Russian submarine activity increases around Atlantic internet cables: report

I&#x27;m reminded of an excellent book detailing the US&#x27;s own interference with Russian cables 30 years back:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage&#x2F;dp&#x2F;1891620088&#x2F;ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1514086907&amp;sr=8-1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage&#x2F;...</a>

Making others believe you&#x27;re able and willing to interfere with cables is an effective and bloodless way of force projection. For a player like Russia, who&#x27;s always been big on visible activities shrouded in a hint of plausible deniability, this fits.

I was at the talk where CDS Peach discussed the cutting of cables. The gist of it was that the UK navy would want to start patrolling&#x2F;monitoring incoming UK cables as it was a vulnerability point that he felt was ... a likely target of those who might work against the UK interest.<p>It was a pretty interesting talk. The video can be found here:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rusi.org&#x2F;event&#x2F;annual-chief-defence-staff-lecture-2017" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rusi.org&#x2F;event&#x2F;annual-chief-defence-staff-lecture-20...</a><p>With the youtube video here :<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=1o6YoI9kjbc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=1o6YoI9kjbc</a>

Amazing resource to learn more about submarine cable: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;submarine-cable-map-2017.telegeography.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;submarine-cable-map-2017.telegeography.com&#x2F;</a> (Google maps of submarine cable)

I guess we&#x27;re entering the time of mutually assured cable destruction. Cheapest way to defend is to ensure the Russians know you can cut all their comms immediately.<p>Of course Russia could be doing that in response to US activity.

Does anyone know if the data flowing across cables like these is typically encrypted? Does the infrastructure itself provide any defense against a submarine hacking into a cable and installing a device that can monitor traffic?<p>I would hope that the infrastructure could add its own encryption across the link to defend against unauthorized interception.

I believe that until recently neither Azure or AWS had a datacenter in the UK. Cutting undersea cables between the UK and the US &#x2F; Europe &#x2F; Ireland could have some serious consequences in the UK, at the very least on the economy, possibly on its infrastructure (payment systems, communications, etc).<p>But aren&#x27;t terrestrial cables more vulnerables than undersea cables? Cutting undersea cables require sophisticated technologies. Cutting terrestrial cables just requires a local guy with a map and some TNT. It&#x27;s impossible to protect thousands of km of cables.

Non-oceanic internet distribution might mitigate concerns raised in the article. [1]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;information-technology&#x2F;2016&#x2F;11&#x2F;spacex-plans-worldwide-satellite-internet-with-low-latency-gigabit-speed&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;information-technology&#x2F;2016&#x2F;11&#x2F;space...</a>

Given that it&#x27;s 2017 and a huge fraction of the traffic is HTTPS anyway, is there any practical benefit to this?

Anyone know the specifics of how you actually intercept data on a fibre optic cable?

and how do you exfiltrate the data?<p>if you can tap on petabytes&#x2F;s of data with your probe, how can you move that data for analysis or how can you decrypt it in real time in case you only want to retransmit portions of it?

I think I can confidently say that every major power has tapped every undersea comms cable there is whether under the sea or where it exits to shore

The history of sea cable espionage and sabotage is a fascinating one. A few good books by noted historians.

If only the Internet was resistant to losing connections. I guess all we can do is give these guys more money to defend us from the big bad bear with a military that is a tiny fraction of ours.