
Egypt catches divers cutting Internet cable amid disruptions - orrsella
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/27/net-us-egypt-internet-idUSBRE92Q1AQ20130327
======
WestCoastJustin
BBC [1] says this was the _SEA-ME-WE 4_ cable. The cut (according to the SEA-
ME-WE_4 wiki page [2]), _lead to a degradation of internet speed by 60% in
several countries including Pakistan and Egypt_.

How large are these cables? Looks like about 2.7in [3], so it easily fits in
the palm of your hand [4]. To get an idea of what this looks like, check out a
photo of a similar deployment [5].

[1] <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21963100>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEA-ME-WE_4>

[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable>

[4] <http://blog.zulyusof.com/?p=135>

[5] [http://news.priyo.com/tech/2011/08/06/bangladesh-
experience-...](http://news.priyo.com/tech/2011/08/06/bangladesh-experience-
internet-33868.html)

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mkhattab
As an Egyptian, this is seriously bedan[1]. Though it's not surprising that
some people would do something like this, the article doesn't provide much
context/information. I could provide many personal anecdotes of people cutting
telephone lines, throwing nails and spikes in the streets and doing other
diabolical shit for no good reason.

\-- [1]: <http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bedan>

~~~
thekid314
bedan feshk gamd

~~~
616c
OMG! I am not going to lie, but you two made my day. Egyptian profanity jokes
on HN. Haha.

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ewams
Interesting that the Egyptian Army and Reuters are friends on Facebook. Though
I suppose the Army must have a page on FB for recruitment purposes. Are they
really using FB as an official information sharing portal about news like
this?

Looks like a recruitment tool:
<https://www.facebook.com/Egyptian.Armed.Forces>

Official page? <http://www.mmc.gov.eg>

(compare that to <http://www.army.mil> which looks like a news site)

Possible that because of the instability recently Eqyptian authorities think
Facebook is more capable of serving web pages than their own sites? Why is an
Army spokesperson talking about an event handled by the coast guard?

The ISP, Link Dot Net, does not have any English information about the event
on their web page: <http://www.link.net/English/Linkcorp/News+and+Events/>

Apparently last week another Egyptian ISP had an issue as well:
[http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/67894/Egypt/Pol...](http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/67894/Egypt/Politics-/Egypts-
military-stop-attempt-to-cut-internet-cable.aspx)

Nothing on their webpage: <http://www.tedata.net/eg/en/About-Us/News-And-
Events>

Also discovered that a lot of Egyptian websites have not had any updates to
their news pages since late 2012.

~~~
bdunbar
> Why is an Army spokesperson talking about an event handled by the coast
> guard?

You will have noticed that when a guy is filmed at the Pentagon handing out
bad news, it's whatever PIO is up next, not an officer for that branch of the
service.

Speculation: the Egyptian armed forces have the same sort of deal with the
press. The Army guy was just the PIO on duty at the time.

------
richardjordan
It's something I think we'll see more of in the future and speaks to the power
of the masses having a direct connection to the outside world - that there are
parties who recognize that to pursue their agenda they need to disrupt
Internet access.

~~~
gkanai
But who? The cables are Egypt Telecom- the monopoly carrier. So cutting it
hurts everyone inside Egypt.

~~~
j-g-faustus
Several options:

\- Ideological motive: Internet corrupts people, we must protect them from
evil influence.

\- Political motive: Disrupting infrastructure as an attack on the current
rulers.

\- Financial motive: Maybe they sell cable repair services or satellite-based
internet access.

Or just plain vandalism, which doesn't need a discernable motive.

No way of telling without asking them, I guess.

~~~
mercurial
It could be gang-related - an Internet protection racket.

------
aubergene
I read this 1996 article by Neal Stephenson about the construction of FLAG.
It's really interesting and deals with how cables are laid and possible damage
to them.

<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html>

------
daniel-levin
Seacom is one of the primary cables that connects South Africa to the world.
Since Friday 22nd March, we've experienced reduced speeds. What is interesting
is the technical responses of the local (South African) ISPs to the
disruption. Regular HTTP was severely throttled. FTP was disabled completely -
it wasn't slow - it was literally switched off. When you tried to load a page,
the browser / wget would report nothing for a few seconds, and then after a
while would immediately start the download. To me, this suggests that requests
were being queued before being sent through. Also, the same symptoms
manifested themselves when looking at local websites - a broken undersea cable
shouldn't affect that. It's just interesting from a technical standpoint how
our ISPs did damage control.

~~~
james2vegas
Most South African ISPs do that already, you just noticed it less. They stick
transparent caching proxies in front of HTTP[s]/FTP

------
ck2
My first thought was CIA but we have subs that can splice optical cables on
the sea floor so this would be amateur hour in comparison.

~~~
willvarfar
Necessary link: Operation Ivy Bells
<http://www.specialoperations.com/Operations/ivybells.html>

Also, everyone read the book "Blind Man's Bluff"

~~~
ck2
You don't have to go back that far
<https://www.google.com/search?q=undersea+fiber+optics+tapped>

------
dsr_
How did they get the backhoe running down there?

~~~
bdunbar
They borrowed an amphibious backhoe from the Navy.

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josemariaruiz
<conspiranoia> 1) People in Cyprus (and investment funds?) start using
Bitcoin. 2) "Biggest" attack in Internet ever, latency increase. 3) ECB send
trucks with cash to Cypruss 4) Guys are caught cutting cables that can affect
trading (increase latency again). </conspiranoia>

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kislayverma
This is the most low-tech DDOS ever!

~~~
duaneb
Wouldn't it just be a DOS since it's one cut?

~~~
kislayverma
The first 'D' is for 'Drastic' :)

~~~
Validus
No actually it's for 'Distributed'.

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frozenport
Hoping to _disrupt_ the telecommunication monopoly? Har har har...

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orenmazor
what were they using to cut those wires? thats not a cat5 down there.

~~~
pyre
They thought there might be copper wires in there that they could sell for
scrap. :P

~~~
chiph
Other than sheer criminal mischief, this is the most likely explanation.

A coworker once saw some workers in the Philippines use a bulldozer to drag
500 meters of copper phone cable out of the ground so they could sell it on
the black market.

------
pyvpx
since the arab spring, cable plans for routes diverse and not reliant on an
Egypt drop have gotten some serious momentum behind them.

------
neebz
and we thought the internet is slow in Pakistan because of the DDOS attack
Cloudflare has been harping about.

