PLEASE - DON'T READ THE TITLE AND IMMEDIATELY RECOMMEND IT.
In fact, don't recommend it at all. Go through it. I'm not pushing any CT, not looking to get on the rec'd list, but am just presenting "facts" and articles as I see them for digestion and/or discussion.
Let me start off by stating that I'm not putting this up as a conspiracy theory diary. Let me then follow that comment with my belief that I've been following a couple of diaries over the last couple of days that were pseduo/actual/conspiracy theory diaries regarding the recent spate of undersea internet cable breakages in the Middle East that "appeared" to isolate Iran from an internet point of view.
Follow me below for some perspective.
There were two diaries written recently on this subject of broken internet cables.
- My New Tin Hat: We Are preparing For Iran Feb. 1st, 2008
- 4 Cables Cut; False-Flag Attack At Super Bowl - Feb. 2nd, 2008
In diary 1, the CT angle was much less prevalent and the diarist, IMHO, was merely posing some concern over what was at first a report of 2 undersea cables being cut, and then a third. Given some rhetoric about Iran from the usual suspects, you know...I wouldn't begrudge even the sanest of people from speculating on a connection to some degree. But at best, I felt the diary was speculation as opposed to over-the-top CT.
The premise, at least as I was concerned, was as follows:
Three undersea cables have been cut in a time period sufficiently short to leave Iran with no communications ability except that which passes through the US and UK.
In defense of the diary, I posted that I felt the gist of the diarist was that these cables left Iran isolated in this fashion:
February 1st
In the second diary, however, it was much more CT oriented. Look at the title - it gives it right away. However, since I knew the diary was following on the internet outages, I decided to jump in and take a look. Immediately, there was a much different reception (and rightly so) to the diary, with comments indicating trollery, foolishness, etc being dropped all over. Again, not my concern and I'm not questioning anyone's motives on it.
However, I did feel that the underlying message with regards to the facts of the situation were being lost and I left another comment
(Ed. - With speculation from title on 4th cable cut)
...
Now this is a fourth internet cable cut. Call it what you will, conspiracy theory, trollery, tin-hat time, whatever.
I just wandered in here and saw all the immediate troll ratings and I'm very well aware of the policy of CT diaries but I saw nobody else put anything into perspective, false-flag allegations or whatever aside.
Drop that angle, drop Super Bowl Sunday, and drop martial law and what you have is a series of internet cables that have been cut in a short time frame that appears to leave Iran isolated, internet-wise.
(Internet report image from the 1st)
(Internet report from the 2nd)
While everybody else's network, except for Indonesia appear to slowly be coming back up, Iran is still in the dark, according to these charts.
Of course this could all be legitimate shipping accidents, it could all be coincidence, but drop everything except the facts, which are that the internet appears to be completely shut down in Iran right now, and people are justified in showing some concern.
Again just adding some perspective. "Hide" this comment if neccesary.
If nothing else, my only point was that perhaps this was something just to keep an eye on.
Well, I've been keeping an eye on it and today I came across two article which raised my eyebrows that, for anyone following this might be interested in or speculate on.
The first one is this article which appears to indicate that there were no ships in the area during the first two cable breaks.
No ships were present when two marine cables carrying much of the Middle East's internet traffic were severed, Egypt's Ministry of Communications has said, contrary to earlier speculation about the causes of the cut.
The ministry had originally stated that a ship dropping its anchor on the two key cables was most likely responsible for Wednesday's cut in service that robbed Egypt, Saudi Arabia and India of most of their internet connections.
"A marine transport committee investigated the traffic of ships in the area, 12 hours before and after the malfunction, where the cables are located to figure out the possibility of being cut by a passing vessel and found out there were no passing ships at that time," said the statement.
The ministry added that the location, 5 miles from the port of Alexandria, was in a restricted area so ships would not have been allowed there to begin with.
And the second article, to me, appears to make the case for a fourth cable cut from rumour to fact but perhaps I'm reading it wrong.
Here's the article but with edits in it I put in when I posted on my own site to add clarity to how I'm reading this article:
Another Middle East undersea Internet cable has been damaged Ed. - (Cable 4), adding to disruption in Indian online services caused when several lines were cut earlier this week, a cable operating firm said Saturday.
The Falcon cable was cut 56 kilometres (35 miles) from Dubai, between Oman and the United Arab Emirates, according to its owner FLAG Telecom, part of India's Reliance Communications.
The company said on its website that a repair ship had been notified and was expected to arrive at the site in the next few days.
The cause of the latest cable damage was not immediately known.
Flag Telecom owns another undersea cable Ed. - (Cable 3) which was damaged off Egypt on Wednesday in the Mediterranean. Indian media reports have attributed that damage to a ship's anchor which dropped on the cable.
On the same day in Kuwait, the government reported two cables damaged by "weather conditions and maritime traffic." Ed. - (Cable 1 and cable 2)
Am I reading this article correctly? Does this appear to indicate a 4th cable outage?
(Update) - 4th cable confirmed: (slow loading link)
Internet services in Qatar have been seriously disrupted because of damage to an undersea telecoms cable linking the Gulf state to the UAE, the fourth such incident in less than a week.
Qatar Telecom (Qtel) said on Sunday the cable was damaged between the Qatari island of Haloul and the UAE island of Das on Friday.
The cause of damage is not yet known, but ArabianBusiness.com has been told unofficially the problem is related to the power system and not the result of a ship's anchor cutting the cable, as is thought to be the case in the other three incidents.
...
I know fiber-optic internet cables are pretty thin, with a variety of articles indicating they can be as thin as a finger in some points and I could understand them breaking from time to time due to dredging or anchor dragging, maybe fishing as I saw mentioned in one article.
I could also completely understand how the loss of a couple cables could have devastating impacts in a region of the world that, perhaps, might be behind us in the development of many, many lines of internet redudancy that can be relied on to properly manage such high levels of internet traffic without a blip in the event of a break.
Or two.
Or three, even.
But I just wanted to point this out for those who have been following these recent events. Obviously, if the internet outages were here, it would be a major news story as the root cause was determined, various reports of how the disruption was affecting e-commerce, business, markets, etc since it comes with the territory.
One last thing I want to close with is that according to the Internet Traffic Report for Asia, these are the current system standings:
I don't know if Internet is actually completely down in Iran or not. I was reading one message board where someone said they were blogging from Iran. I don't know if it's accurate or not and honestly, I don't know quite what it means in a conspiracy theory sort of - "oh-my-god-Iran-is-completely-cut-off" type of rant.
Just passing on my observations. If this comes off as too conspiracy theory, I will not hesitate to delete this. But bear in mind, I'm not trying to push a conspiracy theory, just addressing a current event in terms that some have noticed with unsettling curiosity.