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Europe's Internet resilience mitigates impact of submarine cable cuts
- lexlambda 2y agoCan anyone explain why there wasn't any BGP activity on the Finland-Germany systems when the cable broke, while for Lithuania there was a massive spike? Unfortunately it's been a long time since I learned about BGP, if anyone could help out here I'd be grateful.
- wmf 2y agoEach BGP hop represents an ISP so when an ISP reroutes traffic internally there's no need for changes to external BGP announcements. Clearly ISPs in the Baltic region have multiple paths and don't depend on any one cable.
- anonymousDan 2y agoOne important question that I'm unclear on is how long it takes to fix one of these cables. If it takes months then that is quite a wide window in which an attacker could incrementally take down cables.
- booi 2y agoGenerally it can be fixed in days. They raise it from the sea floor and splice in a new cable section.
- mistyvales 2y agoCrazy that you can splice optical cable..
- dgfitz 2y agoI mean… they get terminated somehow, right?
- dmoy 2y agoTrue, but splicing without leaving behind a powered repeater is different from the final termination with active electronics on the end. It's pretty cool tech
- dgfitz 2y agoI’m saying you can terminate cleanly without needing a repeater. To be clear, I’m saying to terminate each end of the cut cable to a terminating device that continues the flow of light, not just the termination at the beginning/end of the line. Sorry if that wasn’t obvious.
- neom 2y agoToday, we're going to talk to John Owens and learn about the process of splicing fiber: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zN20ZVInfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zN20ZVInfU
- UltraSane 2y agoThey actually have very cool devices that will automatically align and fuse two fibers and estimate the loss of the bond. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP_C0XLLyR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP_C0XLLyR0
- timbit42 2y agoWhy is it crazy? It's been done since there has been optical cable.
- scheme271 2y agoTrue but ships and crews with the equipment to do the repairs are limited. It's possible to overwhelm the repair capacities. Also, it takes time to physically travel between cuts so while cuts in the Baltic might take a week or two to fix, a cut in the Atlantic and one in the Baltic may take a week or two just for travel.
- shmerl 2y agoIf someone will try to overwhelm the repair capacities for integral communications, they'll be dealt with like pirates - simply sunk and be done with.
- LtWorf 2y agoAs if they know which ship did this…
- shmerl 2y agoThey already know. The captain will probably end up in prison for a long time, and company which owns the ship will pay for the deliberate damage. Would be good too if they can crack who from the crew works for Russian saboteurs besides the captain. Unlikely it's just one person.
- TheMiddleMan 2y agoThis is a great video on undersea cables https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFt9le2ytW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFt9le2ytW0 "Sabatoge" and repair is discussed at 11:45
- PhasmaFelis 2y agoIn this particular case, it seems like the attackers were trying for plausible deniability (making it look like an accident with an anchor). A comprehensive series of "accidents" wouldn't fit that goal. (And if they decide they don't care about plausible deniability, they could use sub-deployed timed mines to take out every cable at once.)
- chgs 2y agoAnd then once they are fixed take them out again
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> once they are fixed take them out again In an actual war, you hit the repair equipment and personnel [1]. (As to the Geneva Conventions note, we're discussing a hypothetical war with Russia. The status quo, including rules of war, are going to be rewritten by the victors.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_tap_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_tap_strike
- chgs 2y agoIf you are planting one cutting device (small bomb etc), you could do the same thing 10 miles down the line and blast it again without having to revisit the area.
- alisonatwork 2y agoEven if these "accidents" are a state sponsored (or at least condoned) action, it seems certain states have realized they can happen over and over again without consequences[0]. The frustrating part of this kind of petty tactic is that bullies can do just enough to annoy and inconvenience their targets, while never quite doing enough to make it worth expending the political capital to hold them to account. From the bully's perspective there's no downside. And if legitimate accidents or rogue actions get portrayed as deliberate then all the better - that just reinforces the bully's reputation as an actor to be feared while further eroding trust in the international institutions that may one day challenge it. [0] https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/5677668 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/5677668
- amelius 2y agoThey could even blow up all cables at once. Maybe the explosives have already been placed.
- tuyiown 2y agoWith timers ? because undersea communication is not as solved problem AFAIK
- amelius 2y agoThe communication does not have to be fast, so they could use extremely low frequency signals, which apparently can travel over hundreds to thousands of miles in seawater. On top of that, they could build a mesh network.
- mcfedr 2y agoCertainly worth blowing up some russian ships to make sure it doesn't happen again
- yencabulator 2y agoUpdate: > Finland, Sweden complete repairs on Baltic Sea cables https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42273288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42273288
- ChoHag 2y ago[dead]
- lxgr 2y agoShhh, or somebody will realize how much slack there is in the system (for very good reasons, as evidenced here) and "optimize" it away...
- jmward01 2y agoYeah, I wouldn't be surprised if Slack took up 50% of the bandwidth on those cables considering how many notifications and channels I alone get spammed with from work.
- ikekkdcjkfke 2y agoExactly what the internet was built for!