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Comment by rms | Hacker News Reader

It's too many to be a coincidence. I don't think a war is coming, I think it is much more likely this was a test for the CIA or whoever to see if they could actually cut this many cables if they ever needed to. Or the CIA will repair the cable in such a way to let them monitor communications.

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If the intent was to monitor communications, why would they cut multiple cables simultaneously? That only draws more attention.

I don't buy the "test to see if they could actually cut this many cables simultaneously" idea. Cutting cables is not fundamentally difficult -- they are not even armored below a certain depth. It would also be a very expensive, complicated, and potentially embarrassing test.

I guess I'm too paranoid to buy "coincidence" even if there doesn't appear to be any other truly logical explanation.

It isn't necessarily a coincidence, but couldn't it be reasonable explained that when the first few went down it lead to a higher level of strain and utilization of the remaining cables, thus making them far more likely to break themselves?

I don't think the light running through the cables wears them down by much.

I think he means currents and normal wear-and-tear?

But again, 4 times...

There is definitely something strange going on.

Wasn't the last one due to power failure (extra wear and tear from increased load)?

Well, if their intention was simply to splice monitoring gear into it, do you think that they would have done it so visibly? Think anything unencrypted and important is going to go over those cables in the near future?

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