1? Meh. 2? Humm, 3? Wait a sec, 4? OK problem...
 

We are now up to FOUR undersea cables being mysteriously cut. While not wanting to seem alarmist, this is getting suspicious.

So what do you think:

A) Eh, it's just coincidence

B) It's terrorists I tell ya, terrorists

C) It's them USofA black Ops folks. They're tapping into the cables and not sealing them back up correctly.

D) Whales fight back!

E) Could you explain the difference between B and C?

Seems unlikely to be a coincidence but beyond that I have absolutely no idea.

It's the megaladons.

I'll have to agree with Alex. That many cables seems way too much for a coincidence. Can't they tell if they were sliced with a sharp object versus wear and tear from the ocean floor?
I wouldn't think terrorists would slice their own communication lines, but then again what do I really know about terrorists? Mostly what my government tells me;)

It's possible they haven't even seen the site of the breaks yet to make guesses as to cause. If you're interested in how they fix these things, this article might be of interest.

I doubt terrorists would have the necessary tech to cut such cables, but then again I have no idea how deep he portion of the cables were that were damaged.

Cables have been submerged in the oceans for a long time without having wear and tear issues, and while I suppose that the cabling could be substandard, I doubt it.

Suspicious indeed, but I really have no thoughts about who would be behind it or why.

Thanks Alex, that was very interesting.

It was me: I did it.

The first two cables cut were latest, greatest so age is probably not a factor.

A grappling hook, A few thousand feet of rope and an acetylene torch? Not terribly hard to come by.

It occurs to me that if there is malicious intent behind it that the really mean thing to do would be to make two cuts, several miles apart and then drag the segment away (this would be more cable than the repair ships have on hand). And also drag the cut ends away so that they are harder to find.

Nope. I just used a hacksaw (although it did take about three blades on each cable).

That's it!

Kevy, in a boat with the Hacksaw! Colonel Mustard is innocent!

I blame terrorist whales.

It really brings new depth to the "war on terror". I have this sinking feeling that whales will start taking hostages, according to the audible blubber that has been intercepted.

I swear this world is becoming quite the dive.

Well, again, how deep are those cables? Fishing with a grappling hook and rope sounds like a whole bunch of trial and error if the cable are several hundred feet down. Of course cutting them isn't the problem....getting them to cut seems to be the issue.

Not too hard, really. If you know the approximate location and the direction the cable runs (say north-south), then drop a grappling hook to the sea floor and drag it east-west until you hook it.

They need to start looking for suspicious boats carrying mass amounts of rope and a grappling hook. But, most ships do carry stuff like that, so it would be really hard to catch the culprit(s).

Hmmm If I wanted to re-direct internet traffic for an entire region through another location where there were listening devices located, how would I do it?

How how how?

It is a puzzler.

I didn't know we were up to 4! Suspicious indeed!

Naww that can't be it. The main place getting extra traffic routed through it due to the cuts is the USA......

I'm just pleased that grappling hooks are involved

Typically the cables are buried in a meter deep trench out to a depth of ~1000 feet. After that it's just laying on the floor of the ocean.




Note: "Depth" makes a great hangman word. No one ever gets it.

So apparently the country it affects the most is Iran.

Not sure if it will effect India and all those outsourced call centers.

So it's either our government, Israels government or disgruntled IT employees.

Sounds like a botched Ivy Bells

Why go out in the middle of the ocean when you could follow the cable on land?

Maybe the Others cut it

That's it, BTD solved the mystery! Visible mojo, that was a good one!

I was thinking aliens from the Abyss...

Visible Sayiid mojo

Is that a Lost character? Cuz it's going right over my head.

Maybe there are 4 islands out there with castaway professors on them.

Yes. That is Sayid with an underwater cable that he found. It goes to the Looking Glass.

I believe that may be the implication

Stop giving Kevy ideas.

Well, the Tagruato deep-sea drilling company has been having troubles of late. Seems a likely link:

Link to news report.

hacksaws? hooks and cables?? oh please. a decent GPS, 1 remote control submersible with a camera or two and some C4...


you could hide that in a rowboat

Duh, haven't you guys learned anything? Obviously it was George Bush who did it and now Michael Moore is going to have to make a shockingly revealing documentary about Bush's ties to extremist underwater cable cutting monkeys, followed by an enlightening Al Gore documentary warning us about the dangers of cable warming and catastrophic fiber optic change. It might even be so bad that Sean Penn will have to get a photographer and a row boat and paddle out to repair the cables himself!

Damn you George Bush! Damn you to hell!!!!

I have to admit... that was kinda funny.

I was probably feeling - or hearing - the effects of increased activity on remining cables when I talked to Amazon support in India on Sunday. Not only was the connection VERY bad (like in the old days when you got an overseas call) but the hold music was Indian and the CS guy asked if he could hold me for a second.

Wow, yeah, the slow porn access is making 'em kinda desperate.

Another Day, Another cable. The total now stands at Five.

Wow.

This is getting kind of freaky. Are they trying to cut all incoming communications, besides phones I would guess?! How much can they redirect before it all just comes to a screeching halt?!

crazy!

Did anyone else notice that Turkey is spelled Turkiye on this map? It appears to be a regional spelling rather than a typo (they have "Turkey" right under it). Just something I noticed.

They also have a different spelling of Greece, but I do not feel like hunting down those characters.

This is the website I pulled the map from (it was linked to from the slashdot article)

These are all logical explanations for this:

* U.S. Government
* Israeli Government
* Aliens
* Underwater Monsters
* The Cloverfield Monster
* Rudy Giuliani

I like this guys thinking:

Damnit; they are letting everyone in on what I was doing :mad:

You're the Cloverfield monster?

.

No. I am a sock puppet for Rudy Giuliani.

I hope this doesn't mean something massive is coming. Sounds like a mob scenario - they create distractions for a little while and then make their big hit.

Türkiye is the Turkish spelling of Turkey. Notice that Greece, China, and Thailand are also labeled in their native languages. Why they're the only three to get such treatment I have no idea.

As for it being an effort to tap those lines, that doesn't make sense to me. They could easily be tapped elsewhere and if the owning companies were involved (as the article implies) then they could probably do it in such a way to have no unexplained downtime.

But what do I know. I still think we landed on the moon so I'm obviously credulous.

Coincidentally (or not), I've been having slow interwebs for a few days. Today it didn't want to load e-mail.

So, if the tubes collapse, and take celphones with them, how fast can we revert back to landline, letters, and Indian runners? And when the mandatory digital switchover happens with television, and this scenario occurs, how do we disseminate information?

srsly. I'm askeard.

Radio, DirecTV, Newspapers, Satellite Phones, XM, Sirius.... There are a lot of ways to get information out.

Also even if every single undersea cable was cut it would still not "collapse" the tubes. Here in the USofA things would be fine. In fact performance might even improve if all the traffic from those foreign devils downloading naughty photos of our women was blocked.

Well, radio (for now), and newspapers aren't digital, although a newspaper is hardly instant and late-breaking. My concern gets raised over things like the NSA having secret rooms in ATT and such. A narrowing of the information pipeline, if you will, that can be easily controlled. I'm not worried about the foreign devils as much as I'm afraid of the homegrown ones.

I'm having trouble following you on this one...

Are you worried about:

A) The collapse of the Internet and/or other means of communications.
B) The monitoring of your communications by entities foreign or domestic
C) The Clovefield Monster?

I am worried about the collapse of teh intrawebs and the Cloverfield monster.... so?

I noticed (for whatever it's worth) that in the comments section, one of the responders put:

Teh "funny" answer: All of them!

The real answer: Not "A", but close. The control of the Internet and/or other means of communications, by enemies both foreign and domestic. I don't think there's enough manpower to monitor everything, therefore, just control the flow.

But what happens when the Cloverfield monster and the Lost monster meet. And what if they... shudder... mate?

There's a LoT monster?!?

He's kinda hard to miss.

[cockney]Wha' if they shudder, mate? Don' monsters 'ave the same righ' as any of us to a weaverproof 'ome? Oi![/cockney]

Via the fastest means of communication known to man... The office grapevine.

Believe it or not, this is not the first time this subject of monster reproductive rights has come up here at lot.

[cockney]Oi! Wha' reproductin? Oim talkin' abou' puttin' up shudders ta keep ou' drafts![/cockney]

Hey!

HEY!!!

The second one because I saw the "highlight" text

Oh yeah, and speaking of Hey!'s

I just noticed the typo in your second tag line. It makes me look bad. Could you fix that? Thanks.

Damn it! I really hate it when the voice of reason mucks up a perfectly good conspiracy theory.

I shouldn't, just to make you look bad. But since the typo is mine, I shall fix it.

You are a man of true moral fortitude.

Yep

Damn. And I was all ready to write the screenplay about terrorists cutting off all form of internet communication and all of America dying of boredom!

Why not a radio play, a la War of the Worlds? As people rediscover radio broadcasts? Meanwhile ham radio operators (ba-dum ching!) become revered resistance leaders.

-... .- -.-. --- -.!

I LOVE old radio dramas. In Southern California, KNX 1070 AM used to have their "Drama Hour" every night (except Sunday) at 9:00. I was often known to stay at work just a little later just so I could be driving home at that hour. I also have a large collection of cassette tapes (purchased at the Museum of Radio and Television in LA) of these old dramas. If I had the patience, I would capture them and put them on my iPod.

I grew up with LPs of The Shadow, Fibber McGee and Molly, and the Great Gildersleeve.

Oh well. Today's conspiracy theory is shot to hell. On to Heath and Brit. I wonder what the conspiracy is there?

Oh thank God!

Just in time! We have a worthy replacement for the cable cutting story....


A Perpetual Motion Machine with a twist. It works.


Comments?

-- --- .--- ---

If it is well designed I expect what will happen is what always happens, they'll find that there is unrecognized energy input into the system.

If poorly designed I expect what will happen is what always happens, they'll realize that the machinery was so complicated as to mask what's really happening.

If scammily designed I expect what will happen is what always happens, they'll realize that the inventor is intentionally hiding the energy input.

And there's a very, very small chance that what the man has done is not invent a perpetual motion machine but rather to have found a way to transfer energy that doesn't require currently known energy inputs. After all, a solar powered toy car would appear a perpetual motion machine if you were unaware of electromagnetic radiation.

But I feel extremely confident saying he hasn't invented a true perpetual motion machine that consumes less energy than it produces.

From the article:

Errr, isn't that the basic principal of any electromagnetic motor? Not that I need any more reason to be suspect of claims of perpetual motion, but the utter lack of details in this article doesn't help.

Plus, the newspaper article is really poorly written, offering no evidence of perpetual motion.

It is well known that magnets can cause motion and acceleration. Even permanent magnets (acceleration is generally done with changing fields requiring a constant input of energy). But that bleeds the magnetism out of the magnet. In other words, there is no mention of measuring the magnetic field of the permanent magnet before and after the demonstration (or if demonstration of energy was sufficient to cause a measurable decrease in the magnetic field if one were happening).

Magnets are a very popular source in supposed perpetual motion machines with lots of overlooked energy inputs and outputs.

If the MIT guy is both qualified and truly uncertain then I'm sure this was all accounted for at the demonstration but not explained in the article.


[ETA: Yeah, GD said it before me]

Which of course is what makes this story a worthy successor to the Cable cut story. Lot's of drama, not many facts.

There are some interesting links from the thread at the JREF forum.

Love this post...

[Homer Simpson]Lisa, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics![/Homer]

Hold it! We're not dead yet....

The Undersea cable cutting might have been the work of nefarious agents yet unnamed.

Personally, I'm still betting on Britney and the paps working together.