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How many transoceanic cable cuts required to cause noticeable disruption?
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How many transoceanic cable cuts required to cause noticeable disruption?

jiggawattjiggawatt Member
edited June 2017 in Outages

I realize the early (D)ARPAnet was envisioned to withstand a potential nuclear strike through redundant links - but the Internet evolved to be a global commercial platform whose providers raced to add network capacity as demand for it skyrocketed.

Let't say a State-sponsored actor wanted to disrupt commerce, international payment systems, corporate email, etc. It seems that transoceanic cables would be the "best" target.

So how many cables would need to be cut to cause something that most people would notice? (Not just network engineers watching SmokePing but ordinary people in their ordinary lives.)

Here's a map: http://www.submarinecablemap.com

Comments

  • pikepike Veteran

    3

    Thanked by 1jiggawatt
  • One, but good.

  • WilliamWilliam Member
    edited June 2017

    That solely depends what should be cut of.

    Arab side 3 strategic strikes on the Egyptian exit of the Suez canal, around Oman and Yemen would cut off the entire Arab world and degrade vast parts of Asia to mostly useless speeds. You can bet the IDF has this planned out since a long time if ever needed. There are some cables from Cyprus to Lebanon but they are low capacity.

    Pacific/Australian side you have a lot of routes so cannot be simply cut, but some cables cross certain strategic points (Guam, HI to US mainland) which form a near SPOF. Others go Japan/Taiwan to US direct but are pretty much straight lines.

    Atlantic is a lot of cables with a lot of landing points, highly unlikely anyone could cause major issues there.

    Large payment providers (etc.) generally have, as large countries do, sat as backup. The arab ISPs (especially Lebanon) also has sat backup links. It is not easy to disrupt these - many end in Norway/EU and can be carried on to US over the atlantic.

    Cable cuts degrading Asia (and ME) happen frequently anyway - http://dyn.com/search/cut

  • cociucociu Member

    You have a teleghid whale ?

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