What the damaged Svalbard cable looked like

https://www.nrk.no/tromsogfinnmark/this-is-what-the-damaged-svalbard-cable-looked-like-when-it-came-up-from-the-depths-1.16895904

by ingve • 2 years ago

542 217 2 years ago

nrk.no

jamesblonde• 2 years ago

TLDR; it probably wasn't the russians, most likely a trawler.

Waterluvian3• 2 years ago

This was January 2022. Didn’t the alleged Russian interference happen later, during the invasion of Ukraine?

defluct• 2 years ago

Maybe you're thinking about Nord Stream

cess11• 2 years ago

"NRK has previously reported how a Russian trawler crossed the Svalbad cable more than 140 times, and more than a dozen times before the damage occurred in January 2022. The shipowners have denied having anything to do with the damage."

The norwegians seem to think it was a russian trawler and that trawler doesn't exclude the possiblity that russians did it.

wkat42422• 2 years ago

Yeah the Russians also used "trawlers" to hide their recovery operations of KAL007 to hide their mass murder.

Trawler does not mean unintentional or not state related.

stanislavb• 2 years ago

A trawler driven by the Russians?

lijok• 2 years ago

If by "the russians" you mean russian defence, I can guarantee they would use something as inconspicuous as a trawler for the job rather than a combat vehicle

trhway• 2 years ago

For the curious - google “tanker Minerva Julie Nord Stream”. While officially the tanker is Greek, it is tightly connected to Russia.

I’d be looking for the key places in international waters and the likes needed to be cut simultaneously to say paralyze Europe banking and other infrastructure and would be checking whether there are Russian (and affiliated like that Minerva company) “trawlers” with a habit of hanging around those places.

dagss2• 2 years ago

This article details how certain russian trawlers criss-crossed a lot over another cable in Norway that broke some time before...

...and then the same trawlers were in the vicinity of this cable in Svalbard when another trawler criss-crossed over it until it broke

(In Norwegian but hopefully Google Translate will do an OK job and mainly graphics)

https://www.nrk.no/nordland/xl/russiske-tralere-krysset-kabl...

holoduke• 2 years ago

Criss crossing is quite normal behavior btw. I see it all the time here at the North Sea near England.

Rebelgecko• 2 years ago

Does the Russian part of Svalbard depend on the cable for Internet?

Waterluvian3• 2 years ago

The current is used to amplify the fibre optic signals that flow through the 1300km long cables between the peninsula and the Norwegian mainland.

This is magic to me. Anyone have a search term I could use to better understand how electricity is used to boost a fibre optic signal?

orlp• 2 years ago

The optical signal repeaters that are part of the cable every N kilometers need power to do their job.

Waterluvian3• 2 years ago

Ohh there’s physical electronic repeaters. Okay. I thought this was some sort of electromagnetism witchcraft.

cricalix• 2 years ago

"Fiber optic amplifier undersea" should do the trick. It's not that the power supply wrapped around/alongside the fiber does anything directly; it's being delivered to amplifiers. There's a hackaday article that's got some history in it.

dekhn2• 2 years ago

It's a optic to electronic device that is embedded in the cable, which is powered by electricity (but I think the tech was improved, see my last link). It's mentioned here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable... with more detail here https://hackaday.com/2023/08/08/under-the-sea-optical-repeat... and pictures here: https://hackaday.com/2023/08/08/under-the-sea-optical-repeat... (IIUC those are inside of the ship laying or repairing the fiber,a nd they normally live on the ocean floor) and tons of photos of the process of laying cable: https://www.businessinsider.com/google-facebook-giant-unders...

However I think there are also fully passive repeaters- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_amplifier

henrikeh• 2 years ago

I don’t know about this cable specifically, but it can be done by transferring more power to the optical signal.

Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers work by utilizing a nonlinear optical effect where energy is transferred from a pump laser to the signal. This is in principle possible in any optical (glass) fiber, but by doping with exotic elements, the amplification characteristics can be optimized. Erbium is suitable for the conventional communication wavelengths.

For reference I have a PhD in information theory and signal processing for fiber channels.

pseudosavant• 2 years ago

Comments like this are why I love HN!

kaliszad• 2 years ago

This is still a good practical reference I like to point out, when people ask: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWqe8_5SUvk Richard A. Steenbergen has also other good talks, e.g. on traceroute. There are multiple versions of these talks that include more or less the same stuff with occasionally more information here and there.

darkclouds• 2 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_amplifier#Doped_fiber_...

The crush to the cable could be a number of things but without knowing the terrain, and knowing these cables just lie on the sea floor, it could be caused by the cable sitting on some jagged rock and has been pulled tight elsewhere (perhaps by fisherman dredging the seabed) resulting in the cable being forced onto the jagged rock and it being crushed onto the rock.

Likewise, but unlikely, some heavy object from above has some how landed on the cable, perhaps even a submarine of sorts resting on the seabed.

Again knowledge of the terrain of the sea floor where the cable crush took place is key into gaining some idea of what might have happened, but I think its the first scenario, a fisherman dredging the sea floor elsewhere has caught and pulled the cable tight and the cable crush is the damage from it resting on rocks where its snagged and crushed itself from the tautness.

Rock climbers and abseilers using ropes will see this with their ropes.

next_xibalba• 2 years ago

The critically important cable that connects Svalbard to the mainland is no thicker than a pinkie finger

This is amazing. I wonder how much data per unit of time this is capable of transporting.

Wikipedia says "Each segment has a speed of 10 gigabits per second (Gb/s), with a future potential capacity of 2,500 Gbit/s." [1]

Wikipedia also notes that NASA helped fund this system.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Undersea_Cable_System

Scoundreller5• 2 years ago

I think NASA helped fund it because they wanted more (And more reliable) data to a groundstation on the island, not because this subsea cable is anything special.

Fibre optic is great because you can usually add more bandwidth by lighting up another wavelength. The amplifiers don't need to be substituted if the wavelength is within its range.

_zoltan_• 2 years ago

I've wondered in the past: is there an actual theoretical upper limit based on the physicality of it on the bandwidth of a single fibre link?

Hikikomori• 2 years ago

Locals liked to say they had the best internet connection in the worlds, idk about that. NASA is a customer of the satellite station there.

varenc• 2 years ago

I wonder how much data per unit of time this is capable of transporting.

The max throughput of fiber optic cables isn't exactly constant. As fiber optic modem and DSP technology improves you can get much higher speeds on 15+ year-old cables than were ever possible when they were laid.

Recently I saw an article about researchers getting 300,000 Gbit/s over existing fiber optic cables (though I'm sure that's a long way from being a deployable technology): https://www.aston.ac.uk/latest-news/aston-university-researc...

SAI_Peregrinus• 2 years ago

This applies to single-mode cables, but much less to multi-mode cables. Of course long-distance cable like this is always single-mode, but it's worth keeping in mind if building a fiber network inside a building.

colmmacc• 2 years ago

The Shannon limit is constant if you assume reasonable but idealized SNR values for the medium, and gives you a real "law of physics" upper limit ... typically still many orders of magnitude beyond what we can transmit today.

But it's amazing how effective DSP can be; trellis coding managed to get modems to squeeze right up to the Shannon limit of POTS telephone connections.

tjoff• 2 years ago

Though surely the repeaters in a cable, such as the one in the article, presents hard limits?

ductsurprise• 2 years ago

Reminds me of the early dialup to DSL communication over standard telephone lines evolution.

nradov• 2 years ago

You're referring to single continuous fiber optic cables on land. Long undersea cables incorporate powered repeaters. Those can't be upgraded in situ with improved technology.

mvkel• 2 years ago

Wait, an entire mainline for a country can do 10Gb/s and people somehow are paying for gigabit home Ethernet?

Either the former is understated, or the latter is way overkill.

Or, I'm misunderstanding. Which is probably the most likely possibility.

EKS1• 2 years ago

svalbard is a island, far away from mainland. Not many live there (3k people). But they likely have higher seasonal numbers (Tourists)

https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=5/77.504/13.008

saithound• 2 years ago

Svalbard is not a country, but a remote archipelago of Norway.

The main island, Spitsbergen has a population of 2.5k people, they don't allvuse the Internet (certainly not all at the same time), and they do not pay for gigabit home internet, more like 75Mbps.

For reference, the Southern Cross fiber network connecting Australia to the U.S. does more like 10+ Tbps.

svnt• 2 years ago

Each individual fiber, which is a fraction of a cubic mm in cross sectional area, can provide this much bandwidth in a fairly trivial low-cost configuration. Cables like the one pictured carry many of these fibers.

Tor3• 2 years ago

I'm not sure where they got that number from, but when the two cables were put there many years ago the stated capacity at that time was 40Gb/s for each of the cables (though that capacity was not meant to be used at full back then). Source: I worked on the network setup that was going to be used by NASA. (The main funding of this cable was not NASA, but in any case it was used by NASA to replace a much slower and more complicated satellite link)

Scoundreller5• 2 years ago

Had a case in Canada where a fisherman ignored the maps and kept picking up a fibre optic line with their fishing gear, and eventually cut it with a saw (twice):

(I suspect it was a short-haul line, so carried no electricity for amplifiers)

https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2011/2011fc494/2011fc49...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peracomo_Inc_v_TELUS_Communica...

In 2005, however, he managed to pull up the Sunoque I. He did not know what it was but managed to free his anchor
The next year, he again hooked an anchor on the Sunoque I. This time he was able to haul it out of the water and secure it on deck. He made no effort to free it. He deliberately cut the cable in two with an electric saw. A few days later the same thing happened. This time it was much easier to haul the cable out, and he cut it again.
Some weeks later, after the fishing season, while on the dock at Baie-Comeau he noticed a strange looking ship in the area where he usually fished. Later, he saw a photo of the ship in the local newspaper. The accompanying article stated that the cable had been deliberately cut and a search was on for the culprit.

resolutebat2• 2 years ago

TL;DR of the court cases: the fisherman was guilty of damages to the tune of $1.2M, and his insurance cover was voided because his act was so reckless.

Funnily enough, the cable owners (Telus) tried to thread the needle of making the owner liable, but not so badly that insurance wouldn't pay for it. The judge didn't buy this, and obviously a sole operator crab boat can't pay over a million in damages (although he did lose his boat), so in the end everybody except the insurance company got screwed.

cma• 2 years ago

Seems like the insurance would still pay but he loses his boat to the insurance company at that point, assuming carrying insurance was part of his fishing license.

refurb• 2 years ago

Despite not recovering any money, Telus may have seen some value in letting others know what the consequences can be.

“Kill the chicken to scare the monkey

charles_f2• 2 years ago

Makes you wonder if those cables should (can) be insured against such problems instead of relying on a craber's insurance.

ikekkdcjkfke• 2 years ago

Not even a down payment on the fine?

mk_stjames• 2 years ago

The idea of being way out on the open water, and pulling up your anchor and finding that it is bringing up some giant steel-wrapped black cable up out into view as you look over the edge of your boat, going off in either direction downward into the seemingly infinite deep water... brings up some crazy weird primal fear [1] in me. I wouldn't even want to touch it, let alone haul the cable onboard and cut it. I'd cut loose the anchor chain and hope to see the thing again.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalassophobia

swader999• 2 years ago

This has sea monster written all over it.

mcswell• 2 years ago

Alien sea monsters!

mschuster912• 2 years ago

Let's assume that these incidents actually were accidents, there's still a bigger question open: why is trawler fishing still allowed? Imagine it's not a fiber cable that ends up being crushed by a trawl door... but all the other marine life: Fish can swim away (or not, being the point of getting fished), but plants, corals, bugs?

Trawler fishing is devastating for the local ecology, we just don't see the damage - to quote [1], page 16:

Seabed habitats are under significant pressure across European seas from the cumulative impacts of demersal fishing, coastal developments and other activities. Preliminary results from a study presented in SWD(2020) indicate that about 43% of Europe’s shelf/slope area and 79% of the coastal seabed is considered to be physically disturbed, which is mainly caused by bottom trawling. A quarter of the EU’s coastal area has probably lost its seabed habitats.

Honestly I'm pretty much in favor of banning trawler fishing and the import of trawler-fished fish into the European Union, even if it's just to protect our fiber links.

[1] https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/720778d4-bb17...

steve_adams_86• 2 years ago

I agree. The more you learn about trawling the less you’ll understand why it’s still permitted in so many places.

Where I live it’s cut back dramatically, but the bizarre thing is that it’s strictly permitted in territories where we know rare deep sea glass sponge reefs exist, and once thrived. These reefs are islands of immense diversity and biomass which fed huge numbers of transient species moving through the deep. They were also nurseries for a large number of fish species we commonly fish for.

We work so hard to regulate our fisheries yet do so little to properly protect the resources they extract from a holistic perspective.

mschuster912• 2 years ago

We work so hard to regulate our fisheries yet do so little to properly protect the resources they extract from a holistic perspective.

Our fish industry is really well connected politically and the large players exactly know how to play the fiddle, and any attempt to hold the foreign ones accountable with actually working and appropriate measures (it's highly likely that it will take live ammunition or an intentional collision, at least in legally "open" seas) would likely result in WW3.

staplers2• 2 years ago

  the less you’ll understand why it’s still permitted in so many places.

Financial "incentives" from fishing industry and political ramifications of raising food prices (seafood is a large portion in some places).

It's absolutely an existential threat to the ecology of the entire Earth yet those are the reasons why. "Close to 90% of the world’s marine fish stocks are fully exploited, overexploited or depleted."

Source: https://www.unep.org/facts-about-nature-crisis

azalemeth• 2 years ago

Fishing as carried out industrially is terrible for the environment as a whole, and really often also exploits those employed in it. The huge army of Asian fishing fleets that skirt the law and the ethics of both sides of this are the worst of the worst, however, and deep sea trawling is particularly awful. Then again, farmed fish isn't exactly ecologically brilliant either...

BostonFern2• 2 years ago

They do more than skirt laws and ethics. A large amount of fishing vessels operating in several regions around the world practice outright slavery. Working-age men are lured into debt-bonding to work at sea indefinitely for no wages up to 20 hours per day with little to no food until they succumb to exhaustion, injury, or disease, or if they show signs of resistance, are executed as an example to the other enslaved men. When someone dies, their remains are thrown overboard. Most accounts of this have only surfaced because people have bought the freedom of some of these men, who are seen as nothing but a labor resource, bought and paid for usually directly by the captain, in order to catch otherwise mostly unprofitable fish. If an industry is prepared to engage in slavery, playing fast and loose with international borders and environmental regulations is of course not a concern to that industry.

toomuchtodo• 2 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-trawling_device

https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/mud-muck-and-death-cambodi...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8823369/Gree...

https://www.huckmag.com/article/paolo-fanciulli-the-italian-...

Grimburger• 2 years ago

Complete agree. The hidden damage we are doing to marine ecosystems is horrendous.

I love eating seafood but have basically given it all up due to environmental concerns, there's very few fisheries left that are harvested sustainably and farmed fish as an alternative cause a host of other problems for marine wildlife in the area.

Even the sustainable types of fish usually end up with huge amounts of bycatch that it's hard to justify eating them too.

At this point the only seafood I can eat is something I've caught myself and isn't of concern for sustainability, Australia is lucky in that respect with quite a few species thriving but we still face a lot of illegal fishing in our waters that's incredibly hard to police.

0xedd2• 2 years ago

Cool. Will you pay the cost difference afterwards? I kinda don't like the taste of bugs.

the_gipsy2• 2 years ago

Allright, let's not do anything, ever.

timeon• 2 years ago

Cool. How about you paying cost of the wildlife?

asoneth• 2 years ago

Will you pay the cost difference afterwards?

Are you asking if I would be willing to pay more money for goods that don't irreversibly destroy ocean ecosystems and that aren't made with slave labor?

I struggle to imagine the kind of person who would say no to such a question. Someone with no money in a country with no safety net on the verge of starvation? Someone with no moral comapass?

I kinda don't like the taste of bugs.

I don't understand what bugs have to do with ocean trawling. Is this an unusual way of referring to lobster?

adolph• 2 years ago

This reminds me of a story in "Blind Man's Bluff," summary:

[Capt James F. Bradley Jr.] was at his office in Naval Intelligence one day at 3 a.m. when the St. Louis native began reflecting on his boyhood life on the Mississippi River. As he later told the authors, he recalled that the river beach was dotted with signs warning, “Cable Crossing — Do Not Anchor,” so a boater would not foul the cable.

At that point, he wondered if the Soviets did not have similar signs along their Arctic coasts to prevent their critical cables, including those used by the KGB and the Soviet Northern Fleet, from being damaged.

As a result of these ponderings, in 1971 the American submarine Halibut, with its periscope up, slowly and secretly traced the Siberian coast looking for telltale warning signs. The cable signs were found, and American divers put a tap at the bottom of the Sea of Okhotsk on Soviet communications.

https://stationhypo.com/2021/09/05/remembering-captain-james...

fbdab103• 2 years ago

Is it possible to tap fiber-optic cables without the owner getting wise? Even if you could tap modern cables, I assume everything is now encrypted and carries so much bandwidth that it becomes possible to sample the interesting intelligence.

dooglius• 2 years ago

Normal fiber optic can be tapped surreptitiously[0]. There are a number of companies that sell anti-intrusion tech, but it's hard to say which side is winning with respect to what governments can do.

[0] https://fac.ksu.edu.sa/sites/default/files/06149809-Optical_...

gravescale• 2 years ago

This is one of those ones where my instinct is "no": not only would you have to not cause an interruption or reflection that the break detection TDR systems could see, and crack any encryption, and sample what you want from the Tbps, all from a small box under the sea, but also you have to somehow get that data out and back to base, again from under the (mostly radio-opaque) sea and halfway around the world, all without even a whisper of a clue to the tappees.

Then I remember how far ahead the likes of the NSA and NRO are compared to what we're familiar with, and become rather less sure. The Orion satellites have 100m radio dishes, and were first launched in the 90s. Two Hubble-like telescopes were so old hat that they were donated to NASA in 2012. Considering that the NRO is so secrecy-oriented that its very existence was classified until 1992 (it went 11 years completely undetected, and leaked via a New York Times article in 1971 and an accidental entry in a budget report in 1973) and no mission since 1972 is declassified, this says a lot about how much further on they are.

Then again, if unattended taps were installed on cables, you'd also expect them to occasionally be found when lifting cables for repair. And they'd be so advanced that it might be worth lifting an entire cable to check for and acquire such a tap. Which means the tappers would think twice about putting one in, if they could then lose it.

lobochrome2• 2 years ago

Just tap a repeater and deal with encryption later.

dekhn2• 2 years ago

It certainly has been the case in the past (when undersea fiber operators were much less careful) that cables have been tapped without the owner getting wise. IIUC the method used in the past was to bring the cable inside a submarine which has a specialized fiber cleaving and joining machine. Some amount of full transmission loss already occurs, so to the operator is just looks like blip.

Here's a description of an early operation (which I think was actually on copper cables): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells

When I worked at Google, Snowden and others showed that it was likely the US NSA was spying on Google fiber outside of US, I believe the speculation was that they tapped lines around UK, possibly underwater. There's nothing quite like seeing a packet trace containing an RPC between a frontend and backend and being able to recognize the communicating services, collected by a third party. Google greatly sped up its RPC encryption project after that revelation.

0xedd2• 2 years ago

Private companies provide equipment and software to analyse all raw data going through an ISP. All the big names, from US and EU to some countries in Asia, bought this equipment and software.

So, my guess is that a government's budget can enable sampling anything from "so much bandwidth". Regarding encryption, if you run the numbers, to brute force common encryption algorithms it would take Google's compute 1 second. Image all Google service have an outage for 1 second. Google is just an example to imagine the sizing required. In other words, technically possible. And shouldn't be dismissed with "oh, there is encryption, so that door is closed for any threat actor".

Source: I worked on said analytical software.

Kon-Peki• 2 years ago

What, no mention that the Norwegian police use evidence markers with inches printed on them? That company sells them with CM markers.

lobochrome2• 2 years ago

Odd indeed. I would assume the salvage company was American?

threeseed• 2 years ago

The bottom image has an evidence marker with cms on it as well.

Perhaps they intended for the information to be shared with US intelligence.

new23d• 2 years ago

Product appears to be an ID Tent from Evi-Paq. It has inches on the front 'leg' and cms on the rear.

https://forensicssource.com/collections/evidence-markers/pro...

Aurornis• 2 years ago

Scroll down to the lower images. They have both inch and centimeter measurements on other photos.

It's more likely that they take photos with both measurements.

alufers• 2 years ago

Some gun calibers are measured with inches, so maybe they have some imperial markers on hand to measure bullet casings?

eru• 2 years ago

Many measuring devices used in eg Germany have both proper units and Freedom units printed on them. It's probably just easier to have one model that you can sell anyone on the globe. Economics of scale and all that.

anonymousiam• 2 years ago

Historically, there's been a lot of mischief with the cables.

https://asiatimes.com/2023/04/new-us-spy-sub-built-for-seabe...

debo_• 2 years ago

Whoever named the time-traveling, world-saving X-Man from the future "Cable" was oddly prescient.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_(character)

throwup238• 2 years ago

Initially, the police stated that they believed the damages were caused by human activity. Later on, the investigation was dropped, due to lack of evidence....
Several experts with extensive experience with submarine cables and installations have assessed the images for NRK. Their judgement is that the damage to the Svalbard fiber was due to the cables being crushed.

Finally evidence that Godzilla is real!

tailspin2019• 2 years ago

I’m probably being really slow but I couldn’t really work out what the pictures are actually showing. I see a bunch of yellow cables and some with steel sheathing - I’m not really sure what I’m looking at? Are all those cables laid together or are these photos of just one actual cable that has been fully pulled up and coiled?

db48x• 2 years ago

Yes, that must be the coil of cable after they had started pulling it off of the seabed. The steel armoring is supposed to be a bunch of steel wires tightly wound around the cable, to protect it from damage.

bimguy2• 2 years ago

Ah excellent, fishermen not only destroying the ocean but also the infrastructure of countries. When will peoples appetite for destroying the ocean be qualled?

bjornasm4• 2 years ago

There might be things that point towards this not being totally by accident.

bimguy2• 2 years ago

Despite people downvoting me I did read the article. I don't assume this is all fisherman since that Chinese boat mentioned seems to be conveniently taking out cables and the Chinese gov is not responding to their investigation requests. Still doesn't change the fact that fishing operations destroy the ocean floors, a simple amount of research can confirm this.

jorisboris• 2 years ago

We once booked a night on Rebak Island, next to Langkawi, Malaysia.

The day before our arrival I receive a call that a boat somehow broke the water pipe which lies on the bottom between Rebak and Langkawi, cutting the island off from fresh water, and whether I wanted to rebook to another hotel.

Not sure what the moral of the story is, but it kinda fitted the context :)

cjrp• 2 years ago

Russian trawlers going back and forth in that area…

https://x.com/PerErikSchulze/status/1794828268480438514

the_gipsy2• 2 years ago

While this looks alarming and makes an engaging tweet, I have no idea how regular trawling patterns look like. They might circle around fishing spot.

thaumasiotes3• 2 years ago

Dave Barry made a similar observation about antismoking PSAs, objecting to one that had someone throw a diseased lung on a table. He pointed out that you could present any random internal organ and it would look just as bad: "This is what will happen to you if you keep smoking. Look! A perfectly healthy goat kidney!"

goodcanadian• 2 years ago

That's what trawling is . . . it is completely normally for a trawler to go back and forth like that.

LysPJ• 2 years ago

But not over a cable.

Submarine cables are clearly marked on nautical charts, and even recreational boaters know not to anchor in those areas.

A professional trawler captain is not going to accidentally trawl over such an area.

rasz3• 2 years ago

I mean, clearly "lack of evidence"!

After an inital investigation, the police dropped the case due to lack of evidence, and inadequate legislation.

dredmorbius• 2 years ago

<https://archive.is/yZivT>

csmpltn• 2 years ago

Is that boat trawling directly over the same area where the cables were damaged? Unclear from the tweet alone...

silverlyra• 2 years ago

yes – the trawling pattern in the GIF is over (part of) the area marked as damaged in the NRK article: https://www.nrk.no/tromsogfinnmark/this-is-what-the-damaged-...

bjornasm4• 2 years ago

Just in case why people are wondering why cutting of internet for an arctic island is a big deal.

What many might not know is that Svalbard is home to the northernmost satellite station in the world. It is just one of two stations that can communicate with polar orbiting satellites each day. ESA and NASA as well as other civilian organisations are present there, and the station communicates with well over a hundred satellites, and are pretty vital for much of the satellites that look back at us.

mgoetzke• 2 years ago

Time for a Starlink backup then

sunbum• 2 years ago

That's not how satellites work.

partomniscient• 2 years ago

Its the groundstation that needs backing up and the location is surrounded by the sea.

onnimonni• 2 years ago

You can look at the https://satellitemap.space/ to see that starlink isn't (yet) too feasible in the northern/arctic areas. Even in the Nordic countries the connections are not that great.

red-iron-pine3• 2 years ago

definitely not. volumes just aren't there and Elon Musk is openly in bed with dubious characters.

Sanzig• 2 years ago

To be pedantic - most places on Earth can get a contact with a polar orbiting satellite at least once or twice per day, however the number of contacts per day increases the closer you get to the poles. Svalbard is far enough north that you get lots of contacts per day. I forget the exact number and I don't have STK open in front of me to simulate it, but from memory it's something like 15 or so contacts per day for a typical earth observation orbit. This gives you lots of data and relatively frequent contacts to maximize the freshness of the imagery.

There are tons of commercial observation satellite operators that use Svalbard for downlink (downlinks at Svalbard can be procured commercially through a company called KSAT which operates the station). Ukraine has been purchasing a lot of imagery from these companies, including both optical and radar imagery. If I had to hazard a guess at a possible motive, that'd be it.

bjornasm4• 2 years ago

Thx, that was a huge brain fart, I meant each revolution.

bjornasm4• 2 years ago

Correction: not one per day, one per revolution. Since the satellites go from north to south pole while the earth is spinning, the polar areas is the inly the pass each time.

paganel2• 2 years ago

Most probably Russia will claim sovereignty over all of the Svalbards after the next big war and redrawing of borders, Stalin was too circumspect in not scaring the Americans into WW3 the first time when they had the chance to do it.

All that because whoever controls the North Pole controls most of the Northern Hemisphere, it’s actually one of the very few “ways in” inside North America and control of the continental United States (there were a few US geopoliticians/geographers who first became aware of that in the early 1940s).

neffy• 2 years ago

I for one welcome our new Polar Bear Overlords. (Hope the Russians don´t forget their rifles when they move in.)

mortb• 2 years ago

What kind of international law can we expect in the future? A law that is constantly broken by various maleficent actors? Of course we've heard them complain that the current order is run by the west and harmful to others. What are the alternatives? A hundred cables?

bell-cot• 2 years ago

"constantly broken by various maleficent actors" is a pretty good description of the past of international law. There is no reason to expect the future to be any different.

ThalesX• 2 years ago

According to Johnson the US has never endorsed the ICC because it's a "direct affront to our own sovereignty. [...] We don't put any international body above American sovereignty and Israel doesn't do that either," he added.

God I have developed such a distaste for political opinions. Everyone thinks they're right and everyone sees the various maleficent actors in others.

[0] https://www.jpost.com/international/article-802290

mrguyorama• 2 years ago

"Real" international law would require a sovereign international government that is more powerful than any singular nation.

You need to construct an entity that both the US and China make themselves fully subservient to.

Good luck.

sschueller• 2 years ago

"anchor or a trawl is dragged across it"

At this point this seems to be the most common cause of see cable damage.

I guess the captains decide that it's worth dumping the anchor in a storm to protect the cargo even if the area "forbids" it.

What the damaged Svalbard cable looked like

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