Terrorists take out major routers.

Post Reply New Topic

"Anything from terror attacks to, would you believe it shark bites, can and have taken out major links and routers."[LINK]

I'd expect better from the BBC. Ok that's a lie I don't expect better from the BBC.

Actually, many of the trans-oceanic links need repeaters every few tesns of miles, and these repeaters need power. The cables that power these run AC, and AC gives off magnetic fields that can attract certain underwater creatures that may attack the bundle. And on the terrorist comment, there was a very well-known terrorist attack about 8 years ago that had a significant effect on the internet on a regional level.

Sharks have chomped on the cables?

I'm not certain that it was sharks, however there have been instances of creatures chomping on the cables. I do recall reading about these issues a few years ago in El reg. I think the cables are too deep for sharks, though... (I have not confirmed this)

(EDITED to correct code issues, and spelling. I hate it when pages override my settings for colors... White text on black is so much easier on my eyes on a light-emitting display)

Last edited by kc8ufv on 28 Sep 2009, 8:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

electromagnetic fields will do strange things to animals. During WWII, mice ate insulation off German tanks, which caused a lot of problems (I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there's a children's story based on that one...

The whole point to TCP/IP, is to route around damage. So unless they're all hit at once, the whole Internet is up.

Sharks love low frequency EMF fields. That have a sense organ that picks them up.

ruveyn

I have an idea for a movie: Inglorious Rodants. Jewish Mice that eat the insulation off of Nazi tanks.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 03 Oct 2009, 10:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

go for it...

I like it .

If by regional you mean larger than a city, please direct me to a source.

I was specifically referencing the Sept 11 attacks, specifically the ones on the twin towers. I was working in tech support at the time, and connectivity to our customers in the New England region was lost. We didn't have customers in NY, NY specifically, however, the effects were definately felt in Boston where we did have customers.

When the towers fell, they took lots of infrastructure down with them. The World Trade Center was one of the main interconnecting points for the entire New England region. Many websites went dark at least temporarily, as their servers were destroyed, as well.

Additionally, there was also the collapse via overutilization. Many sites temporarily went down, as their servers were so overloaded with requests, their bandwith, or in some cases the servers themselves, became unusable.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ele ... ,1863.html

There was a case where Banks and ATMs were rendered inoperable because squirrels and other rodents chewed up some cables in Connecticut about 10 years ago.

If I recall, the Russians had dogs with explosives strapped to them which were trained to run under German tanks. The dogs had a piece of wire sticking up and when that touched the metal of the tank... boom.

The internet is of a mesh net type. Different cabling enables multiple routes for data to travel through if one way was blocked, it could take another. Like a detour

In general, yes, however, there are lots of places with only *ONE* route to the mesh. Lots of areas have to get to a major city to get out. For example, vitrtually ALL of the internet traffic here in Toledo goes through Detroit, with only a few providers going to other cities.