
Severed fibre cables disrupted internet access in eastern Europe, Iran, Turkey - DarkContinent
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50851420
======
latchkey
In Vietnam, near every holiday or major event the internet magically slows to
a crawl and the Govt run papers declare that sharks have attacked the undersea
cables, it is almost comical how well timed the 'attacks' are...

[https://saigoneer.com/saigon-
technology/11885-sharks,-anchor...](https://saigoneer.com/saigon-
technology/11885-sharks,-anchors-red-tape-why-it-takes-forever-to-fix-vietnam-
s-broken-internet-cables)

[https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20190528/vietnams-
intern...](https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20190528/vietnams-internet-
speed-slowed-by-cable-problem-off-da-nang/50125.html)

[https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20171016/vietnam-
grapple...](https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20171016/vietnam-grapples-
with-internet-cable-problems/42065.html)

[https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/city-diary/20170125/save-
vietnam...](https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/city-diary/20170125/save-
vietnam%E2%80%99s-internet-sharks/29467.html)

[https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/ne...](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/news/sharks-are-eating-the-internet-in-vietnam-9962747.html)

~~~
jldugger
Was reading the wikipedia page on undersea cables and ran across this gem --
some pirates tried to sell 100 tons of fiber cable they nabbed off the bottom
of the ocean near Vietnam: [https://lirneasia.net/2007/06/vietnams-submarine-
cable-lost-...](https://lirneasia.net/2007/06/vietnams-submarine-cable-lost-
and-found/)

~~~
dweekly
Salvaged copper is worth a lot and has a lot of uses for which it can be
repurposed. Salvaged fiber...less so.

~~~
analog31
Are undersea fiber cables bundled with copper conductors to power the
repeaters?

~~~
jdblair
Yes, there is copper or aluminum for power. Most of the metal in a submarine
fiber cable is steel.

See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable)

------
freedomben
In the mid 2000s I was in the Middle East and used the internet to connect
back to the United States for conducting business. One day almost every site
became unreachable (anything hosted in the states). It turned out that a naval
vessel had dropped anchor and Murphy's Law put the anchor right on top of some
undersea fiber cables. It was called a freak accident because statistically
was so unlikely to happen.

It took a while to figure out what happened, and internet was out for a couple
of days. Considering service was restored in 30 minutes in this case, we are
getting a lot better at handling severed cables.

~~~
pen2l
> Considering service was restored in 30 minutes in this case, we are getting
> a lot better at handling severed cables.

30 minutes?

This is absolutely mind-boggling to me. 30 minutes -- and you can identify
exactly where the cut was, deep in the water, access it, fix it _in the
water_? To me that sounds like a 30-month job not a 30-second job.

Anyone here with insight into this fix-process: could you please shed light on
how this is done and how it can be so fast?

~~~
oogali
It’s about a 1-3 month repair job to acquire replacement cable, load it into a
ship, and sail out to the break point.

However, service is restored sooner than that by rerouting service over a
different fiber cable or undamaged set of fibers.

~~~
doikor
The cable is not fully replaced. They lift the cable up to a boat and repair
it (replacing the damaged bit and joining it to the original) and lower it
back down.

Here is an animation describing the process
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJblHOGXKo4](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJblHOGXKo4)

~~~
wwarner
Amazing really that the optics at the repair site are still good enough to
carry the bandwidth.

------
incomplete
many years ago, when i worked at google, we'd joke that every time fiber was
'cut' it was some rando government agency installing a tap. this was before
internal traffic was encrypted.

of course, we were less than half joking.

~~~
yahwrong
Like the 'government agency' doesn't already posses the encryption keys or
other methods to extract information from encrypted data.

~~~
AdamN
That's super simplistic. Nobody magically 'has' anything. They need to do
stuff (like this) to get anything.

~~~
jacquesm
Employ a 'reverse Snowden' and it's a done deal.

~~~
lima
Large companies have plenty of safeguards against internal threats, especially
when things like encryption keys are concerned.

~~~
jacquesm
They all do, and in most of them there are obvious errors in processes or
rights assignments. It is pretty rare to come across a company that takes the
threat from within serious. That's the whole reason Snowden could do what he
did and if the NSA gets it wrong then there is a fair chance that your average
corporation has faults as well.

------
MagnumPIG
> In a statement, the company blamed "multiple simultaneous fibre cuts", which
> are very rare.

Corporate speak for "obvious sabotage"...

~~~
clumsysmurf
Could this vessel be the cause?

"Suspected Internet Cable Spy Ship Operating In Americas For Over A Month"

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/hisutton/2019/12/01/suspected-i...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/hisutton/2019/12/01/suspected-
internet-cable-spy-ship-operating-in-americas/#6f5c0f6d32ae)

~~~
rcostin2k2
Between Bucharest and Iran ? Hard to believe .....

------
kjksf
Seems like SpaceX's Starlink will have no shortage of business.

It seems like a no-brainer to use space as a backbone haul for inter-continent
traffic vs. physical cables.

It might be slightly faster, it'll probably be cheaper, you can scale the
bandwidth by deploying more (very cheap) satellites.

Most of all, the traffic cannot be cut, spied on, you can spread access points
in multiple locations (i.e. resiliency via distribution vs. single point of
failure).

~~~
zozbot234
There's no way that wireless links will ever be _faster_ than backbone fiber -
the whole notion makes very little sense. Starlink may be useful in other
ways, of course.

~~~
ethbro
_> There's no way that wireless links will ever be faster than backbone fiber
- the whole notion makes very little sense._

Why? Wireless signals propagate faster linearly than fiber signals, no?

I don't have time to do napkin math, but if 2x orbital height + curvature path
multiple < linear speed difference, wireless comes out ahead.

From memory, I think this held true for transoceanic distances.

~~~
LMYahooTFY
So is the high latency reputation from satellite links just due to low end
hardware on the satellite?

~~~
jws
Traditional satellite internet providers used satellites in geosynchronous
orbit (that whole “aiming your dish” thing). That’s a 270ms hop up and another
back.

Starlink is the other “not here yet” services are going to use low earth
orbits for something like a 25-35ms latency to the satellite.

------
lsllc
I was going to ask "where is the USS Jimmy Carter", but it looks like they
were overland fibers!

------
relaunched
It only took them 30 minutes to recover from multiple, simultaneous fiber
cuts. That's amazing.

~~~
BubRoss
Almost as if they were being repaired right after they were cut.

~~~
zamadatix
Or almost as if the traffic were rerouted to other links as the article
explains. That's the beauty of the IP.

------
MR4D
Weird coincidence that the Federal Reserve ACH network has an outage at the
same time?

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/19/federal-reserve-bank-
glitch-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/19/federal-reserve-bank-glitch-
delayed-bank-account-deposits.html)

~~~
tpmx
Probably a weird coincidence?

My best guess:

a) The up and coming dictator Erdogan flexes his muscles for no particular
reason. He has now probably demonstrated that he can cut two fibers at the
same time using his all mighty turkish subs.

b) The Fed botches a software upgrade in the US

And this happens to happen at approximately the same time.

------
bredren
Was this a test? Who and why would be motivated to see the result of these
actions?

~~~
ryanmercer
Probably not, this just happens (at least for submarine cables) . My job was
affected by this event in 2008 involving submarine cables
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_submarine_cable_disruptio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_submarine_cable_disruption)

and as the Wiki entry says

>According to Beckert, cable cuts happen "on average once every three days."
He further noted that there are 25 large ships that do nothing but fix cable
cuts and bends, and that such cuts are usually the result of cables rubbing
against rocks on the sea floor.

>According to Global Marine Systems, "Undersea cable damage is hardly
rare—indeed, more than 50 repair operations were mounted in the Atlantic alone
last year". While a cut in a cable crossing the Atlantic has "no significant
effect" due to the many alternate cables, only a handful of Internet cables
serve the Middle East. These disruptions are only noticeable because of the
small number of cables

~~~
thaumasiotes
> such cuts are usually the result of cables rubbing against rocks on the sea
> floor.

Huh. How much current is there down at the bottom of the ocean? I was
imagining a mostly static environment.

~~~
ryanmercer
Hmmm, now I'm curious but couldn't find a generic answer.

Here is a figure for the waters around Antarctica though:

[https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/ocean-
convey...](https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/ocean-conveyor-
belt/)

>An estimated 35 million to 45 million cubic meters (between 1.2 billion and
1.6 billion cubic feet) of water per second are continually moved from the
ocean bottom to the surface.

That's over a huge area though and still no real idea of speed.

------
zknz
Is that is a terrible headline, or an association for what disappears when the
internet is down?

~~~
iudqnolq
Neither, I think. From the article

> The company told internet service providers to connect to its other servers
> to "route around the problem".

I believe this means they changed their DNS settings and waited for it to
propagate. This implies that the internet in general was accessible, but some
larger companies that bought part of a fiber cable were inaccessible over that
line.

~~~
alexchamberlain
Probably BGP rather than DNS?

~~~
iudqnolq
I wouldn't know. Thanks!

------
ryanmercer
Back in 2008 when some submarine cables were cut[1], it had us frantic at work
as origin stations had no way to transmit documents to us in the affected
countries so we couldn't do our jobs before the freight landed. Until it was
rectified they were having to take the physical documents and fly them to a
country that did still have a reliable connection and scan them there to
transmit to us.

Then in 2010 [2] when the volcano in Iceland grounded flights throughout parts
of Europe we were similarly like "argh, sorry customers!"

Cut a few cables and knock out the 31 GPS satellites and the world would grind
to a halt. It's terrifying how dependent we are on technology for virtually
ever facet of our lives. Then we rely so much on air travel for delivering
persons and freight, modern society is so incredibly fragile.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_submarine_cable_disruptio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_submarine_cable_disruption)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_travel_disruption_after_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_travel_disruption_after_the_2010_Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull_eruption)

~~~
acqq
> modern society is so incredibly fragile

[http://energyskeptic.com/2016/when-trucks-stop-running-so-
do...](http://energyskeptic.com/2016/when-trucks-stop-running-so-does-
civilization/)

"When Trucks Stop Running, So Does Civilization"

and also

[http://energyskeptic.com/2015/power-transformers-that-
take-u...](http://energyskeptic.com/2015/power-transformers-that-take-up-
to-2-years-to-build/)

"Large power transformers are essential critical infrastructure to the
electric grid, and are huge, weighing up to 820,000 pounds. If large power
transformers are destroyed by a geomagnetic disturbance (GMD) electromagnetic
pulse (EMP), cyber-attack, sabotage, severe weather, floods, or simply old
age, parts or all of the electric grid could be down in a region for 6 months
to 2 years. "

------
paganel
So that explains it, I thought I was going crazy when simple Google queries
were taking 10 seconds or more to finish (I live in Bucharest)

------
Trias11
I'd love have a 1" slice of that cable on my desk for amuzement. Probably will
be like a foot or more in diameter.

~~~
blackflame
It's not as big as you think. It's about the size of a high-voltage power line
approx 3' diameter.

~~~
Trias11
3 feet? or inches?

------
unfocused
In Northern Canada, it's Wolves apparently that 'attack' our cable:
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/northern-fibre-optic-
no...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/northern-fibre-optic-northwestel-
threats-1.5222102)

"This is a picture of the Mackenzie Valley fibre optic cable. Since it was
laid, it's been eaten at by wild animals, struck by lightning, and run over by
construction workers."

------
rhacker
Was it just auto-fixed via BGP?

------
tpmx
The first HN thread I saw this morning (CET) about this was deleted, I think,
but here's the second one:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21832934](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21832934)

------
sierpinski
Virgin Media in London also has had it's fibre optic cables cut this morning.

[https://my.virginmedia.com/faults/service-
status](https://my.virginmedia.com/faults/service-status)

------
blackflame
I used to work at a military base in San Diego that lost all internet
connectivity after construction workers replacing a sewer line accidentally
cut the OC-48 line

------
iagovar
Hmmm, I've also been experiencing downtime today to nixval and amazon (don't
know which region exactly) hosted sites. IDK if it's a coincidence.

~~~
mikeyouse
Auth0 is completely down for us too..
[http://status.auth0.com/](http://status.auth0.com/) again, probably not
related but a weird morning with all these outages.

------
wslh
Yesterday I could not find a The Pirate Bay mirror site that works. Now I
assume that is connected to this issue but the first RARBG mirror I tried
worked so I wonder if this is just an anecdote or it gives some insight about
the demography of these two sites.

------
appleflaxen
is it just accepted at this point that wiretapping is the cause, when this
happens?

------
ferros
When a cable is severed, and traffic is rerouted, who profits, how, and why?

The obvious loser is the severed cable owner.

------
m0xte
I wonder if this is why turkey post’s tracking has been down for days.

------
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
> _In a statement, the company blamed "multiple simultaneous fibre cuts",
> which are very rare._

In cases where multiple cables are cut _simultaneously_ the simple answer was
that it was probably done intentionally.

Reminds of 2015 in SF: _”At least 11 physical attacks on these cables have
occurred in at least 10 Bay area cities”_

I don’t know who these people are, but I bet they play dress up in a black
mask and have convinced themselves that the ends will justify their means.

[https://fortune.com/2015/07/01/cutting-internet-
cables/](https://fortune.com/2015/07/01/cutting-internet-cables/)

~~~
duxup
Multiple cuts, at multiple locations? or one location?

Or just one location where primary and backup systems went through the same
pipe, system, whatever?

Telco land is full of redundancy that eventually converges into a single point
of failure.

