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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

#51

Post by mmooss »

dingnuts wrote: post #31
the_af wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

this is cultural. not every city is as you describe

The second statement is true; the first is not necessarily the reason.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#52

Post by lxgr »

mrandish wrote: post #22
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

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.…

The seas are vast. If it were that easy to combat bad actors with strong military presence, piracy wouldn’t have been an issue for as long as it has been.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#53

Post by gruez »

mrandish wrote: post #22
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

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.…

>The fact this Chinese ship was chased down and stopped before getting too far away was actually pretty lucky.

Were they actually stopped? The linked Reuters article only says:

"The ship now sits idle in international waters but inside Denmark's exclusive economic zone, closely watched by Danish military vessels."

which makes it sound like it stopped of its own accord. It's also uncertain what, if anything Denmark or Sweden could do if it decided to bail.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#54

Post by bobbob1921 »

I would think for longer run cables, a majority of the run is at a depth, such that anchors don’t even go that deep (except once you get closer to land/shore ) I wonder how far into the seafloor you have to bury a cable such that it’s beyond How deep an anchor can reasonably penetrate (even if the anchor is being dragged). I’m sure this adds quite a bit of cost to the fiber run anywhere you have to bury it, however, I know I’ve seen systems that use a sled and water jets down on the sea floor to bury the cable as it’s run.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#55

Post by in_a_society »

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 wonder if the cable could be enclosed in some sort of container whose shape would make an anchor glance off its surface.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#56

Post by lostmsu »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #42
fpoling wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Probably impractical. Digging underwater is much harder than carefully lowering something on the floor.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#57

Post by buckle8017 »

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.

Fortunately the people wanting to do that are often to stupid to realize what's vulnerable.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#58

Post by gradientsrneat »

ajross wrote: post #16

Worth pointing out that articles like this were the goal of the sabotage. It makes Russia's[1] influence look outsized and threatening and is designed to increase the perceived costs of a strained relationship with Putin. But... it's shortsighted and wrong. Cables are cheap, as infrastructure goes, and the global internet is extremely robust. Yeah yeah, they cut two cables. How many Finns or Estonians had to go witho…

The article says it was likely a Chinese vessel, and a previous series of cable cuts affecting European internet was attributed to a Muslim terrorist organization. It's not just one country cutting cables, and there are multiple motivations geopolitically.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#59

Post by mmooss »

mrandish wrote: post #39
shahzaibmushtaq wrote: post #15

We need a new global policy that is signed by every country (if it is possible) to protect undersea internet cables.

It would be literally impossible to get every country to even agree to a declaration that "warm puppies are good." Also, a lot of the shit countries do to each other is already explicitly against agreements they've signed. Sadly, geopolitics isn't a gentleman's club. It's a brutal dog-eat-dog brawl where those with enough military power pretend rules matter - until they don't. The UN doesn't (and can't) enforce anyth…

For some reason people on HN imagine that, but it's not how it works in reality.

There are many, many international agreements - decades and in some cases centuries of them - that are effective, and new ones all the time. The UN Security Council has great power - that is why countries work so hard to promote or defeat Security Council decisions.

The ICC has been effective - warlords know that they can, in many cases in wartime, murder people with impunity, and in the past that was the end of it. But now they know that will be liable forever after, subject to arrest, trial and imprisonment, branded an international criminal, and unable to travel to ICC signatory states or (I think) to do business there.

No law or system of laws is perfect. Everywhere, some escape them, some manipulate them. But it's not 100% or 0%; the standard is not perfection or a complete waste - otherwise everything humanity does is a complete waste.

But everything depends on you (and me). Do we find ways to make it better, or just idly tear it down? Sitting on the sideline and complaining has become a normal behavior, but there is nobody else - nobody is on the field, except some very bad people.

Re: Protecting undersea internet cables is a tech nightmare

#60

Post by kylecazar »

mmooss wrote: post #49
vasco wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 nat…

The book kiosk in my town had a leave-one take-one program that was suspended because a local stole all 40+ books to sell on Amazon.

Also, no more nativity scene at the church because they steal the baby Jesus.

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