Cable damage hits 1.7m Internet users in UAE [Dr. Jack Wheeler's take on it]

Khaleej Times ^ | Feb 5th, 2008 | Asma Ali Zain

[chemicalman]

Dang sharks playing with those laser beams again.

[shield]

I have to disagree with you. There is much more going on than most obviously can't grasp.

Most likely the cables were cut to force traffic through a more friendly route that could trap and read the data.

Or (more likely) while the cables were dead, a tap or transparent bridge was being installed [think Navy Seals] in another section. The tap theory sounds more plausible than the bridge, because even though it is undetectable, if the bridge goes down, it becomes immediately obvious. A tap just passively views the traffic but the downside is, you cannot invisibly manipulate the data like you can with a transparent bridge.

It seems like it'd be a lot easier to install a tap or transparent bridge (or both) , if the line is dead.

Another thing - when the three or four fibers were cut there was a lot of congestion when the traffic was routed around it. So it wouldn't be unexpected that those other routes would shut down momentarily from the surge in traffic. At least for the two minutes it would take to install taps on those.

[af_vet_rr]

Lol, aside from that, cables are not the only mode of accessing the internet.

Besides, I think Iran’s mullah’s would have desired this situation... they have been fighting the internet for a long time now. No more news leaks out of Iran...

If they were deliberately cut and not the result of an errant anchor like what usually happens, they were done in an amateurish manner - my first thought was some radical group puttering around. I'm really surprised those types haven't went after the infrastructure a lot more.

[bvw]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Oil_Bourse

February 2008 On February 4, the Iranian Cabinet approved the creation of the oil bourse in two stages - first a raw oil exchange and secondly an oil byproducts exchange. The Ministry of Finance and Economics, the Oil Ministry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Central Bank of Iran are required to create a workgroup to coordinate the project, and the Iran Commodities Bourse Company is given the task of carrying out the project. The communique from the Cabinet states that the "Ministry of Finance and Economics is required to take measures in making the petrochemical byproducts bourse operational by the end of February 2008." [20]