzy123 »

npunt wrote: post #112
croissants wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing that actually worries me the most about AI. Right now there are meaningful practical obstacles to, say, manufacturing ricin or 3-D printing a working gun or figuring out how to kill somebody with a drone, and apparently these practical obstacles are enough to deter a nutso but insufficiently committed/intelligent/methodical would-be assassin, but if you have a chatbot that will happily talk you thro…

Same, and the story is really of all technology. A suitable amount of friction is the invisible force that holds together much of society. We have to be very careful about what activities and actions we make easy to do, because if destruction is simple, we will be governed by the laziest and most stupid among us who will harness it without thought or care. The same goes in the opposite direction; if everything is har…

You need a certain degree of practicality to do proper damage to infrastructure, the trades have it in spades but political types not so much. You have to have some mental model of which parts of the system are hard to replace. Sometimes this is not immediately obvious, e.g. signalling equipment vs track damage or transformers vs line damage.

TBH most people's threat models haven't really caught up with the reality of battery powered tools and carbide / bimetal blades. A small number of organised protesters could quickly disable a lot of infrastructure with a few k of milwaukee, some wrecking bars & utility keys. It's been interesting to watch the "blade runners" in London solo this, still haven't seen a coordinated group do it on a large scale.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#125

Post by fastasucan »

gerdesj wrote: post #109
mrandish wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Were they actually stopped? I think the broad, practical answer to that is 'almost certainly'. I'm pretty sure if warships hadn't shown up and asked to come over and have a chat, the ship wouldn't still be sitting there. There's also probably a very technical legal answer which may indicate they weren't "stopped" at all based on the precise wording actually communicated and relevant maritime law. Interestingly, a l…

Thank you for your description of your first hand experience - very interesting. Life at sea is rather different to on land! "except the cop is heavily armed commandos in an Apache attack helicopter." Apaches don't deploy at sea. They are land based beasties. They don't carry commandos either. Pilot and CPG - two crew. Perhaps you meant a Blackhawk, if you are thinking about an American setup, which I think has a mar…

When someone use an analogy they are not saying that something is literally like that. They were not saying they had apaches or whatever, but that it was like being pulled over by a cop in an apache helicopter.

Just the same way that if I say that there was this dude helping me out with carrying a dead tree, and it was like it was a elephant had strolled by and decided to pick up a toot-pick. I am not saying that it was a literal elephant.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#126

Post by rcxdude »

geepytee wrote: post #37
mrandish wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, but at the same time it would also be worthwhile to look at ways to increase our detection and policing of shipping around these cables. I'm no expert but I imagine there are ways to speed up naval reaction times, tighten penalties for ships going dark (transponder off) and set new policy norms enabling rapid investigation. Basically things that make it harder for bad actors to maintain plausible deniability.…

On the transponders off point, I imagine soon we will have enough satellites such that we can map every object on the surface of the earth (specially something as large as a boat). Could even see it through clouds using radar.

The usual issue with satellites is they'll see the whole surface of the earth _eventually_, but it takes some time before they're back over the same spot, so tracking moving objects isn't really what they are best at.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#127

Post by throwaway2037 »

blindriver wrote: post #4

It’s impossible to protect these cables so the only thing you can do is build in massive redundancy. Strategically it is probably cheaper to lay down many dozens of these cables in different locations than expect to protect them

How much more are you willing to pay for your Internet service for this redundancy? Me? Zero. It is not a good idea. To me, it is right up there with having extra aeroplanes waiting in case there is a malfunction, but exactly zero customers want to pay for that privilege.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#128

Post by yencabulator »

rcxdude wrote: post #126
geepytee wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the transponders off point, I imagine soon we will have enough satellites such that we can map every object on the surface of the earth (specially something as large as a boat). Could even see it through clouds using radar.

The usual issue with satellites is they'll see the whole surface of the earth _eventually_, but it takes some time before they're back over the same spot, so tracking moving objects isn't really what they are best at.

This changes with Starlink-style constellations, and US spy industry is already doing that with SpaceX.

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/...

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#129

Post by zipy124 »

gerdesj wrote: post #109
mrandish wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Were they actually stopped? I think the broad, practical answer to that is 'almost certainly'. I'm pretty sure if warships hadn't shown up and asked to come over and have a chat, the ship wouldn't still be sitting there. There's also probably a very technical legal answer which may indicate they weren't "stopped" at all based on the precise wording actually communicated and relevant maritime law. Interestingly, a l…

Thank you for your description of your first hand experience - very interesting. Life at sea is rather different to on land! "except the cop is heavily armed commandos in an Apache attack helicopter." Apaches don't deploy at sea. They are land based beasties. They don't carry commandos either. Pilot and CPG - two crew. Perhaps you meant a Blackhawk, if you are thinking about an American setup, which I think has a mar…

They're creating an analogy saying that getting stopped by a warship at sea is like getting pulled over on the highway by an Apache. Not literally saying an Apache at sea.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#130

Post by vijucat »

massysett wrote: post #104
vijucat wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just look at the airport luggage belt. Runs on reciprocal altruism. Most people are not good (and this was true even before CCTV, for the cynics :) )

That’s not altruism, more like because a bag of someone else’s used clothes and underwear isn’t very useful or valuable.

Ha ha. There could be valuables, you know. Anyway, I wanted to edit it to write, "most people are good, or at least compliant", but now the window has passed :)

Because I had this epiphany about how we lead such passive lives, complying with the rules of the system around us.

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