Post date: Mar 28, 2013 1:47:21 PM
Egypt (Next Media) - Three men were arrested off Egypt’s coast by the Navy on Wednesday while attempting to cut through an undersea data cable.
The incident occurred about 750 meters north of the port city of Alexandria.
The men were arrested while scuba diving from a dinghy in an attempt to sever the fiber-optic cable.The “Southeast Asia Middle East Western Europe 4” (SEA-ME-WE 4) line is one of the backbones of the global Internet, linking France to Singapore with 17 connecting points across the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
In 2008, the anchor of a ship sailing in the Mediterranean severed the line, causing Reducing Egypt’s bandwidth the the rest of the world by 75 percent and widespread outages in Middle East and performance degradation as far away as India.
For countries with more than a single link, other undersea infrastructure can absorb the additional data demand, but at slower speeds, as internet traffic must be be routed through more nodes.
Such accidents are not uncommon and Egyptian authorities had blamed recent patchy performance on cable damage caused by shipping, but they now suspect sabotage.
Investigators not yet determined a motive for Wednesday’s attempted sabotage. The three men are under interrogation.
SOURCES:
Marine Buzz
http://www.marinebuzz.com/2008/12/22/undersea-cable-cut-disrupts-internet-connectivity-in-europe-middle-east-and-asia/
The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/27/egypt_cables_cut_arrest/
Science World Report
http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/5847/20130327/three-divers-arrested-attempting-cut-undersea-internet-cable-near-egypt.htm
Computer World
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9237946/Sabotage_suspected_in_Egypt_submarine_cable_cut
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/egypt-naval-forces-capture-3-scuba-divers-trying-to-sabotage-undersea-internet-cable/2013/03/27/dd2975ec-9725-11e2-a976-7eb906f9ed9b_story.html