New Threat to GWOT

From a members only group:
Emails:

> > 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

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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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> >
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> > 127 Eastern Avenue #291 Web: http://www.tscm.com/
> > Gloucester, MA 01931-8008
> >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> no prisoners,
> > and we give no quarter. Our goal is to simply, and completely stop the spy.

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At 08:57 PM 1/31/2008, kondrak wrote:

>They're now claiming it was "fishing trawlers", I'll wait to see where
>the cuts are exactly, if they're close to shore I can buy the fishing story.
>Seems we will have to wait a week is to find out.
>
>James M. Atkinson wrote:
> > 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

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This brings up the possibility of even deisel powered subs torpedoing Internet cables around the World. How do we protect the cables? Harden them? replicate them with satellites?

Add this type of attack to a Internet Pearl Harbor attack, and we have a problem Huston.

Gerald
Internet Anthropologist

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