
Messages in the Deep – The Story of the Underwater Internet - jonbaer
http://builtvisible.com/messages-in-the-deep/
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arh68
Is a point-to-point Internet just wishful thinking? If we all just get some
good antennas [1], we could point our antennas at each other multiple times a
day and exchange large quantities of data asynchronously (within a small
geographic area). My old TV antenna used to rotate internally when you changed
the channel to locate the signal, it's just servos spinning antennas. I think
there's value in both network designs. Reading articles like these gives me a
hunch that fiber will never be secure, ever again, so an Internet that doesn't
run on fiber is one I look forward to.

[1] anything on the order of 1Gbps, 10-100km:
[http://www.ubnt.com/airfiber/airfiber5/](http://www.ubnt.com/airfiber/airfiber5/)

~~~
btoptical
A fiber is point-to-point unless there's an add/drop along the way. A
submarine cable is point-to-point between say California and Japan or New York
and Southampton.

That 5GHz radio has short reach and low capacity. It'd only make sense in
certain situations. It would not be suitable for the gigantic capacity
required by the Internet backbones.

For example, with the advent of coherent optical technology, you typical
submarine cable is carrying 4000x the capacity of that radio (4Tb/s).
Terrestrial long haul systems can be easily 8Tb/s.

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jckt
Further reading for anyone interested: Neal Stephenson's legendary "Mother
Earth Motherboard" is related.
[http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html](http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html)

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mhbrown
Since no one has referenced it yet, The book _Blind Man 's Bluff_ details many
of these submarine espionage missions and discusses the birth of nuclear-
powered subs. Definitely recommend it!
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/006097771X?pc_redir=1406267244...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/006097771X?pc_redir=1406267244&robot_redir=1#productDescription_secondary_view_pageState_1406471099352)

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petewailes
Quick aside: I'm one of the team that built this. If you've got any questions,
shout!

~~~
Kenji
I have a question. How do you connect two optical cables as opposed to copper
wires? Can you melt the glass together or do you have to put a repeater
inbetween? I have no clue how you can repair glass fibers.

~~~
dfox
You melt the glass in controlled manner and let it to fuse together. As far as
the process goes it is mostly similar to how lab technicians in chemistry labs
build custom glassware, but with much smaller dimensions and better control

In practical terms you use ridiculously expensive computer controlled portable
machine that just does it without much of manual intervention. It is done by
such automatic splicers almost since fiber optics are used for practical
applications. There were manual (mostly mechanical) splicers that are not too
hard to use (it certainly requires less skill than above mentioned laboratory
glassware), but it's more economical to just automate the task.

The problem is that even almost perfect splice incurs significant additional
signal loss, so for long cable runs you do want to do smallest number of
splices (and connectors, which are orders of magnitude worse) as possible.

~~~
onnoonno
Does that machine have to correct for the rocking of the ship?

Edit: To be more specific - do you have a quiet/stabilized optical platform
onboard to perform this?

~~~
dfox
The whole mechanism tends to be mounted inside the case on some kind of
damping, but I would assume that has more to do with overall ruggedness than
with vibrations in operation (it's precision micro mechanics that are quite
rigid, flexing of the fiber itself does not seem like much of an issue to me).

~~~
onnoonno
Ah, I see. Interesting. Thanks for the explanation! If a public tour is ever
offered on such a repair ship, I'll check it out, it sounds like awesome
technology.

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junto
Out of interest; Amongst the Snowden leaks, was there a map of the physical
locations where the NSA and the 5-eyes have their tap points in relation to
where these cables pop out of the water onto land?

~~~
XzetaU8
You mean this one?
[http://i.imgur.com/GFpwht3.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/GFpwht3.jpg)

~~~
junto
Similar, but I'd seen one that was more detailed than this, to the point that
you could see the code name on every tap point.

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Heliosmaster
Nice and thorough article. I am always amazed by the fact that despite oceans
and distance, we are _physically_ connected to each other.

It is obvious, but nevertheless mind blowing.

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Yardlink
Do Americans realize their country works like a criminal gang?There's an
innocent man still in prison today for trying to help the victim (Russia)
detect being illegally spied on by America. Why is he still in prison? He did
the right thing by exposing the spying. Why aren't the sailors of the American
submarine in prison for their crimes?

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snowwrestler
I think it's interesting that this seems to have been written and put together
by a digital agency, not a journalism company or nonprofit. I wonder what
benefits the agency gets, if any. Or maybe they just think underwater cabling
is fascinating. (I agree!)

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fideloper
$35,000 feels like pennies, given the risk vs reward. I wonder what the story
behind that is (see:
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_spying](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_spying))

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dmurray
Some of the claims don't sound right. 99% of all international communications
are carried on undersea cables? I imagine a lot more than 1% of international
traffic is between countries in continental Europe, for a start.

~~~
dfox
Few paragraphs down they qualify that number as "transcontinental".

~~~
vidarh
Also undersea cables have substantial benefits for long distances: Less chance
of getting cut; fewer border issues to deal with; easier to route around
conflict zones; the water acts as a natural boundary against simple
opportunistic theft or sabotage. So even places where there may be a shorter
land route you'll often find undersea cables.

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neom
Absolutely fascinating read and awesome microsite, well well put together -
props.

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peterkelly
> and each day route a quantity of data equivalent to several hundred US
> Libraries of Congress

I think it's about time we introduced a new unit of measurement for data

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mgkimsal
It's also been a changing target. "Size of the library of Congress" in 1996 is
not what it was in 2012, for example - the comparison doesn't carry well over
time.

Football stadium of encyclopedias?

