undersea cable cuts

[Tyler Durden]

Actually, tapping terrestrial fiber optic cable is easy: a 3db splitter will
do it, though that introduces a break (which isnt a big deal: sonet/sdh rings
will recover within 50 ms, in general).

Its also fairly easy to introduce a tap that doesnt introduce a break, and
this doesnt require spookish equipment at all:its kind of a
hand-grip-looking thing that clamps onto the fiber and pulls some of the
optical signal via cladding-mode coupling.
Either of these methods introduce at least a 3db loss, which in many cases
will just be assumed by the fibers owners to be some of the usual cultprits
that cause loss, or simply a poor splice by the truck guys.

Once you introduce optical amplification, however, its eavesdrop city and you
can tap out some signal without the loss being evident to even OTDRs.

Tapping an underwater cable is far, far harder, but the NSA is known by fiber
guys to have at least two of the very expensive and very specialized subs
necessary.

At Bellcore, I actually consulted on some undersea project by the defense
department, who were seeing intermittent losses on their underwater
something-or-other, which they never told us. But, it was obvious that they
were operating an OC-3 network via their own optical fibers, which I strongly
suspect sat alongside or even inside the underwater cable. They probably had
periodic stations to look for interesting chunks of traffic that they could
tap (or electronically copy) into their own network, which Ill take a wild
guess was probably ATM over OC-3, which would make sense for several reasons,
including reach, which is critical in that environment.

In this case, though, I dont think its us JbTs, just because theres too
much business at stake.

I suspect we have some new mode of fiber optic mujahadeen that are trying to
hurt or seriously fuck up money flows into the middle east, but dont quote me
on that. How did they do it? Dont know, but remember they were resourceful
enough to figure out how to turn a 727 into a very effective smart missile.

-TD> Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 12:04:33 -0500> To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net> From:
jya at pipeline.com> Subject: Re: undersea cable cuts> > 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.
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