Is the internet under attack?
NEW DELHI (AFP) - - Another Middle East undersea Internet cable has been damaged, adding to disruption in Indian online services caused when several lines were cut earlier this week, a cable operating firm said Saturday.Lawhawk sees the four recent 'accidents' as "quite strange and definitely worth following further". I personally find the news disturbing. The India interuption will have effects on US companies who outsource their work to India. Yesterday I tried getting through to my mortgage company over a missing tax form and got bounced around for 15 minutes. Is a Cyber war under way right now?The Falcon cable was cut 56 kilometres (35 miles) from Dubai, between Oman and the United Arab Emirates, according to its owner FLAG Telecom, part of India's Reliance Communications.
The company said on its website that a repair ship had been notified and was expected to arrive at the site in the next few days.
The cause of the latest cable damage was not immediately known.
Flag Telecom owns another undersea cable which was damaged off Egypt on Wednesday in the Mediterranean. Indian media reports have attributed that damage to a ship's anchor which dropped on the cable.
On the same day in Kuwait, the government reported two cables damaged by "weather conditions and maritime traffic."
The cable damage has left India's vital outsourcing industry grappling with major communications disruptions and businesses saying they could take up to two weeks to return to normal.
It has also disrupted Internet service across the Middle East and other parts of South Asia.
Not too many people seem concerned by this news. Super Tuesday, Brittney, and other trivia like forgetting Winston Churchhill are getting all the attention from the news media and bloggers. As interesting as some find rehashing why John McCain isn't good for the Republican party may sound, something much more dangerous to the well being of this republic could be under way at this moment. And no one seems to care. When US internet service is disrupted and our economy takes a major even catastrophic hit, people may wonder where were the warning signs. Right under their noses.
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Internet, Middle East
Comments (13)
Can't get through to lawhaw... (Below threshold)1. Posted by Son Of The Godfather | February 5, 2008 10:12 AM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Can't get through to lawhawk's page, but I'm pretty sure the monster from Cloverfield is responsible.
1. Posted by Son Of The Godfather | February 5, 2008 10:12 AM |
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Posted on February 5, 2008 10:12
2. Posted by JLawson | February 5, 2008 10:37 AM | Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
Wouldn't be the first time the important was ignored for the trivial in the news. After all, ratings are MUCH more important.
Who cares about a busted cable infrastructure - unless... maybe we can say Brittany and Jamie Spears did it, while Paris Hilton watched?
2. Posted by JLawson | February 5, 2008 10:37 AM |
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
Posted on February 5, 2008 10:37
3. Posted by jpm100 | February 5, 2008 10:40 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
I support the War on Terror in general which includes but not limited to business/economic reasons.
But the cynic in my knows that many Republicans only weather the Political Correctness to support the WoT because it threatens Outsourcing and other aspects of Free Trade. McCain comes to mind.
3. Posted by jpm100 | February 5, 2008 10:40 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 5, 2008 10:40
4. Posted by epador | February 5, 2008 11:02 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
So who is HELPED by this unfortunate series of events?
4. Posted by epador | February 5, 2008 11:02 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 5, 2008 11:02
5. Posted by Henry | February 5, 2008 11:23 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
I don't see this as a threat to the US internet Bill. The majority of "nodes" are here in the states, and massive amount of cables and routers and lines run inside the states anyway.
What this DOES prove, is how fragile internet service is OUTSIDE of the United States...
Might the internet "outage" be due to someone else tapping into the lines? Makes me wonder what is going on behind the scenes that we don't know about...
5. Posted by Henry | February 5, 2008 11:23 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 5, 2008 11:23
6. Posted by Bill Jempty | February 5, 2008 11:44 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Henry,
There have been internet attacks before, one I blogged about too at Wizbang.
You're also forgetting about globalization. The US economy is interlocked with others around the world. Including India. As I pointed out, many US companies outsource to that country. With internet service cut there, it has to have some ripple effects here.
Four instnaces of internet cables cut in a short period of time in the same part of the world. That's a great deal of coincidence to swallow.
6. Posted by Bill Jempty | February 5, 2008 11:44 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 5, 2008 11:44
7. Posted by epador | February 5, 2008 3:16 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
No one's blaming Iranian subs yet?
7. Posted by epador | February 5, 2008 3:16 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 5, 2008 15:16
8. Posted by SCSIwuzzy | February 5, 2008 6:13 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Maybe this is how the Shah and the Mullahs are spinning the fact that they haven't paid their phone bill.
IDK, Achmydinnerjacket probably went crazy with his Sidekick again, texting his BFF Jill.
8. Posted by SCSIwuzzy | February 5, 2008 6:13 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 5, 2008 18:13
9. Posted by Henry | February 5, 2008 7:05 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
DDos? I must have missed that?
Attacking a single website is far different from destroying hardware which disrupts internet for an ENTIRE COUNTRY.
What I meant was it would be hard to disrupt internet service for the entire US of A, as almost all the internet "nodes" are within this country.
9. Posted by Henry | February 5, 2008 7:05 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 5, 2008 19:05
10. Posted by John S | February 5, 2008 7:51 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Maybe the engineers who designed and built the Internet are sick and tired of their jobs going to India and are finally doing something about it...
10. Posted by John S | February 5, 2008 7:51 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 5, 2008 19:51
11. Posted by epador | February 5, 2008 8:54 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
You mean AlGOre has gone Terrorist?
11. Posted by epador | February 5, 2008 8:54 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 5, 2008 20:54
12. Posted by Arthur | February 6, 2008 12:05 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
It's not THAT rare.
>Undersea cable damage is hardly rare-indeed, more than 50 repair operations were mounted in the Atlantic alone last year, according to marine cable repair company Global Marine Systems. But last week's breaks came at one of the world's bottlenecks, where Net traffic for whole regions is funneled along a single route.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4244474&page=1
And at least one of the breaks wasn't anywhere near the others. Sounds like how shark attacks were all the rage in the summer of 2001 (because nothing else was going on...)
12. Posted by Arthur | February 6, 2008 12:05 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 6, 2008 00:05
13. Posted by twolaneflash | February 6, 2008 12:09 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Dude, what are internet "nodes" and are they cancerous? Should I step away from the keyboard? And why are they only in America, like polyps in a colon?
13. Posted by twolaneflash | February 6, 2008 12:09 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 6, 2008 00:09