Severed fibre cables disrupted internet access in eastern Europe, Iran, Turkey(bbc.com)
bbc.com
Severed fibre cables disrupted internet access in eastern Europe, Iran, Turkey
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50851420
164 comments
Was reading the wikipedia page on undersea cables and ran across this gem -- some pirates tried to sell 100 tons of fiber cable they nabbed off the bottom of the ocean near Vietnam: https://lirneasia.net/2007/06/vietnams-submarine-cable-lost-...
Salvaged copper is worth a lot and has a lot of uses for which it can be repurposed. Salvaged fiber...less so.
Reminds me of the opening of Mean Streets (1973, Martin Scorsese),
—
Come on, hurry up with that shit, huh?
What's this, more shit?
No, that ain't shit. That's a German lens.
I've got two shipments of those.
That's good stuff.
Can't use it.
What do ya mean ya can't use it?
That's a telescopic one.
That's the best one they make.
It's not German, it's Jap.
This is an adaptor, it's not a lens.
You bought two shipments
of Jap adaptors, not lenses.
Jap adaptors.
—
Come on, hurry up with that shit, huh?
What's this, more shit?
No, that ain't shit. That's a German lens.
I've got two shipments of those.
That's good stuff.
Can't use it.
What do ya mean ya can't use it?
That's a telescopic one.
That's the best one they make.
It's not German, it's Jap.
This is an adaptor, it's not a lens.
You bought two shipments
of Jap adaptors, not lenses.
Jap adaptors.
Are undersea fiber cables bundled with copper conductors to power the repeaters?
Yes, there is copper or aluminum for power. Most of the metal in a submarine fiber cable is steel.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable
After living in Vietnam for 6 years I can second this. Even my Vietnamese team jokes that "sharks bite" before each major national holiday. Fortunately, I've also noticed that the effects are not as disastrous as before. Previously, it would be impossible to keep a VPN up to a US server, but now I can still get high speeds and low latency through the "cable cuts."
Hey Lucas! Nice to see you here too. =)
My favorite quote... so somehow traffic to those 3 sites magically don't go over the links that are having 'trouble'...
"Normal access to international sites, including Google, Facebook and YouTube, will be ensured, the Viettel representative stated."
https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20191224/issues-in-3-sub...
"Normal access to international sites, including Google, Facebook and YouTube, will be ensured, the Viettel representative stated."
https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20191224/issues-in-3-sub...
In the mid 2000s I was in the Middle East and used the internet to connect back to the United States for conducting business. One day almost every site became unreachable (anything hosted in the states). It turned out that a naval vessel had dropped anchor and Murphy's Law put the anchor right on top of some undersea fiber cables. It was called a freak accident because statistically was so unlikely to happen.
It took a while to figure out what happened, and internet was out for a couple of days. Considering service was restored in 30 minutes in this case, we are getting a lot better at handling severed cables.
It took a while to figure out what happened, and internet was out for a couple of days. Considering service was restored in 30 minutes in this case, we are getting a lot better at handling severed cables.
> Considering service was restored in 30 minutes in this case, we are getting a lot better at handling severed cables.
30 minutes?
This is absolutely mind-boggling to me. 30 minutes -- and you can identify exactly where the cut was, deep in the water, access it, fix it in the water? To me that sounds like a 30-month job not a 30-second job.
Anyone here with insight into this fix-process: could you please shed light on how this is done and how it can be so fast?
30 minutes?
This is absolutely mind-boggling to me. 30 minutes -- and you can identify exactly where the cut was, deep in the water, access it, fix it in the water? To me that sounds like a 30-month job not a 30-second job.
Anyone here with insight into this fix-process: could you please shed light on how this is done and how it can be so fast?
No, it's a process of ISPs rerouting transport traffic. Onto other routes at OSI layer 1.
Physical repairs of broken submarine fiber takes weeks to a month.
Physical repairs of broken submarine fiber takes weeks to a month.
Identifying the break can be done really quick:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_time-domain_reflectome...
But then you still have to go there and fix it. I can't even get a pizza delivered in 30 minutes so I suspect the fix did not actually repair any cables.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_time-domain_reflectome...
But then you still have to go there and fix it. I can't even get a pizza delivered in 30 minutes so I suspect the fix did not actually repair any cables.
It’s about a 1-3 month repair job to acquire replacement cable, load it into a ship, and sail out to the break point.
However, service is restored sooner than that by rerouting service over a different fiber cable or undamaged set of fibers.
However, service is restored sooner than that by rerouting service over a different fiber cable or undamaged set of fibers.
The cable is not fully replaced. They lift the cable up to a boat and repair it (replacing the damaged bit and joining it to the original) and lower it back down.
Here is an animation describing the process https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJblHOGXKo4
Here is an animation describing the process https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJblHOGXKo4
Amazing really that the optics at the repair site are still good enough to carry the bandwidth.
They don't replace the cable typically, they fuse it with epoxy and it usually works pretty efficiently, mostly taking the time scheduling the boat and equipment the repair is likely a couple hour job at most and 12-24 for the epoxy to dry.
No one fixed the cables, they have rerouted traffic through other links. Most of the traffic was automatically rerouted, that's how BGP works.
If it took 30 minutes that's not BGP, that's some people at ISPs manually provisioning new circuits on DWDM systems, using a moderate amount of automation tools, and bringing the circuits up facing routers at both ends. Or doing something like creating a few new VLANs in existing larger 100/200/400Gbps intercity transport links, and trunking those VLANs through to routers on each end. A topology change in BGP is a couple of seconds.
BGP may or may not still be involved.
BGP itself has no real facility for dealing with circuit congestion.
So, I am willing to bet that dynamic routing was certainly in place, but the secondary/eBGP multipath destinations were full when the primary path went down.
And that necessitates manual action in instances where you aren't doing MPLS-TE, or don't have enough standby capacity, or both.
BGP itself has no real facility for dealing with circuit congestion.
So, I am willing to bet that dynamic routing was certainly in place, but the secondary/eBGP multipath destinations were full when the primary path went down.
And that necessitates manual action in instances where you aren't doing MPLS-TE, or don't have enough standby capacity, or both.
Keeping sufficient hot standby submarine capacity live and in contract is very costly in $/month.
That's why I've specifically wrote "most", of course it's not all BGP, BGP routing algorithms do not need 30 minutes to change routes.
Do international peers tend to use BFD?
I understand your astonishment, but if they had properly configured dynamic routing, it would not have taken that long.
Sadly some international ISP’s don’t like to share (even sanitized) routing tables...
Sadly some international ISP’s don’t like to share (even sanitized) routing tables...
I'd guess traffic was rerouted.
I'd guess it was done on purpose, so that it be rerouted.
[deleted]
Rerouted to a backup, I'd guess?
My first guess would be re-routing traffic away from the damaged cable(s)
An event like this, where multiple fibers are disrupted and magically fixed less than an hour later just smells like the NSA, one of the other five eyes or a friendly telco installed a fiber optic beam splitter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_splitter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_splitter
I don't have any traceroutes so this is speculation but the probably just route around it if it only takes 30 minutes. I was under the impression that a beam splitter can be installed without disruption. If they fucked up and broke the cable installing a beam splitter, a 30 minute fix is still pretty impressive.
I‘m by no means an expert but I did some datacenter work. I wonder how this would be possible to install a beam splitter without disruption? Don’t you need to plug the fibers out, put the splitter in and then plug the fibers back in the splitter? I was searching YouTube but couldn’t find a video.
You don't need a beam splitter to listen in on traffic.
They bend the cables, thus allowing part of it be tracked with some residue light coming out of the fibre.
I agree, this might be possible but I wonder how good the quality is then? A splitter will give you 50% light. That limits the length of the cable too, doesn’t it? How many errors will be there when you bend the cable and get maybe 15% light of encrypted traffic, and you can’t signal any retransmission?
On run of the mill singlemode fiber loss is roughly 0.5dB/km. Splitting off half of the light (and you don't need half, much less is fine), would result in 3dB of loss.
Fiber tramsreceivers automatically negotiate the power needed to sustain the link. So in case of datacenter or city networker, you could do a split-of without introducing too much loss and error rates.
Trans-oceanic fibers are different beast but I guess someone figured it out.
Fiber tramsreceivers automatically negotiate the power needed to sustain the link. So in case of datacenter or city networker, you could do a split-of without introducing too much loss and error rates.
Trans-oceanic fibers are different beast but I guess someone figured it out.
The light is kept inside the fiber by the change in refraction index in the radial direction of the fiber so there is a total internal reflection. But if you bend the fiber enough then reflection is not total and part of the beam goes outside.
LOL... I'm so sure the US boats seem to keep 'accidentally' being around when fiber is cut. You do know US/NSA actively taps global fiber networks. I assume they cut it in one place "accidentally" while they tap it in another to avoid being detected.
Taps are almost certainly being done by submarines -- there are even books about it[1].
Why would surface ships be around, blatantly giving away what is happening? The likeliest answer is that they screwed up with their anchoring procedures.
[1] The best known being Blind Man's Bluff. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells
Why would surface ships be around, blatantly giving away what is happening? The likeliest answer is that they screwed up with their anchoring procedures.
[1] The best known being Blind Man's Bluff. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells
My guess would be they create an excuse while elsewhere do it. I don’t picture a boat on top of a submarine performing the procedure. The boat{excuse} is the excuse that renders any monitoring of the signal useless when the tap is done.
Why only mention the US here as if they're the only ones that do it?
It's routine activity for superpowers to tap undersea cables.
It's routine activity for superpowers to tap undersea cables.
US is the biggest and done it the longest.
It's easy to act like the US is thee super power. But when you look at it, no other 'superpower' holds a candle to our 800 foreign military bases.
Uh... you don't need to cut fiber to tap it, you have to just bend it to allow the light to leak.
Performing any worthwhile tap that way would show a measurable difference to anyone monitoring it. When you cut the line and connect at the same time you would be resetting the baseline to be measured against when someone starts monitoring again.
Anchors cutting internet cables happen all the time. It is a weekly occurrence. If you want a visual image: imagine a plane laying down a cable over a forest. It is an heavy cable designed to crash a bit inside the canopy, but it is likely to still dangle in many places.
Another super powerful plane now lays down a one ton hook on a big ass chain and drags it around the forest until it settles on something strong enough to stop it. It does not make the coincidence that big, especially when you consider that many cables land close to commercial routes.
Another super powerful plane now lays down a one ton hook on a big ass chain and drags it around the forest until it settles on something strong enough to stop it. It does not make the coincidence that big, especially when you consider that many cables land close to commercial routes.
Wait, this is actually how internet cables are laid?
Well no, they use boats, not plane. ;-)
But mostly yes. It is interesting to read a bit on submarine cables that our infrastructure depends that much on.
It is for instance interesting to know that their landing points are considered strategical locations and that at least US and Russian navies have trained at eavesdropping on them using submarines. Just throwing that in case you are wondering why you don't hear much about X-37's ability to rendez-vous and "repair" satellites.
But mostly yes. It is interesting to read a bit on submarine cables that our infrastructure depends that much on.
It is for instance interesting to know that their landing points are considered strategical locations and that at least US and Russian navies have trained at eavesdropping on them using submarines. Just throwing that in case you are wondering why you don't hear much about X-37's ability to rendez-vous and "repair" satellites.
Mostly yes, they do protective measures like burying in highest risk waters.
(The surveying involved in route planning prevents dangling the cable in nonworkable ways)
(The surveying involved in route planning prevents dangling the cable in nonworkable ways)
Wasn't there a woman in Armenia or something who cut a cable in her house the internet for the whole country dropped. I find it difficult to believe what I just wrote but I recall it.
Ah: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/06/georgian-woman...
She was in Georgia.
Ah: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/06/georgian-woman...
She was in Georgia.
Hummm from reading the article it doesn’t seem like she just “cut a cable in her house” but rather vandalized a major optic fiber cable while trying to steal copper not on her property.
Off the top of my head I could believe that a good place to lay cable (by some definition) might be a good place to drop an anchor. The more shallow the water, the less cable you need.
Cable landing stations are generally a bit further away from ports and such. They're also heavily armored when near the shore for this particular reason. The folks laying the cables will also put in energy to do outreach with local fishing organizations to let them know about the cables too (and they're charted).
Indeed, and so many ports are attached to major cities that are also great places for internet hubs ...
[deleted]
More like there was a cable cut, resulted in congestion on someone's network and they rerouted it (internal backbone changes, etc.)
[deleted]
Just another case of, influencing without authority.
many years ago, when i worked at google, we'd joke that every time fiber was 'cut' it was some rando government agency installing a tap. this was before internal traffic was encrypted.
of course, we were less than half joking.
of course, we were less than half joking.
I've heard a really interesting war story from a Googler who was in the NOC when the Japanese earthquake that took out their nuclear power stations out hit - and cut the fibres on the sea bed. He reckons they were probably the first people on the planet to know something was happening.
Apparently their immediate response was just to reroute everything through the cables on the other side of the country that were still top, and let their bosses know it was happening. They didn't slow down to ask for permission to light up half a country's worth of bandwidth, then just did it.
Apparently their immediate response was just to reroute everything through the cables on the other side of the country that were still top, and let their bosses know it was happening. They didn't slow down to ask for permission to light up half a country's worth of bandwidth, then just did it.
> Apparently their immediate response was just to reroute everything through the cables on the other side of the country that were still top, ...
I'd be pretty surprised to learn that was a "manual" decision made by humans.
I would expect -- especially in Google's case -- that the re-routing happened automatically (and nearly instantaneously, ~50ms) and the NOC engineers were simply "notified" about it.
I'd be pretty surprised to learn that was a "manual" decision made by humans.
I would expect -- especially in Google's case -- that the re-routing happened automatically (and nearly instantaneously, ~50ms) and the NOC engineers were simply "notified" about it.
Thanks to Snowden, we now know it to be factually true.
Well, I think Snowden told us the tapping happens at the exchanges mainly. Was there a lot of cutting and splicing?
The cable landing stations are an easier location to tap the subsea stuff. If you tour one there are rooms they won't let you in.
> If you tour one there are rooms they won't let you in.
I mean, I'd kind of expect not to be allowed in everywhere in such a facility for many reasons. You can't go anywhere you want in all kinds of public infrastructure (water treatment plants, power plants, etc.).
I mean, I'd kind of expect not to be allowed in everywhere in such a facility for many reasons. You can't go anywhere you want in all kinds of public infrastructure (water treatment plants, power plants, etc.).
The leaks about tapping international fiber cables predate Snowden by years. I remember NPR articles about that in 2008.
Do we? I'm under the impression they can install taps on fiber without disrupting service by bending the fiber just precisely right that a small amount of light bleeds out, or something like that.
There's an evanescent wave that can be detected if a short radius bend is introduced. I would imagine that this would introduce attenuation that might be detectable?
But mistakes happen.
[deleted]
Like the 'government agency' doesn't already posses the encryption keys or other methods to extract information from encrypted data.
That's super simplistic. Nobody magically 'has' anything. They need to do stuff (like this) to get anything.
Employ a 'reverse Snowden' and it's a done deal.
Large companies have plenty of safeguards against internal threats, especially when things like encryption keys are concerned.
They all do, and in most of them there are obvious errors in processes or rights assignments. It is pretty rare to come across a company that takes the threat from within serious. That's the whole reason Snowden could do what he did and if the NSA gets it wrong then there is a fair chance that your average corporation has faults as well.
yahwrong(1)
Most governments don't, but even the NSA taps into unencrypted or weak links along the pipe. https://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/tech-companies-s...
"SSL added and removed here! :)"
"SSL added and removed here! :)"
Here's an article about the NSA cracking some parts of the web:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/10/how-t...
""" For commonly used 1024-bit keys, it would take about a year and cost a "few hundred million dollars" to crack just one of the extremely large prime numbers that form the starting point of a Diffie-Hellman negotiation. But it turns out that only a few primes are commonly used, putting the price well within the NSA's $11 billion-per-year budget dedicated to "groundbreaking cryptanalytic capabilities." """
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/10/how-t...
""" For commonly used 1024-bit keys, it would take about a year and cost a "few hundred million dollars" to crack just one of the extremely large prime numbers that form the starting point of a Diffie-Hellman negotiation. But it turns out that only a few primes are commonly used, putting the price well within the NSA's $11 billion-per-year budget dedicated to "groundbreaking cryptanalytic capabilities." """
My understanding is that they record encrypted traffic too. They can't read any of it - yet.
But they're betting one day either a security vulnerability will be discovered, or computers will be fast enough to attack the encryption and allow them to read the data. So even though it's unreadable today, it might be in 10 years.
But they're betting one day either a security vulnerability will be discovered, or computers will be fast enough to attack the encryption and allow them to read the data. So even though it's unreadable today, it might be in 10 years.
That's a lot of data though, especially since it's usefulness goes down with time.
It certainly is.
According to the NSA technical director at the time (2013) the Utah datacenter has a capacity around 5 Zettabytes.
According to the NSA technical director at the time (2013) the Utah datacenter has a capacity around 5 Zettabytes.
Even 5EB would be a stretch for 2013. 5ZB is flat-out impossible. As another poster points out, that's years' worth of total worldwide drive shipments (most sources put it at less than 1ZB in 2013). Large buyers are further constrained by the fact that their demand can cause price spikes even at much lower percentages of the total. Not even No Such Agency has that kind of budget. The Utah facility also isn't physically big enough for that figure to hold. I work on large storage systems at one of those large buyers, and I've toured one of the several data centers where ours live. NSA's Utah data center looks to be on approximately the same scale, not orders of magnitude bigger. It's further plagued by power problems, which is another constraint on total size.
So I looked into that quote from the NSA director. What was actually said, apparently, was that the center was designed to hold up to 5ZB, not that it actually did. That seems to be a design based on some extremely optimistic assumptions about future drive density, power consumption, and cost. Needless to say, those assumptions were a bit silly at the time and have only seemed more so in retrospect.
P.S. It looks like TechCrunch came to almost exactly the same conclusions that I did, for very similar reasons. https://techcrunch.com/2013/07/24/the-nsas-massive-utah-data...
So I looked into that quote from the NSA director. What was actually said, apparently, was that the center was designed to hold up to 5ZB, not that it actually did. That seems to be a design based on some extremely optimistic assumptions about future drive density, power consumption, and cost. Needless to say, those assumptions were a bit silly at the time and have only seemed more so in retrospect.
P.S. It looks like TechCrunch came to almost exactly the same conclusions that I did, for very similar reasons. https://techcrunch.com/2013/07/24/the-nsas-massive-utah-data...
That seems hard to believe. That would be five billion 1TB hard drives.
Considering around 100 million hard drives are shipped per quarter, that would be over a decade of production.
Considering around 100 million hard drives are shipped per quarter, that would be over a decade of production.
For platter or SSD drives, sure. Some forms of magnetic tape storage can get up to 300 TB per cartridge though, which can scale up to petabytes in the right config.
Still ridiculous for information that is worth less and less over time.
Still ridiculous for information that is worth less and less over time.
300TB per cartridge in 2013? I think 10TB per cartridge was pretty high round then. That's still around half a billion tape cartridges, which are also very slow to read and write from.
There's rumours that the 2011 HDD shortage was actually due to the NSA buying it all.
Do you have a source for that 100 million figure? It strikes me as awfully low considering how many personal computers must surely exist in the world and how often they'd be replaced without reusing the drives, not even factoring in servers.
Sorry, that's per quarter. So it would be more like over a decade of all worldwide HDD production. Still crazy high IMO.
I remember hearing a speech by a quantum computing researcher that was primarily funded by the NSA. He included an anecdote about how “they would prefer quantum computing didn’t exist, but if it’s going to exist - they want the first one”.
Not even limited to 'the government'. Improperly sanitized network gear shows up in second-hand markets all around the world. Happened at a former employer of mine and a 'finder' attempted to extort us over it. VPN PSKs on the equipment were still in use in the field (no PFS either, so years of captured content could ostensibly have been decrypted).
Even equipment that appears to have been cleared out is probably hiding secrets in flash. The vendor of the equipment in this case had a separate command to wipe file contents. Deleting files just unlinked them in the flash fs.
Even equipment that appears to have been cleared out is probably hiding secrets in flash. The vendor of the equipment in this case had a separate command to wipe file contents. Deleting files just unlinked them in the flash fs.
Yep, I personally bought a Cisco firewall off of eBay several years ago that still had its entire configuration on it, including the PSKs for several IPSec VPN connections as well as SNMP (v2) communities, weak "type 7" hashes for local user accounts, the shared secrets for a pair of RADIUS servers, and so on.
Pretty much all of them (with the exception of the VPN PSKs) were sufficiently "generic" enough that I was convinced that they weren't device-specific, i.e., they were probably shared across many such devices.
According to the login banner, the firewall came from a casino.
I'm certain that my experience was not a unique one.
Pretty much all of them (with the exception of the VPN PSKs) were sufficiently "generic" enough that I was convinced that they weren't device-specific, i.e., they were probably shared across many such devices.
According to the login banner, the firewall came from a casino.
I'm certain that my experience was not a unique one.
They absolutely cannot crack all encryption schemes. It's ridiculous to even suggest it, even if they would have fully functioning quantum computers.
who said the data isn't valuable years down the line? Crack today, who knows. Crack in the future, more than likely.
This is a claim that has been made about the Total Information Awareness program, its offshoots and, specifically, the NSA's big datacenter that was in the news some years ago: that one of the things the NSA are doing is collecting all the data they can in the hope they can make sense of it later, even I'd they can't now.
@yahwrong: > Like the 'government agency' doesn't already posses the encryption keys or other methods to extract information from encrypted data.
Shoosh, we're all supposed to engage in the charade that it isn't going on.
Shoosh, we're all supposed to engage in the charade that it isn't going on.
> In a statement, the company blamed "multiple simultaneous fibre cuts", which are very rare.
Corporate speak for "obvious sabotage"...
Corporate speak for "obvious sabotage"...
Need to remember that some cables have common points where they cross over and share fate, identified as shared risk link groups (SRLGs). Good engineering and design practices involve ingesting detailed fiber routes in GIS databases (kmzs in some cases) to identify these and build diverse paths. Every now and then sometimes people get surprised by what is documented isn't what's in the ground (this is a bigger problem in urban/metro locations). Example where fiber goes under the same sidewalk, transitions from aerial to underground, etc.
Could this vessel be the cause?
"Suspected Internet Cable Spy Ship Operating In Americas For Over A Month"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/hisutton/2019/12/01/suspected-i...
"Suspected Internet Cable Spy Ship Operating In Americas For Over A Month"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/hisutton/2019/12/01/suspected-i...
Between Bucharest and Iran ? Hard to believe .....
Interesting that the word "cuts" is perhaps-intentionally ambiguous.
I wonder if this was detectable undersea fibre damage, or just Iran/Turkey switching off multiple shore stations at once?
I wonder if this was detectable undersea fibre damage, or just Iran/Turkey switching off multiple shore stations at once?
Seems like SpaceX's Starlink will have no shortage of business.
It seems like a no-brainer to use space as a backbone haul for inter-continent traffic vs. physical cables.
It might be slightly faster, it'll probably be cheaper, you can scale the bandwidth by deploying more (very cheap) satellites.
Most of all, the traffic cannot be cut, spied on, you can spread access points in multiple locations (i.e. resiliency via distribution vs. single point of failure).
It seems like a no-brainer to use space as a backbone haul for inter-continent traffic vs. physical cables.
It might be slightly faster, it'll probably be cheaper, you can scale the bandwidth by deploying more (very cheap) satellites.
Most of all, the traffic cannot be cut, spied on, you can spread access points in multiple locations (i.e. resiliency via distribution vs. single point of failure).
I don't think that the inability to spy on traffic is a typical benefit of satellites over fiber optic cables. :-(
Spying on RF signals to and from satellites was a major Cold War activity. Governments spent a lot of money on it and got really good at it.
You might say that satellite data is still safer than terrestrial cables because a particular adversary might not be present in the footprint of a particular satellite, but (1) they might be, because the equipment needed to intercept the downlink may be easy enough to conceal, and (2) satellite signals get intercepted in both directions, uplink and downlink.
The one countersurveillance benefit that I can think of is in bypassing cable landing regulations that are used to require cable operators to give governments access to the data on their cables. While governments may also try to place licensing regulations on the use of satellite data services within their territory, it's a lot easier for individual end-users to evade or ignore those regulations than it would be for them to surreptitiously land a fiber-optic cable! However, governments will also have an easy time monitoring downlink signals in their territory so they may not lose much access compared to the cable landing license approach, depending on how the operators handle link encryption.
Spying on RF signals to and from satellites was a major Cold War activity. Governments spent a lot of money on it and got really good at it.
You might say that satellite data is still safer than terrestrial cables because a particular adversary might not be present in the footprint of a particular satellite, but (1) they might be, because the equipment needed to intercept the downlink may be easy enough to conceal, and (2) satellite signals get intercepted in both directions, uplink and downlink.
The one countersurveillance benefit that I can think of is in bypassing cable landing regulations that are used to require cable operators to give governments access to the data on their cables. While governments may also try to place licensing regulations on the use of satellite data services within their territory, it's a lot easier for individual end-users to evade or ignore those regulations than it would be for them to surreptitiously land a fiber-optic cable! However, governments will also have an easy time monitoring downlink signals in their territory so they may not lose much access compared to the cable landing license approach, depending on how the operators handle link encryption.
Starlink, Kuiper and Oneweb will be a significant improvement in $ per Mbps and throughput capacity over current options via C, Ku and Ka band geostationary VSAT terminals, for very remote and hard to reach locations.
And for small users much more likely to be affordable for a CPE terminal and monthly service than the smallest service options available via o3b.
It will not be a viable option to replace 80 x 100 Gbps DWDM wavelengths on submarine fiber cables.
And for small users much more likely to be affordable for a CPE terminal and monthly service than the smallest service options available via o3b.
It will not be a viable option to replace 80 x 100 Gbps DWDM wavelengths on submarine fiber cables.
There's no way that wireless links will ever be faster than backbone fiber - the whole notion makes very little sense. Starlink may be useful in other ways, of course.
The speed of light in glass-fiber is about 1.5 times slower than the speed of light in a vacuum. Hence the extra distance for lower-orbit systems can be canceled out by the extra speed of signals.
This is only talking about latency. Bandwidth is a different game. Sure, any given fiber link will probably have better bandwidth than any satellite link. Cause the medium in between is much more consistent, leading to less signal degradation. However, fiber needs to be placed, connected, maintained. Moreover, fiber needs a physical space.
Meanwhile wireless just needs access-points at both ends, well-aimed antennas, and little interference in between. Notably, I believe star-link will use laser communication for inter-satelite communication, which essentially means perfect directional antennas. This stuff might be able to scale faster. It can certainly scale further because you don't need the space for all those cables.
This is only talking about latency. Bandwidth is a different game. Sure, any given fiber link will probably have better bandwidth than any satellite link. Cause the medium in between is much more consistent, leading to less signal degradation. However, fiber needs to be placed, connected, maintained. Moreover, fiber needs a physical space.
Meanwhile wireless just needs access-points at both ends, well-aimed antennas, and little interference in between. Notably, I believe star-link will use laser communication for inter-satelite communication, which essentially means perfect directional antennas. This stuff might be able to scale faster. It can certainly scale further because you don't need the space for all those cables.
I posted this link to an interesting paper on this particular topic about two months ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21324653
"Starlink has the potential to provide lower latency around the globe than terrestrial fiber because light travels faster in vacuum than in optical silica fiber.
"Delay is Not an Option: Low Latency Routing in Space"
...
"We conclude that a network built in this manner can provide lower latency communications than any possible terrestrial optical fiber network for communications over distances greater than about 3000 km.""
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21324653
"Starlink has the potential to provide lower latency around the globe than terrestrial fiber because light travels faster in vacuum than in optical silica fiber.
"Delay is Not an Option: Low Latency Routing in Space"
...
"We conclude that a network built in this manner can provide lower latency communications than any possible terrestrial optical fiber network for communications over distances greater than about 3000 km.""
> There's no way that wireless links will ever be faster than backbone fiber - the whole notion makes very little sense.
Why? Wireless signals propagate faster linearly than fiber signals, no?
I don't have time to do napkin math, but if 2x orbital height + curvature path multiple < linear speed difference, wireless comes out ahead.
From memory, I think this held true for transoceanic distances.
Why? Wireless signals propagate faster linearly than fiber signals, no?
I don't have time to do napkin math, but if 2x orbital height + curvature path multiple < linear speed difference, wireless comes out ahead.
From memory, I think this held true for transoceanic distances.
So is the high latency reputation from satellite links just due to low end hardware on the satellite?
Traditional satellite internet providers used satellites in geosynchronous orbit (that whole “aiming your dish” thing). That’s a 270ms hop up and another back.
Starlink is the other “not here yet” services are going to use low earth orbits for something like a 25-35ms latency to the satellite.
Starlink is the other “not here yet” services are going to use low earth orbits for something like a 25-35ms latency to the satellite.
No, typical communication satellites operate in geostationary orbit, 36,000 km high. Signal must go up that far, then down again. The earth's circumference is 40,000 km, so you've traveled more already (and yet, are still in the same area because I didn't count transmitting to another satellite -- which AFAIK is never done: the satellite transmits back down to somewhere where the data can be transmitted trough fiber).
Assuming light travels at 2c/3 in fiber, it would still take less time for a signal to go around the equator back to the same spot than for it to arrive anywhere on earth if using a satellite link.
Spacex's satellites are a game-changer because they sit in low orbit.
Assuming light travels at 2c/3 in fiber, it would still take less time for a signal to go around the equator back to the same spot than for it to arrive anywhere on earth if using a satellite link.
Spacex's satellites are a game-changer because they sit in low orbit.
Typical satellites are at geostationary orbit (35,786km).
Starlink satellites will be at 340km/550km/1150km. Lower orbits = less latency, but require a lot more satellites to cover the same area.
Wireless links could absolutely be faster than fiber links in latency. Unlikely they'll be faster in bandwidth though that's also possible if they are able to convince regulatory agencies that their beam-forming is good enough to allow them to use large swaths of bandwidth.
There's also no way that it won't have backbone fiber in that network. It's gotta cross connect with the rest of the internet at some point.
The idea with Starlink is that it will be low enough in the atmosphere and the satellite density will be high enough that the satellites should be able to route site-to-site. For some applications (high frequency trading) you could get potentially lower latency than with fiber.
Such satellites have firmware which presumably can be hacked.
I was going to ask "where is the USS Jimmy Carter", but it looks like they were overland fibers!
It only took them 30 minutes to recover from multiple, simultaneous fiber cuts. That's amazing.
Weird coincidence that the Federal Reserve ACH network has an outage at the same time?
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/19/federal-reserve-bank-glitch-...
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/19/federal-reserve-bank-glitch-...
Probably a weird coincidence?
My best guess:
a) The up and coming dictator Erdogan flexes his muscles for no particular reason. He has now probably demonstrated that he can cut two fibers at the same time using his all mighty turkish subs.
b) The Fed botches a software upgrade in the US
And this happens to happen at approximately the same time.
My best guess:
a) The up and coming dictator Erdogan flexes his muscles for no particular reason. He has now probably demonstrated that he can cut two fibers at the same time using his all mighty turkish subs.
b) The Fed botches a software upgrade in the US
And this happens to happen at approximately the same time.
Was this a test? Who and why would be motivated to see the result of these actions?
Probably not, this just happens (at least for submarine cables) . My job was affected by this event in 2008 involving submarine cables https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_submarine_cable_disruptio...
and as the Wiki entry says
>According to Beckert, cable cuts happen "on average once every three days." He further noted that there are 25 large ships that do nothing but fix cable cuts and bends, and that such cuts are usually the result of cables rubbing against rocks on the sea floor.
>According to Global Marine Systems, "Undersea cable damage is hardly rare—indeed, more than 50 repair operations were mounted in the Atlantic alone last year". While a cut in a cable crossing the Atlantic has "no significant effect" due to the many alternate cables, only a handful of Internet cables serve the Middle East. These disruptions are only noticeable because of the small number of cables
and as the Wiki entry says
>According to Beckert, cable cuts happen "on average once every three days." He further noted that there are 25 large ships that do nothing but fix cable cuts and bends, and that such cuts are usually the result of cables rubbing against rocks on the sea floor.
>According to Global Marine Systems, "Undersea cable damage is hardly rare—indeed, more than 50 repair operations were mounted in the Atlantic alone last year". While a cut in a cable crossing the Atlantic has "no significant effect" due to the many alternate cables, only a handful of Internet cables serve the Middle East. These disruptions are only noticeable because of the small number of cables
> such cuts are usually the result of cables rubbing against rocks on the sea floor.
Huh. How much current is there down at the bottom of the ocean? I was imagining a mostly static environment.
Huh. How much current is there down at the bottom of the ocean? I was imagining a mostly static environment.
Hmmm, now I'm curious but couldn't find a generic answer.
Here is a figure for the waters around Antarctica though:
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/ocean-convey...
>An estimated 35 million to 45 million cubic meters (between 1.2 billion and 1.6 billion cubic feet) of water per second are continually moved from the ocean bottom to the surface.
That's over a huge area though and still no real idea of speed.
Here is a figure for the waters around Antarctica though:
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/ocean-convey...
>An estimated 35 million to 45 million cubic meters (between 1.2 billion and 1.6 billion cubic feet) of water per second are continually moved from the ocean bottom to the surface.
That's over a huge area though and still no real idea of speed.
Is that is a terrible headline, or an association for what disappears when the internet is down?
Neither, I think. From the article
> The company told internet service providers to connect to its other servers to "route around the problem".
I believe this means they changed their DNS settings and waited for it to propagate. This implies that the internet in general was accessible, but some larger companies that bought part of a fiber cable were inaccessible over that line.
> The company told internet service providers to connect to its other servers to "route around the problem".
I believe this means they changed their DNS settings and waited for it to propagate. This implies that the internet in general was accessible, but some larger companies that bought part of a fiber cable were inaccessible over that line.
Back in 2008 when some submarine cables were cut[1], it had us frantic at work as origin stations had no way to transmit documents to us in the affected countries so we couldn't do our jobs before the freight landed. Until it was rectified they were having to take the physical documents and fly them to a country that did still have a reliable connection and scan them there to transmit to us.
Then in 2010 [2] when the volcano in Iceland grounded flights throughout parts of Europe we were similarly like "argh, sorry customers!"
Cut a few cables and knock out the 31 GPS satellites and the world would grind to a halt. It's terrifying how dependent we are on technology for virtually ever facet of our lives. Then we rely so much on air travel for delivering persons and freight, modern society is so incredibly fragile.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_submarine_cable_disruptio...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_travel_disruption_after_th...
Then in 2010 [2] when the volcano in Iceland grounded flights throughout parts of Europe we were similarly like "argh, sorry customers!"
Cut a few cables and knock out the 31 GPS satellites and the world would grind to a halt. It's terrifying how dependent we are on technology for virtually ever facet of our lives. Then we rely so much on air travel for delivering persons and freight, modern society is so incredibly fragile.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_submarine_cable_disruptio...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_travel_disruption_after_th...
> modern society is so incredibly fragile
http://energyskeptic.com/2016/when-trucks-stop-running-so-do...
"When Trucks Stop Running, So Does Civilization"
and also
http://energyskeptic.com/2015/power-transformers-that-take-u...
"Large power transformers are essential critical infrastructure to the electric grid, and are huge, weighing up to 820,000 pounds. If large power transformers are destroyed by a geomagnetic disturbance (GMD) electromagnetic pulse (EMP), cyber-attack, sabotage, severe weather, floods, or simply old age, parts or all of the electric grid could be down in a region for 6 months to 2 years. "
http://energyskeptic.com/2016/when-trucks-stop-running-so-do...
"When Trucks Stop Running, So Does Civilization"
and also
http://energyskeptic.com/2015/power-transformers-that-take-u...
"Large power transformers are essential critical infrastructure to the electric grid, and are huge, weighing up to 820,000 pounds. If large power transformers are destroyed by a geomagnetic disturbance (GMD) electromagnetic pulse (EMP), cyber-attack, sabotage, severe weather, floods, or simply old age, parts or all of the electric grid could be down in a region for 6 months to 2 years. "
So that explains it, I thought I was going crazy when simple Google queries were taking 10 seconds or more to finish (I live in Bucharest)
I'd love have a 1" slice of that cable on my desk for amuzement. Probably will be like a foot or more in diameter.
You heard the old gag about the most important pieces of camping safety gear?
You need to have a meter of optical fibre with you. Then, if you get lost, you just bury it and then ask the backhoe driver who digs it up for a ride home.
You need to have a meter of optical fibre with you. Then, if you get lost, you just bury it and then ask the backhoe driver who digs it up for a ride home.
It's not as big as you think. It's about the size of a high-voltage power line approx 3' diameter.
3 feet? or inches?
In Northern Canada, it's Wolves apparently that 'attack' our cable: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/northern-fibre-optic-no...
"This is a picture of the Mackenzie Valley fibre optic cable. Since it was laid, it's been eaten at by wild animals, struck by lightning, and run over by construction workers."
"This is a picture of the Mackenzie Valley fibre optic cable. Since it was laid, it's been eaten at by wild animals, struck by lightning, and run over by construction workers."
Was it just auto-fixed via BGP?
The first HN thread I saw this morning (CET) about this was deleted, I think, but here's the second one:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21832934
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21832934
Virgin Media in London also has had it's fibre optic cables cut this morning.
https://my.virginmedia.com/faults/service-status
https://my.virginmedia.com/faults/service-status
I used to work at a military base in San Diego that lost all internet connectivity after construction workers replacing a sewer line accidentally cut the OC-48 line
Hmmm, I've also been experiencing downtime today to nixval and amazon (don't know which region exactly) hosted sites. IDK if it's a coincidence.
Auth0 is completely down for us too.. http://status.auth0.com/ again, probably not related but a weird morning with all these outages.
Yesterday I could not find a The Pirate Bay mirror site that works. Now I assume that is connected to this issue but the first RARBG mirror I tried worked so I wonder if this is just an anecdote or it gives some insight about the demography of these two sites.
is it just accepted at this point that wiretapping is the cause, when this happens?
When a cable is severed, and traffic is rerouted, who profits, how, and why?
The obvious loser is the severed cable owner.
The obvious loser is the severed cable owner.
I wonder if this is why turkey post’s tracking has been down for days.
mitchtbaum(1)
[deleted]
> In a statement, the company blamed "multiple simultaneous fibre cuts", which are very rare.
In cases where multiple cables are cut simultaneously the simple answer was that it was probably done intentionally.
Reminds of 2015 in SF: ”At least 11 physical attacks on these cables have occurred in at least 10 Bay area cities”
I don’t know who these people are, but I bet they play dress up in a black mask and have convinced themselves that the ends will justify their means.
https://fortune.com/2015/07/01/cutting-internet-cables/
In cases where multiple cables are cut simultaneously the simple answer was that it was probably done intentionally.
Reminds of 2015 in SF: ”At least 11 physical attacks on these cables have occurred in at least 10 Bay area cities”
I don’t know who these people are, but I bet they play dress up in a black mask and have convinced themselves that the ends will justify their means.
https://fortune.com/2015/07/01/cutting-internet-cables/
Multiple cuts, at multiple locations? or one location?
Or just one location where primary and backup systems went through the same pipe, system, whatever?
Telco land is full of redundancy that eventually converges into a single point of failure.
Or just one location where primary and backup systems went through the same pipe, system, whatever?
Telco land is full of redundancy that eventually converges into a single point of failure.
[deleted]
https://saigoneer.com/saigon-technology/11885-sharks,-anchor...
https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20190528/vietnams-intern...
https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20171016/vietnam-grapple...
https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/city-diary/20170125/save-vietnam...
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne...