>Threats to Undersea Cables
>
>Physical Attack
>
>Physical damage is the most direct threat to undersea cables. Such damage is usually accidental—often the cause is fishing ship nets and anchors. But history is rife with examples of navies intentionally attacking cables. At the outbreak of World War I, Britain severed all but one of Germany’s undersea telegraph lines. The British tapped the remaining cable, which allowed them to intercept communications (including those with important geopolitical consequences, such as the Zimmerman telegram that helped push the U.S. into the war). The Germans, lacking a fleet of cable ships of their own, attacked British telegraph cable landing sites in the Pacific Ocean. This case illustrates three cable vulnerabilities that still exist today: direct cutting, tapping and targeting landing sites.
>
>States have long recognized that cables are vital to secure communication. In 1959, a Soviet trawler cut five cables off the coast of Newfoundland, prompting the U.S. to send a radar ship to board the trawler under the provisions of the 1884 Submarine Cable Convention. (The 1884 treaty prohibits intentional damage to cables and allows navies to board vessels to investigate reports of damage.) The incident was followed by a diplomatic exchange of notes in which the United States said: “The protection of submarine telecommunications cables on the high seas constitutes an international obligation.”
>
>More recently, Bangladeshi authorities determined that an intentional cable outage in 2007 cost Bangladesh’s telecommunication company over $1 million. In 2013, Egyptian authorities discovered three scuba divers attempting to cut a cable off the port of Alexandria. The cable industry estimates that over 150 faults in cable connectivity occur every year, but because the vast majority are isolated incidents, network redundancy limits their effects. It is far more problematic to lose all cables in a specific area: An 2006 earthquake off the coast of Taiwan struck a concentration of cables in the nearby ocean and disrupted internet traffic across Asia, causing months of slow connectivity.
>
>Recognizing the grave possible consequences, the United States takes threats to cables seriously. In 2015, Russian ships and submarines near cable routes around the world caused concern within the U.S. intelligence community that Russia was attempting to tap or cut critical internet communications lines. A Cold War-style drama played out between the Russian subs following cable lines and the American ships, subs and spy satellites tracking them. These incidents highlighted the danger of cutting cables in deep water, where repairing them could take weeks or months.
–
>Maritime law is also important to undersea cable governance. The 1958 Geneva Conference on the Law of the Sea addressed submarine cables in two treaties, the Convention on the High Seas and the Convention on the Continental Shelf. The High Seas Convention included the submarine cable protections of the 1884 Convention but in the context of the “freedom to lay submarine cables,” a fundamental freedoms of the high seas “recognized by the general principles of international law.” Article 27 addresses damage to cables, but it does not explicitly prohibit the intentional damage to them. Instead, it mandates that states party to the treaty “take the necessary legislative measures” to make breaking a cable a “punishable offense.”
>
>The 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) superseded the 1958 Geneva Conventions. This landmark agreement addressed submarine cables in multiple chapters. Articles 113-115 replicate the language from the 1958 convention requiring states to enact domestic legislation penalizing damage to cables by ships or persons subject to their jurisdiction. UNCLOS establishes exclusive economic zones (EEZs), waters 200 nautical miles beyond states’ territorial waters in which they enjoyed sovereign rights to undertake economic activities. Among those activities, UNCLOS recognizes the freedom of all states to lay cables within the EEZ and extended its protections to cables within the EEZ. In Article 79, UNCLOS recognizes the freedom of all states to lay cables on the continental shelf.
–
>In practice, the lack of legal disputes involving attacks on cables leaves their legality uncertain.
These cables have to withstand tough conditions for sustained periods. It is not uncommon for submarine cables to give away. Most of the time they hardly make news.
TL;DR:
> The cause of the damage is unknown, but the cables linking the sensor nodes to control stations ashore are said to have been cut and then disappeared.
> Reports indicate that more than 2.5 miles of fiber optic and electrical cables were severed and then removed.
> A remote-controlled research submarine found that the Node 2 platform at a depth of around 250 meters had been dragged out of position. Its cable was cut and could not be located.
> Then, on September 30, Equinor sent another vessel out to the site above “Node 3” that had been connected to “Node 2.” The goal was to try to follow its cable back Node 2, but instead came up information that Node 3 had also been moved out of position, its contacts and connection box were torn off and its cable was missing.
> Live pictures from the site in late September clearly showed that there no longer was any cable connected to Node 3. It was as if a plug had been torn out of its sockets, according to IMR director Sissel Rogne. “This was a very thick cable, and very, very heavy,” Rogne told DN. Only something very powerful could have torn off the cable from both nodes, and carried it off.
> The other mystery is what has become of the 9.5 tons of missing cable itself.
> as IMR director Rogne pointed out, the cables themselves may yield valuable technical information, for anyone wanting to install a similar system, for example.
interesting that europeans jump straight to the russophobia. people here generally think its saboteurs protesting the skyrocketing spotprices since the northlink transmission opened
8 comments
It wasn’t me, I was very busy that week.
[Photo of the guilty party](https://cdn.roaring.earth/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/8773-1ffn6b4-758×433.png)
“Oh, we were just doing some cleaning and thought it was trash. You needed those?”
With Love from Moscow,
Putin
Russia or a walrus?
I wonder what the legalities are like on these, whether they have legal protection.
(looks)
Appears so, but it’s not very well-defined in case law.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/cutting-cord-legal-regime-protecting-undersea-cables
>Threats to Undersea Cables
>
>Physical Attack
>
>Physical damage is the most direct threat to undersea cables. Such damage is usually accidental—often the cause is fishing ship nets and anchors. But history is rife with examples of navies intentionally attacking cables. At the outbreak of World War I, Britain severed all but one of Germany’s undersea telegraph lines. The British tapped the remaining cable, which allowed them to intercept communications (including those with important geopolitical consequences, such as the Zimmerman telegram that helped push the U.S. into the war). The Germans, lacking a fleet of cable ships of their own, attacked British telegraph cable landing sites in the Pacific Ocean. This case illustrates three cable vulnerabilities that still exist today: direct cutting, tapping and targeting landing sites.
>
>States have long recognized that cables are vital to secure communication. In 1959, a Soviet trawler cut five cables off the coast of Newfoundland, prompting the U.S. to send a radar ship to board the trawler under the provisions of the 1884 Submarine Cable Convention. (The 1884 treaty prohibits intentional damage to cables and allows navies to board vessels to investigate reports of damage.) The incident was followed by a diplomatic exchange of notes in which the United States said: “The protection of submarine telecommunications cables on the high seas constitutes an international obligation.”
>
>More recently, Bangladeshi authorities determined that an intentional cable outage in 2007 cost Bangladesh’s telecommunication company over $1 million. In 2013, Egyptian authorities discovered three scuba divers attempting to cut a cable off the port of Alexandria. The cable industry estimates that over 150 faults in cable connectivity occur every year, but because the vast majority are isolated incidents, network redundancy limits their effects. It is far more problematic to lose all cables in a specific area: An 2006 earthquake off the coast of Taiwan struck a concentration of cables in the nearby ocean and disrupted internet traffic across Asia, causing months of slow connectivity.
>
>Recognizing the grave possible consequences, the United States takes threats to cables seriously. In 2015, Russian ships and submarines near cable routes around the world caused concern within the U.S. intelligence community that Russia was attempting to tap or cut critical internet communications lines. A Cold War-style drama played out between the Russian subs following cable lines and the American ships, subs and spy satellites tracking them. These incidents highlighted the danger of cutting cables in deep water, where repairing them could take weeks or months.
–
>Maritime law is also important to undersea cable governance. The 1958 Geneva Conference on the Law of the Sea addressed submarine cables in two treaties, the Convention on the High Seas and the Convention on the Continental Shelf. The High Seas Convention included the submarine cable protections of the 1884 Convention but in the context of the “freedom to lay submarine cables,” a fundamental freedoms of the high seas “recognized by the general principles of international law.” Article 27 addresses damage to cables, but it does not explicitly prohibit the intentional damage to them. Instead, it mandates that states party to the treaty “take the necessary legislative measures” to make breaking a cable a “punishable offense.”
>
>The 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) superseded the 1958 Geneva Conventions. This landmark agreement addressed submarine cables in multiple chapters. Articles 113-115 replicate the language from the 1958 convention requiring states to enact domestic legislation penalizing damage to cables by ships or persons subject to their jurisdiction. UNCLOS establishes exclusive economic zones (EEZs), waters 200 nautical miles beyond states’ territorial waters in which they enjoyed sovereign rights to undertake economic activities. Among those activities, UNCLOS recognizes the freedom of all states to lay cables within the EEZ and extended its protections to cables within the EEZ. In Article 79, UNCLOS recognizes the freedom of all states to lay cables on the continental shelf.
–
>In practice, the lack of legal disputes involving attacks on cables leaves their legality uncertain.
These cables have to withstand tough conditions for sustained periods. It is not uncommon for submarine cables to give away. Most of the time they hardly make news.
TL;DR:
> The cause of the damage is unknown, but the cables linking the sensor nodes to control stations ashore are said to have been cut and then disappeared.
> Reports indicate that more than 2.5 miles of fiber optic and electrical cables were severed and then removed.
> A remote-controlled research submarine found that the Node 2 platform at a depth of around 250 meters had been dragged out of position. Its cable was cut and could not be located.
> Then, on September 30, Equinor sent another vessel out to the site above “Node 3” that had been connected to “Node 2.” The goal was to try to follow its cable back Node 2, but instead came up information that Node 3 had also been moved out of position, its contacts and connection box were torn off and its cable was missing.
> Live pictures from the site in late September clearly showed that there no longer was any cable connected to Node 3. It was as if a plug had been torn out of its sockets, according to IMR director Sissel Rogne. “This was a very thick cable, and very, very heavy,” Rogne told DN. Only something very powerful could have torn off the cable from both nodes, and carried it off.
> The other mystery is what has become of the 9.5 tons of missing cable itself.
> as IMR director Rogne pointed out, the cables themselves may yield valuable technical information, for anyone wanting to install a similar system, for example.
interesting that europeans jump straight to the russophobia. people here generally think its saboteurs protesting the skyrocketing spotprices since the northlink transmission opened
🙂