Russian diplomats lingering near fiber optic cables

Sun Jun 11 18:59:30 UTC 2017

I have just scanned this whole thread - it is the most amazing analysis of technical details I have e ver seen

national security also
sean I am taking this in the sense of what the hell could these russian diplomats be doing?

I have been a nanog reader  since this list began   in the spring of 1995 i believe

remember i am parsing comments from the russian side as well

 i met aleksei soldatov at the kurchatov institute for the first time in april 1992.  about 3 days earlier i met  the demos guys who  told soldatov   suggested to soldatov that  he  should met me  at kurchatov 

I followed the development of the russian internet very closely between April 1992 and 1999  not much after that.

meanwhile i am
well aware of international fiber optic cables geographic issues of same  — see telegeography for example,  His coordinates etc
 interception  of cable via submarine etc

see the US Sub named Jimmy  carter

I visited Russia for the first time in 1964  
my dissertation completed in 1972

dis on site work for the Phd in Russia for 2 months summer of 1970
including pushkinskii Dom

Thanks to steve Goldstein of NSF I received an invite to attend the second Nato sponsored conference on the future e of   the  russian internet  met larry land weber there at Golitsyno - the conf  was sept 30 to Oct 2 1994 

The point?  I have long experience with my Cook Report on Internet Protocol  in April 1992 issue #1

and an even lon\ger experience  with russian history language and culture 

 I am also well aware this message will be readable by a ver large number of people both  here and abroad.

even visited the westin bldg In i think 1994.
 take a bow Sean!!

:-)

> On Jun 11, 2017, at 11:38 AM, Gordon Cook <cook at cookreport.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Sean
> 
> You and I first met when i was at OIA about 1992   LOONG TIME ago
> 
> Always thought  of you as brilliant collector of info as well as analyst there of 
> 
> this question of yours is absolutely brilliant
> 
> look at the responses (more) than 45!!!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Jun 1, 2017, at 2:02 PM, Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> There must be a perfectly logical explanation....  Yes, people in the industry know where the choke points are. But the choke points aren't always the most obvious places. Its kinda a weird for diplomats to show up there.
>> 
>> On the other hand, I've been a fiber optic tourist.  I've visited many critical choke points in the USA and other countries, and even took selfies :-)
>> 
>> 
>> http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/01/russia-spies-espionage-trump-239003
>> 
>> In the throes of the 2016 campaign, the FBI found itself with an escalating problem: Russian diplomats, whose travel was supposed to be tracked by the State Department, were going missing.
>> 
>> The diplomats, widely assumed to be intelligence operatives, would eventually turn up in odd places, often in middle-of-nowhere USA. One was found on a beach, nowhere near where he was supposed to be. In one particularly bizarre case, relayed by a U.S. intelligence official, another turned up wandering around in the middle of the desert. Interestingly, both seemed to be lingering where underground fiber-optic cables tend to run.
>> 
>> According to another U.S. intelligence official, “They find these guys driving around in circles in Kansas. It’s a pretty aggressive effort.”
>> 
>> It’s a trend that has led intelligence officials to conclude that the Kremlin is waging a quiet effort to map the United States’ telecommunications infrastructure, perhaps preparing for an opportunity to disrupt it.
>> 
> 
> 