Conspiracy theorist rejoice!

[Jammrock]

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/fourth-undersea-cable-cut-near-uae-suspicions-rise/

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/04/0158249&from=rss

It appears that a FOURTH undersea internet backbone cable has been cut (or disabled due to power problems depending on the report) in the Middle East. Conspiracy theorists everywhere are drooling! Internet addicts in the Middle East are getting ready to revolt by texting the supposed terrorists to death.

[Admiral]

Bad luck, negligence, suspicion ? It's more like what the heck is going on than conspiracy.
Business with said countries is also affected, western companies could be (are) affected by this...

[ZokesPro]

Wouldn't it affect mainly financial transactions? I heard somehwere that bank transactions can only be transmitted through wired connections only.

[Brian Ellis]

Shows that it is a good thing to put one's eggs in multiple baskets!

[Fat Tone]

How often can one normally expect major under-sea cables to be damaged?

[Umfriend]

Just a tad more often than taken into account in any risk analysis.

[Brian Ellis]

Quite frequently, which is why many repair ships are scattered around the oceans. Think earthquakes, anchors, fishing nets, dredgers, submarine avalanches, bad laying etc. Probably, on average, 1-2 repairs/month. Statistically, 4 repairs in a month is not exceptional.

[Fat Tone]

Useful context. Thanks.

[dZeus]

5th 'cable breakage' mentioned today. I wonder what the chance of this being a coincidence is.

[cjolley]

0%

We must be doing an emergency replacement of our taps on those cables for some reason.
Or, somewhat less probable, somebody else might be replacing theirs.
Or, some new tech for detecting taps has been discovered and taps are being removed.
Or, some honkin' big volcano is fixing to erupt in the Mediterranean Sea.

[Jammrock]

5th 'cable breakage' mentioned today. I wonder what the chance of this being a coincidence is.

Iran, the entire country, seems to be offline at the moment:

http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/02/06/1431206.shtml

Wow!

[Fat Tone]

So if you wanted to attack a country, destroying its communications links first would help right? Or if you just wanted to send a warning to let them know it can be done...

[cjolley]

To be clear about what I meant by replacing taps.
Break the line close in
Wait until the break is located and repairs commenced
Cut the line 100 miles farther out and install the tap while the line is being worked on.

Is this the way it's done? I have no idea.
But this is certainly no coincidence.

[Mehen]

It is global warming. Obviously.

[Jammrock]

If it is an actual attack and not just some freaky chain of coincidences, then it is likely some group trying to return the Muslim world to it's root and blast them back into the stone age. Or some such nonesense.