Submarine telecommunications cable disruption

The 2008 submarine cable disruption involved damage involving up to five high-speed Internet submarine communications cables in the Mediterranean Sea and Middle East from January 23 to February 4, 2008 causing internet disruptions and slowdowns for users in the Middle East and India.

- Wikipedia: 2008 submarine cable disruption

Spying? Sabotage? Could be economic or psychological warfare against Iran (or other parties). Or not: might be normal breakage, the wear and tear on thousands of miles of cables. Impossible to tell: if spy submarines are cutting cables, maybe installing taps, the mission is probably too secret for the truth to come out anytime soon. Meanwhile, here’s some more links:

Wired: Cable Cut Fever Grips the Web

Engadget: Fourth undersea cable cut near UAE, suspicions rise

Boing Boing: Reports of 5th undersea ‘net cable cut

Slashdot: Fifth Cable Cut To Middle East

Khaleej Times: Cable damage hits one million Internet users in UAE

CNN.com: Internet failure hits two continents

MSN.com: Ships did not cut internet cable

AntiWar.com: The Cable-Cutter Mystery

GovernmentExecutive.com: Cable Cut Paranoia

Richard Sauder: Connecting The Many Undersea Cut Cable Dots

Internet Traffic Report: Asia

Gabriel: Comment and links