undersea cable cuts

[John Young]

The Economist did little research, it seems, or it was fed disinfo, or
was induced to defuse speculation.

This list's archive, if no where else, would defuse most of the Economist's
defusing. That's not to say the cpunks archives exists in full, or not easily
located.

For several years, if not from day one, transoceanic cables are pre-rigged
for 
tapping, aguably for repair and maintenance by firms like Global Marine, 
but easily siphoned for less benign purposes. Moreover it is flat wrong that
fiber optic cable is hard to tap. It takes sophisticated equipment but none
that is beyond the spies and telecomms regular capability. Disinfo abounds
about this as with most classified-at-birth communications technology.

The spies regularly spout that fiber has made eavesdropping more difficult,
along with encryption, the out of control Internet, the ease of transborder
evasion of laws governing global laws on privacy and national security.

Top US spy McConnell is on automatic about these fairy tales.

Lying about interception capability is as old as communications. The
Economist is full of shit and shallowness, the silly quotes from discussion
lists, with only a small chance that the story was not planted by officials. 

It sure reads like the usual DNI-MI-speak when an op is discovered or 
deliberately leaked to divert attention from more covert derringdo.

Say, why tap when worldwide ISPs are jumping through hoops to get natsec
snooping business.

I'd say global spies are desperate to keep surveillance budgets out of this 
world. Almost as desperate as news outlets whipsawing readers.

Nothing like that would ever happen here.