In retrospect, that custom order for the mini-sub with hedge-clipper attachment was rather odd
The timeline and the details are getting a little confusing, but the sudden outbreak of damage to undersea Internet cables seems to have grown again (see “And you thought you had bad cable service“). Now we’re apparently looking at five cut cables (or four, with one cut twice) in incidents dating back to Jan. 30 (or Jan. 23). Whatever — the point is these cables, which provide Net access to the Middle East and parts of Pakistan and India, are snapping like guitar strings at a heavy metal concert and no one knows why. Each new report further stretches the explanation of coincidence, and there’s plenty of speculation sprouting up to take its place.
But as Robert Graham of Errata Security notes, “This highlights the human psychology of computer security: people are apt to see patterns where none exist. Outages in undersea cables are a common occurrence. They usually go unreported. However, once a major outage is reported, minor outages that would normally be ignored now become reported as well. … The five cable cuts in a row are likewise not evidence of wrongdoing. This is in the realm of normal statistics.”
