From Trump Family Train...
This is from last year. Russian Spy Submarines Are Tampering with Undersea Cables That Make the Internet Work. Should We Be Worried?
Sabotage would be simpler to perform, but difficult to scale up for meaningful effect. This is because networks are designed with a high degree of redundancy as cables are routinely damaged by falling anchors, sharks (yes, really!), fishing lines, earthquakes, human mischief makers and so forth. Cable breaks average fifty per year in the Atlantic alone. If a few of the cables go down, data requests are simply shunted to other cables while a fleet of specially appointed, repair boats cruise over and repair the breakages.
In fact, it’s possible that Russia’s true target are the Pentagon’s secret DoDIN cable network distinct from the publicly accessible civilian system. These would have less redundancy than civilian cables and could disable key communication capabilities during a crisis. Already, an accidental cable outage in 2008 crippled U.S. drone operations over Iraq for several days.
1,310 posted on 7/2/2019, 1:43:01 PM by Rusty0604
Submarines Are Tampering with Undersea Cables That Make the Internet Work.
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This has been an ongoing issue. Back in (approx.) 2007, advanced technology detected a submarine hovering near a key underwater cable that, if cut, would strategically isolate a nation for days- I just can’t remember the players now. At the time, a few of the geeks I knew were horrified as this had not been on their radar before and they pointed to the core nature the ‘net plays in public water/sewer/transportation etc. functions.
Back then, when the sub was detected, there was a dust up and accusations and apparently, no cables were cut at that time. When I read about a “special Russian sub” today, that old cable cutting tactic came to mind. But cut cables also have to be repaired - hard to say who else was in the neighborhood and what the players were all doing down there when they lost the Russian sub.