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Following the recent break of two undersea telecom cables near Alexandria, Egypt, running between Egypt and Italy and serving the Middle East with telephone and internet connections, a third one is now reported to have broken. This time, a cable near Dubai which serves the Gulf region and Meditterranean (just like the previously broken ones near Egypt) and runs between Sri Lanka and Suez.

Of course, conspiracy theories are rife (e.g. Slashdot comments), because as they say: “once is an accident, twice is coincidence, thrice is enemy action”.

Those two Marketwatch links don’t seem to be working.

And regarding the “once is an accident, twice is coincidence, thrice is enemy action” thing on the other website. . .this isn’t just the third time this sort of thing has happened.  It happens fairly regularly, especially in such heavy shipping areas as Alexandria and Dubai.  I remember a few years ago Pakistan had pretty much all of its communications cut off that way.  And there’s a rising black market in stolen undersea cable, for that matter.  So it’s nothing new.  It’s just that in this case it happened twice in a fairly short span of time.

Could this have been intentional?  Sure, but it doesn’t make much sense as anything other than a sort of general “anti-technology” terrorism.  Could it have been an innocent accident?  Absolutely.

Accipiter - 02 February 2008 06:33 PM

Those two Marketwatch links don’t seem to be working.

They probably were pulled because of the “Slashdot effect”. Or the limited attention span of those Wall Street jockeys. I replaced them with the BBC link in the first post.

I agree with the rest of your comment that it is probably coincidence. But like to stir up things a bit here in this conspiracy section, it is quiet on the nutters front lately

LaMa - 03 February 2008 02:01 PM

I agree with the rest of your comment that it is probably coincidence. But like to stir up things a bit here in this conspiracy section, it is quiet on the nutters front lately

LaMa - 03 February 2008 02:01 PM

Accipiter - 02 February 2008 06:33 PM

Those two Marketwatch links don’t seem to be working.

They probably were pulled because of the “Slashdot effect”. Or the limited attention span of those Wall Street jockeys. I replaced them with the BBC link in the first post.

I agree with the rest of your comment that it is probably coincidence. But like to stir up things a bit here in this conspiracy section, it is quiet on the nutters front lately

We can always put out an ad for some new ones.. 

I suppose we could always start doing what they do here:  go to their forums, post something vague with lots of links back to here, and then never pay attention to any reply they make there.

Accipiter - 03 February 2008 09:44 PM

I suppose we could always start doing what they do here:  go to their forums, post something vague with lots of links back to here, and then never pay attention to any reply they make there.

Ooh, that could be fun!

Should we hit one forum at a time?  All at once?  hehe   That could be a lot of fun.  Just throw in some gibberish about a conspiracy that doesn’t fit their view of the world and watch the fireworks.

Let’s add some suspense….:

Fourth Gulf region cable out of service (although not necessarily broken).

And:

Break in Alexandria cables not caused by ships anchor

(with thanks to Slashdot)

LaMa - 04 February 2008 07:16 AM

Let’s add some suspense….:

Fourth Gulf region cable out of service (although not necessarily broken).

I love how the company clearly says that it’s not a broken cable this time, but instead power supply issues. . .and then that article just sort of ignores that and goes on talking about “the fourth cable break”.

I wonder if new problem could be a result of all the re-routing having overloaded something?

Some governments may feel that an informed public is dangerous.

And some publics might feel that getting informed is too much bother. . .