So what's the solution ? Assign a surveillance UAV to every Russian ship parked "without a good reason" over a cable ? It would be expensive, but doable, and create a reserve of vehicles for wartime use.
[flagged]
Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
471–480 of 1001 posts
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#472Dumb question but my assumption is fiber optic cables could be “tapped”? But the disruption would be noticeable when monitoring the cable. Could you just tap it when you cut it and when it hooked back up that’s the new baseline with the tap in place? That would seem more of a logical reason then a country just randomly cutting lines to me?
Most/all of the traffic would be encrypted.
That wasn't the case in the past. Events over the past 15 years have resulted in most companies encrypting all traffic between datacenters (due to the perceived risk). TLS between consumers and companies is probably at an all time high though due to a push for end-to-end encryption.
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#473Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which happened and kept happening for a long time now, including the US sending billions of dollars and weapons (among other things). That did not help, did it?
> That did not help, did it? I'm sorry, but this is the type of claim of someone who gets news from the Joe Rogan podcast. Ukraine managed to defend its capital from annexation, liberated thousands of miles of territory, and managed to improve its protection of civilians thanks to air defense systems, has lower casualty rates than Russia, and now is starting to create a buffer zone into Russian territory. How isn't t…
[deleted]
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#474Earlier quoted context omitted.
Russia is absolutely in a full war time economy at the moment. There's nothing left to squeeze out of it and they're headed for a meltdown in 2025/2026.
> Russia is absolutely in a full war time economy at the moment. So it would seem. > There's nothing left to squeeze out of it and they're headed for a meltdown in 2025/2026. Promises, promises. By the time 2026 rolls around, nobody will remember this comment to tell you how wrong you were. I mean, you could be right. Who knows. The point is the future is uncertain, and using predictions as proof or arguments is stup…
And what if an asteroid destroys all the Russian forces..then what?
Current Russian interest rates are 21% on cash, 15% on 10 year bonds[1] and the government is increasing spending on the war.[2]
The wheels aren't going to come off immediately, but they've been reaching the peak of their ability.
Or to put it another way: you're not clever for going "nah uh" and there's no such thing as magic. For the next 3 years Russia's economy is being tossed at the war entirely, and every dollar which is is coming at the expense of everything else.
And this is all based on the heavily massaged Kremlin figures: they're not easy to lie about, but they're certainly also only ever going to be reported to try and shape a message of the type you're now parroting: you can't win so don't even try, Kremlin-strong, authoritarianism is just plain tougher then you decadent westerners.
[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/government-bond-yield
[2] https://cepa.org/article/russia-budgets-for-its-forever-war/
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#475Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which happened and kept happening for a long time now, including the US sending billions of dollars and weapons (among other things). That did not help, did it?
> That did not help, did it? I'm sorry, but this is the type of claim of someone who gets news from the Joe Rogan podcast. Ukraine managed to defend its capital from annexation, liberated thousands of miles of territory, and managed to improve its protection of civilians thanks to air defense systems, has lower casualty rates than Russia, and now is starting to create a buffer zone into Russian territory. How isn't t…
[deleted]
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#476Earlier quoted context omitted.
The case last year with the gas pipeline, the Chinese / Russian owned left Kaliningrad, and then while sailing, dropped its anchor before the pipeline and cable, and then dragged it over them, and then raised it. It was apparently accidental, yet both the Chinese and Russians didn't want the crew interviewed, the Estonian and the Finnish authorities both shrugged and didn't really care, and the Estonian energy prices…
* The Chinese / Russian owned what left Kaliningrad? * Which pipeline? * Last year (2023), not 2022?
There are very few things which can be described as “setting sail” and can “drop anchor” so I think you can fill the gap easily
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#477Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most/all of the traffic would be encrypted.
That wasn't the case in the past. Events over the past 15 years have resulted in most companies encrypting all traffic between datacenters (due to the perceived risk). TLS between consumers and companies is probably at an all time high though due to a push for end-to-end encryption.
TLS doesn't help here, because state actors (including China, Russia) own trusted root certificates, which allow them to TLS-terminate for _any_ website they choose and silently decrypt/MITM the traffic.
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#478Earlier quoted context omitted.
A disruption in communications can mean only one thing: invasion.
yes. What Russia does currently is probing and testing - what it takes to disrupt all the necessary cables simultaneously to create communication breakdown and a lot of chaos, what resources and time it takes to repair (and thus planning the options on blocking those repair resources, etc.) It takes tanks half-a-day to cross the Baltic states to reach the sea. That is the time Russia wants to buy. Once Russian forces…
> It takes tanks half-a-day to cross the Baltic states to reach the sea
And how long does it take for the F35 to fly across all Baltic States? 30 minutes at max speed. Without air supremacy, Russia would be dead in the water.
> That is the time Russia wants to buy. Once Russian forces are already in Riga, Tallinn, Vilnus, the NATO will have a decision to make on whether to bomb the Russian forces already placed by that time among the Baltic states population.
If you think Poland and Finland would sit on their hands and do nothing, you're being naive.
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#479Earlier quoted context omitted.
Conversely, I have no doubt that Lithuania's armed forces have learned from Ukraine's experience: those Russian tanks would all be destroyed within the first few kilometers. ...and that assumes Russia still has enough tanks to even mount an offensive, in sufficient numbers to capture several capital cities, belonging to nations with a fearsome grudge against them. (Three years ago, I would have fully agreed with your…
yes. That is why Russia hasn't yet moved, and still looking for a way to do it. Russia is deliberately stuck in the past where for example the "War scare of 1927" laid ground and provided the excuse for the militarization of and repressions in USSR and ultimately to the USSR starting WWII together with and as ally of Hitler. And the first thing USSR did back then in 1939 was the "solution" of the perceived issues of…
The Soviet Union was right to be scared back then. The next invasion from the west happened 1941.
And I guess there is still some paranoia in Russia. The NATO Neocons are busy feeding it.
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#480> "it’s obvious this wasn’t an accidental anchor drop.” If it's "he who shall not be named", gotta admit, that's a clever strategy: ramp up sabotage and see how NATO/EU will feel about their "red lines", and how well does that article 5 really work in practice. Is it worth more than the paper it's printed on? Let's find out! People have been laughing at the West crossing multiple Russian "red lines" and the Russians…
Restraint is not weak and pathetic. If you accidentally pick a fight with a BJJ fighter, hope they are a black belt instead of a purple. Or to paraphrase Vladimir Kara-Murza, democracy will come to Russia. So far the west has been better off letting Putin tie his own noose.
First thing out of that russian "opposition" mouth after exchange was "Ukraine please stop resisting" and "Please stop the sanctions".
There is nobody in russia to make democracy happen. Their "opposition" is just different shades of putinism.