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Comment by exDM69 | Hacker News Reader

If this act of sabotage was not conducted by nation state actors with submarines, but someone using fishing boats and scuba divers instead like you suggest, the perpetrators will be caught in a manner of days.

The straits between the coasts of the southern Baltic sea are one of the most closely guarded waters in the world. There are at least 5 different nations (dk, se, de, pl, ru) coast guard assets with eyes on the region.

There is primary radar, secondary radar, seabed hydrophone arrays, surface vessels, submarines and airborne surveillance and satellites with eyes and ears on this region. And the surveillance has been increased a lot during this year.

Unless someone gets caught within a week, it's safe to assume that this sabotage was conducted by nation state level actors.

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Charges could have been placed weeks ago, finding culprits will be very hard if someone does not take responsibility

How would you trigger them? 100m down radio doesn't work at all. ELF antennas are nation-state level assets and need receiving antennas that are hundreds of metres long.

Acoustic messaging is possible, but again hard to do. Timed charges are plausible but that's a heck of a commitment (of course 3/4 breaches suggests a possible misfire - I imagine theres a hunt on for the last one).

A good old clock.

That just happens to work at a depth of 80 meters.

> the perpetrators will be caught in a manner of days

Even assuming all of these nations record the real-time location of every fishing boat, dinghy, yacht and tug-boat; and can play it back and analyze all of the data; and thereby backtrack to port of entry; and then crew; and then investigate all of the false positives within days. Implausible, but ok, assuming.

But they can find no one, or all the trails run cold. Your next go-to idea for the failure would be Russia or the US?

Come on. Aren't there other plausible reasons?

> assuming all of these nations record the real-time location of every fishing boat, dinghy, yacht and tug-boat; and can play it back and analyze all of the data

This is a pretty safe assumption to make. The relevent authorities have this data and are certainly poring through it as we speak.

> Your next go-to idea for the failure would be Russia or the US?

Don't put words in my mouth. I did not allude to anyone in particular, just exclude the possibility of some independent group pulling this off in case the vessels behind sabotage this do not get identified very soon.

Ok, fair point.

I agree that the various coast guards are extremely competent and coordinated, and are poring over the data that they have now. I disagree that capture is inevitable unless submarine.

Capture of the individuals behind it? Perhaps not. Identifying the vessel(s) supporting the sabotage operation? Much more likely.

Possibly. I agree that it's possible, but not inevitable. That's assuming even that stopping, diving, attaching explosives was the method.

Someone upstream suggested dragging explosives along behind the boat like an anchor, detonating when detecting the steel and concrete of the pipe. Wouldn't need scuba gear, nor even to stop.

It doesn’t take much more sophistication to place these weeks ago with a timer. And a bit more tooling and you can place them and remotely detonate when needed.

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