On 1/3/06, John Young
... He fingers the international telecom hubs in NYC through which NSA grabs most of the data purposely sent through them to transoceanic cables worldwide. Hmm, the hubs on the West Coast are not mentoned. Wonder if that traffic is now redirected through New York too for easy watching. ... US Transpacific Cable Landings
the nedonna beach landing point for the WCI cable (and others) underwent significant physical security and facility upgrades in recent years. back when critical infrastructure details were carefreely public the termination faclities a few hundred yards from the shore even carried a promiscuous "FIBER OPTIC" sign on the door. (the oregon fishermans undersea cable group used to provide the cable plots with GPS coordinates a few score miles out as well. now you have to request these from them directly so they can limit distribution to local area fishermen and others with a legitimate need for the information) initial reaction to security concerns included building a large razor wire chain link fence around the facilities, although it appears this was too much of an attention getter as they removed all such imposing fencing before long and have continued to rely on extensive cameras/alarms/highly visible boundary around the now rebuilt facilities (aprox. 3-4 times the size of the original structure). could more capturing equipment on site be the reason behind the significant facilities upgrade? they don't like to give tours of such places unfortunately... :) the main peering facilities located in hillsboro for the WCI cable have not undergone any similar upgrades although the building was already large and well secured from the start. [it would be interesting to know what changes have been implemented at other western landing sites; the nedonna beach point is the only one i am directly familiar with]