Here is a great post from Steve Bellovin of Columbia University. His background is in internet security with the computer sci dept @ Columbia.

http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/blog/control/

Sorry to bombard… This is a good update from Wired

http://blog.wired.com/27bstrok…..e-cab.html

Tried to post twice in this thread a chronology of news reports on Pakistan over the last 15 hours, most from international papers. The most recent from a post just put up by Bloomberg (oddly two “heartland” tv news stations – KS and NE- had postings 6 hours ago).

Both attempts to post, as well as some additional cable news, just went away…

The chronology was telling…I’ll try another time. I’m sure you are up-to-date on all of this. I just thought the latest Bloomberg release compared to the international press was interesting.

http://www.themoneytimes.com/a…..16930.html

Now look at these headlines:

Pakistan Taliban warlord arises as terrorist leader (a US paper KCStar)
http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/474211.html

http://news.in.msn.com/interna…..id=1223759

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/Di…..&col=

http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cp…..enDocument

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…..efer=india

As you read them, realize I have pasted them in the “time” order they were posted (i.e. the first posting was 13 hours ago to this last Bloomberg which was posted in the last 1.5 hours)

I found the comments from Beckert of Telegeography regarding sharks a bit unprofessional considering the magnitude of this. Other quotes by Telegeography staff in international press releases (like the International Herald Tribune) were more professional and straight forward. Telegeography has US and GB headquarters. I imagine they have not updated with news on their website for good reason.

In this case, I consider the source – Wall Street Journal…Need I say more?

Confirming news about the week of the 23rd is important in this picture…

I think we are in agreement overall. I just want all my facts first.

I still think you look at who has lost comm–Egypt and Pakistan–and you’ve got a pretty good start on some reasons why.

http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2…..lenews_wsj

Remember, there have been terrible storms in the area for a week- the worst in history for the most part. (Look at the winter storms hitting Pakistan and Iran for instance – historical magnitude.) Cable repairs were unable to start until yesterday due to weather. Like EW has stated, most thinking on this right now is out-a-our-arse speculation…until we hear more from the repair ships on the appearance of the cuts.

I would like to get confirmation from Telegeography or an international internet intelligence firm with ties outside the US and Great Britain (Telegeography has US and GB headquarters).

This is an interesting read on the five cable cuts…

http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/UAE/221875

Currently, Telegeography has not posted an update since their posting on the three cable cuts. It would be helpful if all the global cable intelligence firms would come together and share their information on all the cable cuts. So, whether or not I confirm the total of nine…we’ll have to wait and see… My tin foil will not come out until I learn more from reports made by the repair ships. That’s not to say I do not have my speculations…many I posted in the previous cable posts by EW…

There is actually a report of up to nine cable cuts [snip] let’s not go off in tin foil land until we have more [snip]

OK; so the obvious hypothesis is intentional human tampering, but let’s call that ‘tin foil’ — why, exactly, I don’t know, but let’s just say it is. What else could cause 5+ cable breaks in the Med?

Crustal spreading?

Simultaneous aging of cables or a linkage component?

Design flaw that has caused the 10KV, for example, to burn through the optical fibers in several different cables?

Perhaps ‘break’ is not the correct term; perhaps we are talking about ‘component failure’ at the the signal-boosting thingamabobs.

Marine life — presumably with teeth?

Anybody know what the people who have to deal with these things are thinking?

klynn February 6th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
215
In response to RevDeb @ 154

[snip]

There is actually a report of up to nine cable cuts because of two cable cuts in the region which happened the week of January 23 but went unreported…and two additional cuts which happened in different places in two lines previously reported as cut on January 31. I did not want to reference this total until I had more confirmation from good sources regarding cable function in the region the week of the 23rd. So let’s not go off in tin foil land until we have more. However, the fifth cut has been confirmed.

This is a flat-out information war. Somebody in the ME must be getting annoyed by now. Can anyone suggest groups which do not play well with others and would conduct these attacks? What is going to be the result when the little nippers are caught red-flippered? (I sure hope that the U.S. is not responsible for the breaks, because such hubris could have severe blowback, maybe worse than the occupation of Iraq.) (Do such acts qualify as ‘terrorism’ at some international level?) Does it seem that any ME nation is intimidated at the loss of communications; that is, does anyone in the ME act terrorized?

Re: O/T

Yeah, I listed the news posting on this 5th cut yesterday in the More Cables News post EW had up. There is actually a report of up to nine cable cuts because of two cable cuts in the region which happened the week of January 23 but went unreported…and two additional cuts which happened in different places in two lines previously reported as cut on January 31. I did not want to reference this total until I had more confirmation from good sources regarding cable function in the region the week of the 23rd. So let’s not go off in tin foil land until we have more. However, the fifth cut has been confirmed.

Back to FISA, votes and procedures…