Texan4Life
02-04-2008, 12:51 PM
Even though this article is from 2001, I found it interesting in light of the multiple broken cables.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-529826.html
"...In the mid-1990s, the NSA installed one such tap, say former intelligence officials familiar with the covert project. Using a special spy submarine, they say, agency personnel descended hundreds of feet into one of the oceans and sliced into a fiber-optic cable..."
"...Even so, the agency has been pushing ahead. At General Dynamics' Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Conn., the Navy is deep into a five-year, $1 billion retrofit of the USS Jimmy Carter, a nuclear-powered vessel that intelligence experts say will be the premier U.S. spy sub when it hits the seas in 2004. Among its many planned features, says one former official familiar with the project: state-of-the-art technology for undersea fiber-optic taps...."
"...Undersea fiber-optic cables are sheathed in a thick steel husk and buried in a yard-deep trench. But once the water depth exceeds 1,000 feet, they usually are left to run uncovered along the ocean floor. Industry experts believe the NSA tap must have occurred in deep waters far out at sea, where the cable would be exposed and the risks of being seen would be lower. Some cable operators make frequent surveillance flights hundreds of miles from shore, mainly to keep track of fishing boats whose nets or anchors might rip their cables..."
"...He says the USS Jimmy Carter is meant to have "lock-out capability" to allow divers to leave and enter the sub. Plans also call for special thrusters that will allow the vessel to hover near the ocean floor for long periods, a technology that would enable it to supply oxygen and power to an undersea chamber..."
"...Technicians fixing a damaged cable usually make such repairs above water and under antiseptic conditions. Dust or seawater in the submerged chamber could ruin an exposed fiber. Making a surreptitious tap of a live cable would also require circumventing the electrical charge--usually around 10,000 volts--which is used to power the devices that keep the speeding light beams strong...."
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So perhaps the broken cables are failed attempts at tapping the traffic?
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-529826.html
"...In the mid-1990s, the NSA installed one such tap, say former intelligence officials familiar with the covert project. Using a special spy submarine, they say, agency personnel descended hundreds of feet into one of the oceans and sliced into a fiber-optic cable..."
"...Even so, the agency has been pushing ahead. At General Dynamics' Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Conn., the Navy is deep into a five-year, $1 billion retrofit of the USS Jimmy Carter, a nuclear-powered vessel that intelligence experts say will be the premier U.S. spy sub when it hits the seas in 2004. Among its many planned features, says one former official familiar with the project: state-of-the-art technology for undersea fiber-optic taps...."
"...Undersea fiber-optic cables are sheathed in a thick steel husk and buried in a yard-deep trench. But once the water depth exceeds 1,000 feet, they usually are left to run uncovered along the ocean floor. Industry experts believe the NSA tap must have occurred in deep waters far out at sea, where the cable would be exposed and the risks of being seen would be lower. Some cable operators make frequent surveillance flights hundreds of miles from shore, mainly to keep track of fishing boats whose nets or anchors might rip their cables..."
"...He says the USS Jimmy Carter is meant to have "lock-out capability" to allow divers to leave and enter the sub. Plans also call for special thrusters that will allow the vessel to hover near the ocean floor for long periods, a technology that would enable it to supply oxygen and power to an undersea chamber..."
"...Technicians fixing a damaged cable usually make such repairs above water and under antiseptic conditions. Dust or seawater in the submerged chamber could ruin an exposed fiber. Making a surreptitious tap of a live cable would also require circumventing the electrical charge--usually around 10,000 volts--which is used to power the devices that keep the speeding light beams strong...."
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So perhaps the broken cables are failed attempts at tapping the traffic?