Two similar mid span cable cuts... massive service outages,
suspicious circumstances.
I would suspect that a grapple hook was involved and that someone
went fishing for this cable just so that they could cut them to
disrupt communications infrastructure.
The ideal threat model is would be two boats grappling for one cable,
which they cut is two places about a mile apart. The two more boats
grappling for the cable on the secondary path(s) which they also cut
in two locations separated by about a mile. The "floating" one mile
segment that they isolate would then be towed some distance way from
the main cable and then dropped back to the sea floor thus leaving a
huge gap ensuring the outage lasted months, not days.
By targeting both the primary and secondary cables (both sides of the
rings) the saboteurs could have completely blinded everything in the area.
One major cable outage in a region can be blamed for an accident, two
in the same region is highly suspect.
-jma
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/01/31/dubai.outage/index.html
failure hits two continents
Story Highlights
Extensive Internet failure has affected much of Asia, the Middle
East, north Africa
A telecommunications provider blames the outage on a major cable failure
It has caused major disruptions to business, television and phone services
Several reports say damaged cable in the Mediterranean could take a week to fix
From CNN's Elham Nakhlawai and Mustafa Al Arab
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) -- Large swathes of Asia, the
Middle East and north Africa had their high-technology services
crippled Thursday following a widespread Internet failure which
brought many businesses to a standstill and left others struggling to cope.
One major telecommunications provider blamed the outage, which
started Wednesday, on a major undersea cable failure in the Mediterranean.
India's Internet bandwidth has been sliced in half, The Associated
Press reported, leaving its lucrative outsourcing industry trying to
reroute traffic to satellites and other cables through Asia.
Reports say that Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United
Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain are also experiencing severe problems.
Nations that have been spared the chaos include Israel -- whose
traffic uses a different route -- and Lebanon and Iraq. Many Middle
East governments have backup satellite systems in case of cable failure.
An official at Egypt's Ministry of Communications and Information
Technology, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was believed
that a boat's anchor may have caused the problems, although this was
unconfirmed, AP reported. He added that it might take up to a week to
repair the fault.
Rajesh Chharia, president of India's Internet Service Providers'
Association, explained that some firms were trying to reroute via
Pacific cables and that companies serving the eastern US and the UK
were worst affected, AP added.
Besides the Internet, the outage caused major disruption to
television and phone services, creating chaos for the UAE's public
and private sectors.
There were contradicting reports on the real cause behind the
disruption, but Du, a state-owned Dubai telecom provider, attributed
it to an undersea cable cut in the Mediterranean Sea between
Alexandria, Egypt and Palermo, Italy.
A Du internal memo, obtained by CNN, called the situation in Dubai
"critical" and stated that the cable's operators did not know when
services would be restored.
"This will have a major impact on our voice and Internet service for
all the customers," the memo stated. "The network operation team are
working with our suppliers overseas to resolve this as soon as possible."
The outage led to a rapid collapse of a wide range of public services
in a country which proudly promotes itself as technological pioneer.
Sources from Emirates Airlines confirmed to CNN Arabic that the
outage did not affect its flight schedules -- a statement which
assured hundreds of travelers worried after rumors about the
possibility of rescheduled flights due to the faults.
However, Dnata, a government group in charge of providing air travel
services in the Middle East and ground handling services at Dubai
International Airport, acknowledged facing problems because of the
outage, sources from its technical department confirmed to CNN Arabic.
The outage heavily crippled Dubai's business section, which is
heavily reliant on electronic means for billions of dollars' worth of
transactions daily.
Wadah Tahah, the business strategies and development manager for
state-owned construction company EMAAR, told CNN Arabic that it was
fortunate the outage started Wednesday, when there had been only
moderate activity in the UAE markets. He said that softened the blow
to business interests.
But Tahah warned that if the outage continued, "such a situation
could create problems between brokers, companies, and investors due
to loss of control."
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Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:26 CST