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Fun Fact: the internet actually runs through cables at the bottom of the ocean. [1]
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Date: 2025-04-06
Jayne Stowell, Google’s former undersea cable project manager.”
99% of all intercontinental internet traffic is transmitted through a network of undersea cables. This network is under increasing threat.
Almost all internet traffic – including Zoom calls, movie streams, emails and social media feeds – reach us via high speed fibre optics laid on the ocean floor. These are the veins of the modern world, stretching almost 1.5 million km under the sea, connecting countries via physical cables which funnel the internet through them.
They transmit an estimated 99% of all intercontinental internet traffic, as well as data and voice communication...every day, they enable financial transactions worth trillions of pounds, as well as sensitive communications between governments.
That the data that powers financial, government, and some military communications is traversing cables not much thicker than a hose pipe and protected by little more than the seawater above them, has in recent years become a cause of concern for lawmakers across the world.
There are increasing concerns among European governments over the incidents affecting these cables, with increasing numbers of European officials – including Germany and Finland’s defence ministers – naming sabotage by hostile actors such as Russia as their likely cause.
The targeting of internet cables is a weapon that Russia has long held in its arsenal of hybrid warfare. When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Moscow severed the main cable connection to the peninsula, gaining control of its internet infrastructure, enabling the Kremlin to spread disinformation.
From an opinion piece at FDD (Foundation for Defense of Democracies), a neo-conservative think-tank, normally friendly to Trump:
Five different federal agencies exercise jurisdiction over subsea cables: the Federal Trade Commission, Justice Department, Army Corps of Engineers, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — in addition to state and local agencies... Over the past several months both Moscow and Beijing, seeking to disrupt and intimidate the West, have intensified their attacks on undersea infrastructure...To counter this growing undersea threat, the United States and its partners must build resilience into the subsea cable infrastructure...and work with the private sector on methods of rapidly repairing and recovering damaged cables — an indispensable asset during a crisis. Our national security depends on the globally connected critical infrastructure lying deep underwater. The Trump administration must undertake a well-planned, well-organized, and well-funded effort to protect and extend that crucial network. The alternative is to cede the seabed to Russian and Chinese sabotage.
Knowing Trump, he will find probably a way to manipulate, control and disrupt this system, and attempt to extract a profit for himself, Musk and Putin in the process.
From the before times, when our federal government was still interested in protecting us:
Protection of Undersea Telecommunication Cables: Issues for Congress
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/6/2314922/-People-think-that-data-is-in-the-cloud-but-it-s-not-It-s-in-the-ocean?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
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