Undersea Cables Cut: Oops or Uh-oh?

Hi there,

can someone please kindly tell me what this all means please ??

thanks

snoopyuk

Tracing route to www.abovetopsecret.com [75.126.76.151]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 25 ms 31 ms 9 ms 10.234.116.1
2 13 ms 13 ms 12 ms nott-t2cam2-b-v637.inet.ntl.com [82.13.49.161]
3 14 ms 15 ms 13 ms nott-t3core-1b-ge-117-0.inet.ntl.com [195.182.17
5.149]
4 14 ms 17 ms 24 ms nth-bb-b-so-020-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.174.173]

5 38 ms 41 ms 32 ms 212.43.162.213
6 28 ms 37 ms 22 ms 212.187.136.125
7 61 ms 35 ms 36 ms ae-4-4.ebr1.London1.Level3.net [4.69.133.102]
8 21 ms 51 ms 35 ms ae-1-100.ebr2.London1.Level3.net [4.69.132.118]

9 92 ms 108 ms 103 ms ae-4.ebr1.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.132.109]
10 125 ms 128 ms 105 ms ae-91-91.csw4.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.134.78]

11 104 ms 110 ms 109 ms ae-93-93.ebr3.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.134.109]

12 109 ms 108 ms 108 ms ae-3.ebr3.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.132.89]
13 124 ms 107 ms 108 ms ae-73-73.csw2.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.1
66]
14 120 ms 107 ms 116 ms ae-71-71.ebr1.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.1
33]
15 119 ms 126 ms 125 ms ae-2.ebr3.Atlanta2.Level3.net [4.69.132.85]
16 140 ms 162 ms 144 ms ae-7.ebr3.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.69.134.21]
17 140 ms 143 ms 163 ms ae-93-93.csw4.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.69.136.166]

18 160 ms 132 ms 202 ms ae-4-99.edge3.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.68.19.200]
19 166 ms 134 ms 136 ms te7-2.cer01.dal01.dallas-border.com [4.71.198.18
]
20 133 ms 133 ms 132 ms 75.126.76.151-static.reverse.softlayer.com [75.1
26.76.151]

Trace complete.

reply to post by snoopyuk


Looks perfectly normal to me (since you're from Portugal and the ATS server is in the Midwest). My trace is just a whole page of time-outs... bummer.

reply to post by Beachcoma


Thank you beachcoma,

take care

snoopyuk

reply to post by snoopyuk


Wow, look at this tracert.. instead of going from my hometown straight to dallas, 350 miles, it goes across the country instead..

Tracing route to www.abovetopsecret.com [75.126.76.151]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms Home [192.168.1.1]
2 3 ms 3 ms 3 ms localip.localap.com [192.168.20.1]
3 38 ms 5 ms 13 ms 172.22.0.204
4 28 ms 9 ms 18 ms 172.22.0.215
5 43 ms 14 ms 53 ms 172.22.19.228
6 77 ms 63 ms 20 ms 172.22.6.195
7 97 ms 60 ms 84 ms 10.40.0.1
8 94 ms 27 ms 39 ms 172.22.30.254
9 26 ms 55 ms 66 ms 172.22.28.1
10 79 ms 38 ms 43 ms 216.224.129.5
11 39 ms 37 ms 51 ms 216.224.128.71
12 47 ms 37 ms 103 ms 216.224.128.65
13 89 ms 63 ms 100 ms 216.224.128.1
14 64 ms 85 ms 41 ms bor01-vlan107.tx-houston0.ne.earthlink.net [209.
165.106.138]
15 74 ms 103 ms 70 ms bor02-ge1-1.tx-houston0.ne.earthlink.net [209.86
.83.50]
16 74 ms 77 ms 40 ms bor01-p6-1.la-neworlea0.ne.earthlink.net [209.86
.82.82]
17 82 ms 90 ms 53 ms bor02-g1-2.la-neworlea0.ne.earthlink.net [209.86
.83.74]
18 122 ms 94 ms 73 ms bor02-so-6-1.fl-miami0.ne.earthlink.net [209.86.
82.86]
19 297 ms 180 ms 241 ms bor02-ge-1-1.fl-miami0.ne.earthlink.net [209.86.
83.46]
20 148 ms 80 ms 158 ms bor02-so-6-1.ga-atlanta0.ne.earthlink.net [209.8
6.82.45]
21 116 ms 94 ms 111 ms acn02.ga-kingslan1.ne.earthlink.net [209.86.66.5
8]
22 82 ms 67 ms 99 ms 209.165.105.62
23 67 ms 78 ms 80 ms po13-0.core01.atl01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.5
.109]
24 75 ms 111 ms 99 ms po4-0.core01.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.7.
154]
25 138 ms 223 ms 211 ms te3-1.ccr02.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.3.1
58]
26 101 ms 143 ms 130 ms vl3493.mpd01.dca02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.7.
230]
27 90 ms 116 ms 83 ms vl3495.mpd01.iad01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.5.
62]
28 208 ms 119 ms 104 ms ber1-ge-8-6.virginiaequinix.savvis.net [208.173.
10.181]
29 * * 127 ms cr1-loopback.dck.savvis.net [206.24.226.70]
30 115 ms 130 ms 131 ms cr1-tengig0-7-5-0.Dallas.savvis.net [204.70.200.
170]

Trace complete.

reply to post by Kr0n0s

Kronos
maybe you didn't know that AT&T diverts all internet
traffic through the NSA servers (domestic & international)
(illegal even with the Patriot Act)

why else would your trace route go thru Virginia ??

it seems to me that the NSA wants to know everything
in the world before it happens.

I mean isn't God the only one capable of doing that ??
I think they're trying to play God

OK Big brother ,,,, if you're listening right now
I'm gonna go take a pee .....


[edit on 2-2-2008 by SimonSays]

So what are the odds that 3 separate breaks happened accidentally in two separate seas?

A leading Internet provider in the Emirates said an undersea cable had been cut in the Persian Gulf, causing severe phone line disruptions and compounding an already existing Internet outage across large parts of the Middle East and Asia after two other undersea cables were damaged earlier this week north of Egypt.

Omar Sultan, chief executive of Dubai's IPS DU, said Friday that the incident was "very unusual." He said it was not known how the underwater FLAG FALCON cable, stretching between the United Arab Emirates and Oman, had been damaged.

"The situation is critical for us in terms of congestion" on international lines, Sultan told The Associated Press, but refused to speculate on the extent of the damage. DU said in a press release that the cause of the incident "had not yet been identified."

The owner of the FALCON cable, U.K. FLAG Telecom said the cable was cut at 05:59 GMT Friday, 56 kilometers (34.8 miles) off the coast of Dubai and that a "repair ship has been notified and expected to arrive at the site in the next few days."

www.iht.com...

Great Thread Guys ... thanks for the speculations!

It seems to me that Dubai can well afford a few satellites to maintain communications in real time ... I'd call that live air transmissions. Why in the world they rely upon old sunken antique cables?

Mod Edit - Snipped out of context politcal comment - Please check your U2U's




[edit on 2/0208/08 by neformore]

Originally posted by Cypher
Critical_Mass, or anyone else for that matter,

I'm not too knowledgeable about this, but if my understanding is correct, the NSA, and presumably the alphabet agencies of a handful of other countries, do have the ability to cut and tap fiber optic undersea cables but that it would almost positively necessitate a service disruption on the cable.

Is it possible that the cables were intentionally cut, by ship anchors or other means, in order to allow a government agency to place tapping devices on the line while traffic on them was down?

Maybe I've been reading to many non-fiction spec-ops books lately, but I can just imagine a SEAL team locking out of a nuclear sub for a mission like this.

-Cypher

Impossible. If you cut a fibre, you need to resplice it in order to re-establish connectivity. You cannot do this underwater, as it is a very complex task. Not to mention that the persons monitoring the link would immediately see it go down, so any secrecy is lost, plus you'd need huge DWDM multiplexors handy to even begin to seperate out traffic from the signal, off which there will be a huge amount, probably STM-64 or STM-256

However, I am willing to believe that all these fibre breaks are somewhat suspicious. They very fact that cables used as each others backup's were cut seems to coincidental

Here is a pic with the breakages:

I ran across this graphic from the Guardian, printed yesterday. What I find very odd is that they blame "one clumsy ship" when this was clearly NOT the case...and given the date, they should have known this! I'll assume bad reporting for now, but this is indeed very strange.



Full Image Link.

Link to the source article.

[edit on 2-2-2008 by loam]

My pings are stopping for the most part at ripenet. Webcams in Tehran are unavailable even at the University and Englehab Square. I love how all Canadian traffic hits US servers en route every shot. The tracert ms value goes way up in Europe and then fails.

Um, some dot "ir" sites are resolving to unusual places. Like isna is out of Vancouver and seemingly irna is hosted out of North Carolina at least right now.

For future reference for those who might have an interest in knowing the physical location of known "announced" submarine cables are available as Telegeograpy's new '08 map is ready here.

The "official" story is still boat anchors? I guess it's "possible" but there's other stuff too. Where's Cheney today? Hmmm there's a news bit about Israel and "rocket" shelters too and then there's all that 11 trillion cu. feet of gas... and all the stuff previously mentioned by everyone is thought provoking.

Cheers,

Vic

EDIT: Shoot, sorry I didn't see that the map had already been thoughtfully added by a another member. Sorry. My apologies.

[edit on 2-2-2008 by V Kaminski]

This article suggests that the cables were cut to prevent independent videographers from uploading any damning video evidence. They're suggesting that something big is gonna happen in the ME soon.

reply to post by Beachcoma


Yes. I just finished reading that one a few minutes ago.

Still pretty speculative.

If it were true, maybe we should be looking for other less obvious signs of something big coming.

Tapping fiber optic cable does appear to be possible(www.blackhat.com...). However, tapping the cable doesn't generally interrupt its operation, so I don't see how that is the cause of the outage. I suppose if they #ed up the tap, this could possibly cover it up, but I still don't see the point.

This appears to affect a lot of countries, but most notably Egypt. Although, presuming these things get restored quickly, I don't see how it could accomplish any strategic objectives. Furthermore, unless internet access can be totally cut to someone, it would appear to be more nuisance than anything else.

I suppose this could be part of a threat for greater disruption, but by who and against who? Whose objectives would this serve?

This looks most purposeful and not a fluke. A two way scenario.
Either we are about to pounce on Iran and want to limit comm, or vise a versa. Three/four major comm lines cut. This does not bode well in any case. IMHO.
Don't worry about Obama or Hill...W will be in charge as war time president well after his reign. He couldn't push thru Congress an eight year term exemption.

Heres a sharper map.

It doesn't show the Dubai area though.

In response to Beachcoma's suggestion of video footage, What about using google satellite maps for up close images?

Originally posted by EBE154
reply to post by resistor

 

this is a possibility no-one has thought of yet...

Actually, I think that 'super bowl Steve' guy or whatever his name is predicted that the SB would be the target of an attack a couple years ago or so. '05 maybe? He seems to have disappeared now. It might just be the jealous Cowboy fan in me, but think about the symbolism in this years game. You've got the 'Patriots' with red, white and blue in their color scheme, the flag on their helmets and the all American boy at QB going for perfection; the best ever. Then you've got NY, who've been attacked and ridiculed all year, making a historic comeback and winning all of their 'road games' in the process. What red blooded American wouldn't want to nuke the Iranians if 'they' were to attack us in this most psychologically vulnerable spot?

(Source Pentagon) Al-Qaeda SEAL training photo.

One thing is for certain, Osama's now got himself a navy!!

Originally posted by Skydancer
In response to Beachcoma's suggestion of video footage, What about using google satellite maps for up close images?

Those images are not updated all that regularly from my experience - just looking at my house it looks to be a very nice summers day (something not seen here for many many months!!) and a couple of my neighbours have got different cars now - I expect either 6 months or 18 months ago for that image. Don't know how easy it is to re task the satellites though.

But talking about satellites - any one with a digital cam corder, a laptop and a satalite phone should be able to upload documents and film to the internet with ease ~~ wouldn't like that bill comeing through my door at the end of the month though

Originally posted by crontab
Tapping fiber optic cable does appear to be possible(www.blackhat.com...). However, tapping the cable doesn't generally interrupt its operation, so I don't see how that is the cause of the outage. I suppose if they #ed up the tap, this could possibly cover it up, but I still don't see the point.

That link doesn't seem to want to work for me. Care to provide me with any other link or a jist of what it says?

Reason being, I don't for the moment believe that it is possible. You cannot get into a fibre midstream without affecting it's operation.

Also, these undersea cables are made of bundles of fibres, and there is no way of knowing midstream which one is the one you want.

Then you need big hunks of kit to actually interpret the signal your cutting, provided that the ALS isn't enabled, in which case, the signal will be shut off the moment you cut the cable.

On top of that, the moment the cable is cut, the kit at the A-end will switch protection paths anyway and will probably not revert until told to do so.