Re: Fourth cable damaged in Middle Eest (Qatar to UAE)

["Martin Hannigan" <hannigan () gmail com>]

On Feb 4, 2008 12:38 AM, Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com> wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Feb 2008, Todd Underwood wrote:
> > there has has been a lot of speculation that this is all some US
> > prelude to war with iran.  while i don't claim to know much about
> > whether that makes any sense, i do know that if they're trying to
> > disconnect iran from the internet, they're doing a lousy job:
>
> An extremely poor job if that was the intent. According to SLAC,
> throughput to Iran actually improved.
>
> https://confluence.slac.stanford.edu/display/IEPM/Effects+of+Fibre+Outage+through+Mediterranean
>
> If the intent was to cut off Iran, they're picking the wrong cables.
>
> TAE goes across the northern part of Iran

Where are you seeing that? I can only see access to Iran through the
Gulf of Oman and Caspian Sea. The Caspian Sea doesn't appear to have
any cables.

The only service to Iran that seems logical, or that I can "see", is
via Kuwait City and across the Gulf. Nothing appears to go through the
Straight of Hormuz without touchdown in Oman or the UAE. I would hope
that there is significant terrestrial cooperation in the region all
considered, but I don't know anything about Med terrestrial networks.

I agree with Rod Beck as far as the speculations go. It could be
terror, but it's just not that interesting and is not really a
soft-target. I caught some posts about beach heads, et. al. There are
some vulnerabilities related to shared landing stations, but I think
that places like Telehouse North are far more vulnerable and "sexy" as
a target.

Should be interesting to read the RFO's if and when they become public.

Best,

Marty