Keeping the blogosphere posted on the goings on of the world of submarines since late 2004... and mocking and belittling general foolishness wherever it may be found. Idaho's first and foremost submarine blog. (If you don't like something on this blog, please E-mail me; don't call me at home.)

Saturday, February 09, 2008

Submarines Did Not Cause The Internet Cable Breaks

As I mentioned earlier, I've been wondering how to address conspiracy theorists who claim a U.S. submarine -- specifically my old boat USS Jimmy Carter (SSN 23) -- was behind the recent breaking of submerged internet cables in the Middle East. I've figured out how to do it -- by stipulating to the tinfoil hatter's assumption that USS Jimmy Carter has the ability to tap into underwater cables, and then showing logically why they didn't do it, even if they could have.

First let's take care of the easiest one -- that USS Jimmy Carter is responsible for, or will take advantage of, the recent cable breaks. (One theory I've seen is that the cables were broken by some non-specialized ship, and that Carter will attach the "black box" at some other location so as not to be detected.) USS Jimmy Carter was in port in Bangor as recently as January 17th, and one 'net commenter reported that they could see the boat inport on Thursday from the ferry. One might wonder why a submarine blogger would go out on a limb and only use an Internet commenter as a source for his "fact" when he probably has friends still on the boat, and could just contact them to find out if the boat is still in port. One might then consider that there must be a reason said sub-blogger is so confident that the boat is still in port. Seeing that it's about 10,000 miles from Bangor to the Med (unless you go through the Bering Straits in January) it would be very problematic for the Carter to get there between January 17th and when the cables started getting cut in late January.

So if the Carter didn't do it, did another U.S. submarine? Let's look at motive. Some say that the U.S. did it to stop the opening of an Iranian Oil Bourse that's been threatened for years -- apparently, this will destroy the U.S. economy by trading in Euros instead of dollars. The reasons why such a market wouldn't destroy the U.S. economy are so simple that even a KOSsack can understand them. Others say it was a prelude to an attack on Iran -- an attack that apparently got called off, because Iran never really lost Internet connectivity.

Suppose we were trying to tap the cables? What the hell good would that do? These aren't voice cables, like the ones we supposedly tapped in the Sea of O and described in Blind Man's Bluff. These are packet data cables. An Internet connectivity "pipe" would carry literally terabytes of data -- more than you could store in some black box undersea. Besides, Internet traffic gets routed all over the world; a good part of it probably comes through U.S. or UK servers anyway. It just doesn't make any sense to "tap" an undersea Internet cable -- there's just too much data that's too easily available by other means.

The fact is, undersea internet cables break on the average of once every three days. Statistically, you're going to have a cluster of such breaks once in a while. It's especially not a U.S.-Israeli conspiracy when they find the anchor that cut one of the cables... unless you believe the Carter left that behind to fool the gullible. If you believe that, I've got some options on the Iranian Oil Bourse to sell you.

14 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

OldSailor from www.marinebuzz.com:When five undersea internet cables were cut in different locations within a week, many thought this is not a coincidence. Different opinions were expressed by many readers. Clear picture is possible only when all the cut cables are inspected and fault rectified.

2/09/2008 1:46 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ahh, but the beauty of the conspiracy-theoristical mentality is that all evidence which disproves the theory can be interpreted as proof of the extent and malignancy of the conspiracy itself. The more extensive and malignant they believe it to be, the more compelled they feel to believe in it: After all, there's a relatively low cost if a small and relatively harmless conspiracy sneaks past you, but the cost of failing to recognize and combat a vast and hellishly malignant conspiracy is very much higher. To somebody who has a grossly defective grasp of the probabilities involved, that kind of reasoning can be very compelling.

Anyhow: If the USS J.C. can be proven to have been in Bangor on January 17, to a tinfoil-hatter that just proves how tightly the Jews control the media. They aren't actually trying to prove their "theory"; the "theory" is an axiom. They start with the "theory" and then move on to figuring out what that "fact" implies about the rest of reality. Your link to navy.mil will in their minds tell them a lot about navy.mil, and nothing whatsoever about where the USS Jimmy Carter was on January 17th. The commenter? That's easy: He must be a plant. And they don't need to prove he's a plant; they just need to reassure themselves that he can't be proven not to be.

Hell, what can you really prove about anybody? Maybe I'm a North Korean mole writing this comment to fool Mossad into trusting me.

As for the quaint cold-war notion of using a nuclear submarine to sniff packets, well, conspiracy theorists always get their science and technology wrong. They do seem to take in a lot of information, but the information they're attracted to is virtually all bullshit, because they don't trust anybody who isn't as crazy as they are. Anybody objective observer, who has the expertise to say anything meaningful about the issue, is in their world ipso facto unreliable. They'd rather get their information about physics from some soap-dodger who flunked out of high school, as long as his heart is in the right place.

There are a few 9/11 conspiracy theorists who know enough physics or engineering to see through all the physics-based or engineering-based theories — but they just flee from the parts they can understand, and gravitate to theories in other areas that they don't understand, and where they can get their "facts" from other loonies as clueless as they are.

2/09/2008 2:08 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Old Sailor's patience for a "clear picture" is also uncharacteristic of conspiracy types. The default is to assume conspiracy until proven otherwise (then perhaps make such proof impossible as Midget Launcher explains). Take as example the case of UFO's. There are hundreds of UFO cases. I see what appears to be a flying object, I don't know what it is, so it is a UFO. This does not mean it is a critter from another planet, but some would assume that it is unless I can prove otherwise.

2/09/2008 3:42 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Have any of you guys ever experienced
the
little-known phenomenon of USOs, or Unidentified Submerged Objects? Noises or anomalies that you could not figure out what it was in sonar?

2/09/2008 7:38 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Re: USO's. It's not the unidentified ones you have to worry about. It the strange sounds that were given an ID that I'm concerned with. I can't count the number of midwatches that were spent coming up with BS ID's for some of the crap we heard. It just might've been a Q-5 Green Screen Stiffie fantasy though!

Just some retired STSC/ss

2/10/2008 2:40 AM

 
Blogger Jarrod said...

I don't know where she was then, but I walk past her every day now at PSNS. She's in drydock, covered in scaffolding.

2/10/2008 11:35 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

USO's that were heard on SONAR & by the rest of the crew are the worst type. Starts up by the torpedo room. Sounds like a pegleg. Step, drag;step, drag. Worked it's way clear back past the sail area, & disappeared just about the forward part of the Reactor Room. Had it on tape. Even post analysis couldn't come up with answer. Couldn't have been a cable attached to an anchor/bouy because is wasn't on the side of the ship, but directly overhead except when going around the sail. Location - if I tell you I have to kill you! Nuff said. Just think cold.

Any ideas, STCS(SS)?

2/10/2008 11:29 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Any ideas? ,..

Mail buoy watch? How about a final topside walk thru on a qual card prior to his board?

2/11/2008 5:32 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If it was easy to account for all the actions and cover-ups, the theory wouldn't need a conspiracy; it would just be a "something happened theory." The more logic is used to debunk the theory, the more emphasis there is on the conspiracy.

P.S. porkchop, spendthrift, boneyard. 700421. Don't tell the waiter.


RM1/SS

2/11/2008 8:31 AM

 
Blogger Roy Thomas said...

"and one 'net commenter reported that they could see the boat inport on Thursday from the ferry."

I don't have enough knowledge of these sorts of operations to make an argument. I do know however that there is no ferry that brings you within view of Bangor

2/11/2008 10:41 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

noCheechako you said:
no ferry that brings you within view of Bangor

Oz said...
I don't know where she was then, but I walk past her every day now at PSNS. She's in drydock, covered in scaffolding.

2/10/2008 11:35 AM

Methinks the guy on the Ferry was probably seing the JC in drydock also.

Chief Torpedoman

2/11/2008 2:21 PM

 
Blogger Jarrod said...

Most likely. I saw the ferry leaving this morning and caught myself wishing I was on it. Shipyard blows.

2/11/2008 6:58 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Trust me, I live downtown in Seattle and commute on the ferry every day to Bangor. The Ferry ain't that great, especially when you miss it on the way home by 5 minutes.

2/14/2008 4:50 PM

 
Anonymous Vertical Cabinet Manager said...

If one gets cut off, everyone can't use internet?
How are ships able to avoid anchoring on the cables?(though, there were some incidents)
Basically, internet does not use satellites, most time? Why?

5/16/2013 12:20 PM

 

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