alexandria cable cutters?

Thu Mar 28 21:17:49 UTC 2013

I'm trying to make sense of this..

- Welding Gear is expensive, underwater gear is insanely expensive.
- Welding is pretty difficult..
- Underwater welding requires knowledge of SCUBA *AND* welding techniques
under water.
- There are 8 undersea cables located near the cable that was being cut.
- There are a TON of EDFA's in the area, which are much easier to destroy.
- Of the 8 undersea cables leaving Alexandria, only one was being tampered
with?

Does this not look like something that is either state sponsored, or
someone trying to break a certain circuit? Obviously we won't know for
some time what the circumstances were (if ever), but going after a
specific cable with a welder sounds like someone had a real reason. And if
this *WAS* state sponsored, I would be really curious as to why they did
not use regular UDT guys with regular UDT stuff that goes boom under
water. Not to mention the fact that they were using a welder, underwater,
on a 15kV -48VDC fiber optic plant in dirty(ish) salt water - which sounds
like a pretty bad idea.

On 3/28/13 1:50 PM, "Andrew Latham" <lathama at gmail.com> wrote:

>On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 4:44 PM, Christopher Morrow
><morrowc.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 2:46 AM, Randy Bush <randy at psg.com> wrote:
>>> nyt reports capture of scuba divers attempting to cut telecom egypt
>>> undersea fiber.
>>>
>>>     
>>>http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/03/27/world/middleeast/ap-ml-egypt-
>>>internet.html
>>
>> how likely is it that a diver can cut an armored cable close to shore?
>> without using explosives I mean...
>
>Its quite easy with a Thermal Lance...
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_lance
>
>-- 
>~ Andrew "lathama" Latham lathama at gmail.com http://lathama.net ~
>
>