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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

#41

Post by preisschild »

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 soviets did exactly that so they can attack large US convoys with long-range Anti-Ship Missiles

They had to use a fission reactor onboard those satellites to power the radar array

It consisted of 2 satellite types. US-A (active) and US-P (passive). US-A used radar and US-P used passive antennas so they can "see" signals from ships.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-A

Late Cold War AShM's (SS-N-19 Shipwrecks) could use those satellites directly to update the target location in-flight

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legenda_(satellite_system)

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#42

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

fpoling wrote: post #33
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

One ship with an anchor on the bottom can destroy 100 cables just as well as one.

You can also do the extra work to bury the cable.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#43

Post by diggan »

grapesodaaaaa wrote: post #38
compootr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a cable at the bottom of the ocean, there is a barrier to entry though. For theft in the city, the thing being stolen is pretty easily accessible, and requires much less thought than getting some kind of submersible and going to the bottom of the ocean

The egress/ingress points can sometimes be accessible by shore, but the cables I have seen there are pretty heavily armored (likely just the same type used to armor against ship anchors)

> The egress/ingress points can sometimes be accessible by shore, but the cables I have seen there are pretty heavily armored

I think the cables are of variable thickness. Thicker at the shore and in areas there is higher risk for damage because of rocks etc, and thinner where it's deeper and flatter.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#44

Post by jpcom »

the_af wrote: post #20
ronsor wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why was it so surprising? Society as a whole is only functional because most people are uninterested in causing mayhem for no reason.

Vandalism of public phones (when they existed) was pretty common in my city. And garbage bins in public spaces get destroyed all the time for no reason. Everything that isn't nailed down and very robust gets destroyed or stolen. Infrastructure things related to water pipes (at the buildings level) gets stolen, too (happened in my building recently). Everything that can be resold as raw materials gets stolen.

Does your city have those scooters that people ride without helmets at great speeds?

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#45

Post by diggan »

anttihaapala wrote: post #12
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

If you consider an underwater cable running from Finland to Germany or Sweden to Lithuania in the Baltic Sea, it is virtually impossible for a ship travelling from St. Petersburg to the Kattegat to avoid passing over it, so redundancy can do only that much there.

> If you consider an underwater cable running from Finland to Germany or Sweden

Well, if you only think about direct links, then yes. But run 5 cables up and down the coasts of SwedenFinland, then also for SwedenGermany, DenmarkSweden and DenmarkGermany and you start having a lot of redundancy.

Of course, that also adds a lot of ongoing costs for infrastructure, monitoring and maintenance, so not a silver bullet exactly.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#46

Post by diggan »

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…

> Why are they saying this is "future tech"?

I read it like "we're doing proofs of concepts but it'll take some years before it's production ready", not some wishy washy "future tech". It's in the pipeline, just that the pipeline takes some time.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#47

Post by highcountess »

ronsor wrote: post #18
kouru225 wrote: post #14

I remember reading that the early telegram adopters were really surprised that no one destroyed the lines just for fun. They all thought it was a doomed technology cause the masses would sabotage it. TBH we’ve been pretty lucky for the last 2 centuries.

Why was it so surprising? Society as a whole is only functional because most people are uninterested in causing mayhem for no reason.

[dead]

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#48

Post by WillyWonkaJr »

andy_ppp wrote: post #2

Would Russia/China not also suffer quite a bit while the US would hardly notice compared to Europe? It seems not as effective as people think as a way to hurt America? Before long everything would be able to run independently/with large breaks anyway.

The trillions in daily financial transactions that cross the Atlantic via undersea cable is the main concern.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#49

Post by mmooss »

vasco wrote: post #30
ronsor wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why was it so surprising? Society as a whole is only functional because most people are uninterested in causing mayhem for no reason.

Because it takes 1 person, in an isolated spot to ruin a whole chunk of a network. Even though society as a whole works, there's things where one person can easily mess it up for potentially millions of people. So even if that person would have to be a big statistical anomaly, they'll exist.

> Because it takes 1 person ...

It turns out that empirically, in every area, such '1 person' risks are very low, even though theoretically it sometimes seems likely to us.

For some reason we often theorize, we imagine the world, as if homo sapiens are sociopaths. There's also a political/social movement (or set of movements) that require that to be true, and insist on it. In reality, it is very much against our nature to do such things. We are social creatures that live in groups and work together, and have been for millions of years. That's how we survive and thrive.

It would take '1 person' to drive their car over a busy sidewalk or to push you into traffic, but I don't worry about it when I'm waiting to cross a busy street. It would take one to poison your dinner or push you off a cliff when hiking or set a bear trap in a park ... . You can come up with endless scenarios. (And yes, with 7+ billion people in the world, even with very low odds you can find examples.)

Come to think of it, I can't think of other animals that do such things either, including non-social animals.

Almost everything we do, we do in groups trusting each other. It's deeply ingrained human nature.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#50

Post by lxgr »

vasco wrote: post #30
ronsor wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why was it so surprising? Society as a whole is only functional because most people are uninterested in causing mayhem for no reason.

Because it takes 1 person, in an isolated spot to ruin a whole chunk of a network. Even though society as a whole works, there's things where one person can easily mess it up for potentially millions of people. So even if that person would have to be a big statistical anomaly, they'll exist.

> Because it takes 1 person, in an isolated spot to ruin a whole chunk of a network.

If that were true, we’d see a lot more sabotage.

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