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Conspiracy theories emerge
after internet cables cut
Simon Lauder
ABC
Australia
Monday February 4, 2008
Is information warfare to blame for the damage to underwater
internet cables that has interrupted internet service to millions
of people in India and Egypt, or is it just a series of accidents?
When two cables in the Mediterranean were severed last week,
it was put down to a mishap with a stray anchor.
Now a third cable has been cut, this time near Dubai. That, along
with new evidence that ships' anchors are not to blame, has sparked
theories about more sinister forces that could be at work.
For all the power of modern computing and satellites, most of
the world's communications still rely on submarine cables to cross
oceans.
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When two cables were cut off the Egyptian port city of Alexandria
last week, about a 100 million internet users were affected, mainly
in India and Egypt.
The cables remain broken and internet services are still compromised.
Telecommunications analyst Paul Budde says the situation demonstrates
how interconnected the world is.
"It clearly shows we are talking about a global network
and a global world that we are living in," he said.
"So wherever something happens we all get, in one way or
another, affected by it."
'Information warfare?'
It was assumed a ship's anchor severed the cables, but now that
is in doubt and the conspiracy theories are coming out.
Egypt's Transport Ministry says video surveillance shows no ships
were in the area at the time of the incident.
Online columnist Ian Brockwell says the cables may have been
cut deliberately in an attempt by the US and Israel to deprive
Iran of internet access.
Others back up that theory, saying the Pentagon has a secret
strategy called 'information warfare'.
But Mr Budde says it is far more likely to be a coincidence.
"It is absolutely strange, of course, that that happens.
At the moment it really looks like bad luck rather than anything
else," he said.
Telecommunications professor at the University of Melbourne,
Peter Gerrand, says Australia is in a far better position than
India to withstand a cable breakage.
"We've got, in effect, five really major separate cables,
each with high capacity, most of which have plans for upgrading
their capacity in the next few years," he said.
Proffesor Gerrand does not believe Australia is vulnerable to
the types of major disruptions that India and Egypt have seen.
"I gather India has most of its capacity on two cables -
one's to its west and one to its east - so when the western cable
got cut near Egypt, all this traffic had to then pass through
a single cable and that's what's caused these very huge delays,"
he said.
Australia's protection zones
As it happens, Australia's protection against such incidents
was boosted just last week.
Activities that could damage submarine communications cables
have been prohibited off Perth's City Beach since Friday.
Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) submarine
cable protection manager Robyn Meikle says the events in the Middle
East highlight the importance of submarine cables to all international
communications.
"Here in Australia, over 99 per cent of all of our international
communications carried through these cables lie at the bottom
of the sea," she said.
"That's why the Australian Communications Authority [ACMA]
has played a major role in declaring protection zones over our
cables of national significance in Australia.
"Each of the zones, for instance, has restrictions to do
with anchoring, which are aimed at preventing the sort of damage
that has happened in recent times in the Middle East.
"ACMA declares protection zones over what are considered
to be the main cables of national significance, and they're the
ones that carry the bulk of the traffic," she said.
"So really, they are the most important cables that the
industry relies on to carry all communications in and out of Australia."
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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