[HN Gopher] Last undersea Internet cable connecting Vietnam with... ___________________________________________________________________ Last undersea Internet cable connecting Vietnam with the world breaks down Author : teddyh Score : 108 points Date : 2023-02-22 19:04 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (en.vietnamplus.vn) (TXT) w3m dump (en.vietnamplus.vn) | quux wrote: | Obligatory link to "Mother Earth Mother Board" by Neal Stephenson | for anyone wanting a deep dive into the fascinating world/history | of undersea telecommunications cables: | | https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ | topicseed wrote: | Having been in Vietnam for long periods of time a few years back, | "broken undersea cables" were at least quarterly occurrences. | AbusiveHNAdmin wrote: | [dead] | armchairhacker wrote: | > However, Vietnamese service suppliers said the failures on the | five cables will not have great impact on the speed of Internet | connection between the country and the world. | | > The SMW3 cable is outdated and going to be decommissioned, so | it has not been used for fixed broadband Internet services, they | explained, adding that the latest breakdown didn't occur in the | peak time, and they immediately carried out responding measures | to reduce impact on the Internet speed. | diceduckmonk wrote: | The article was 6 paragraphs long. I'm not sure citing two | paragraphs without commentary adds much value. | layer8 wrote: | Quoting from the article without further comment can also be | quite annoying to those who _did_ read the article, for whom | this is then just a waste of time. It's like, okay, that's | from the article, but what is your point? | nosianu wrote: | When the headline is contradicted by the article then the | relevant quite is relevant and valuable. It saves time. Not | everybody reads the article, I'd say that it even is rare | and that a lot, maybe even most people jump to the | discussion immediately after reading the headline. Because | of cases such as this one: When you quickly see the | headline being contradicted. | | Usually articles are a lot longer and they bury such info | deep, so checking the comments first if its even worth | clicking on the article is normal, given the huge number of | sensationalized headlines coupled with the attempt of the | article writers to keep readers on their page for as long | as possible instead of coming to the point right away. | | The reading behavior of many is optimized for sifting | through a large number of submitted headlines without | wasting too much time, not for maximum enjoyment of any | single one of them. The (I think reasonable) assumption is | that many, maybe most, even of the initially interesting | sounding headlines turn out not to be worth reading. | layer8 wrote: | Yes, but then please at least state your point why you | are quoting this portion -- preferably above the quote | rather than below. Otherwise one can be left to wonder. | dvh wrote: | It does, I didn't have to read it. Title might as well been | "unused internet cable breaks down in Vietnam" | Brian_K_White wrote: | So you read it here instead of there, and everyone else | gets to read it twice. Cool. | elil17 wrote: | How would we read the article if people didn't put it in the | comments? What, by clicking the link? Unthinkable! Please | remember this is hacker news, you're not allowed to click the | link /s | ortusdux wrote: | You would be surprised by the number of people that skip the | article and start commenting based solely on the headline. | Robotbeat wrote: | Even more surprised by editors who will knowingly mislead | with the headline in order to force people to click through | and get those sweet, sweet ad (or subscriber) dollars just | to find out the "man bites dog" headline was a lie. | hellotomyrars wrote: | I have seen multiple instances where the url was a | significantly less sensationalist title that was | presumably the authors original headline but an editor | decided they needed to get the clicks and modified the | actual article headline. Very funny how laid bare it was. | ortusdux wrote: | I've noticed some sites start with a clickbait headline | and then change it after a few hours to something less | sensational. I originally thought that they were | responding to criticism, but I've seen it enough now that | it seems to be a pre-planned way to game SEO/Socials. You | can use the wayback machine to check, and I've seen some | big headlines get revised down 4+ times. | meltyness wrote: | Perhaps it would be appropriate to stop the hug of death on the | whole country, and instead link to a working source with complete | information. | sourcecodeplz wrote: | Tit for tat. You take out nord stream we take out internet. /s? | peplee wrote: | I used to live in Vietnam circa 2016, and the joke every other | month when the internet went out was that some sharks ate the | cable again. Seems those sharks are still eating good! | no_protocol wrote: | I am assuming the "SMW3 cable" mentioned is SEA-ME-WE 3, which | was mentioned multiple times in "Mother Earth Mother Board" by | Neal Stephenson (1996, Wired) [0]. It was noted as a competitor | to FLAG, the cable Stephenson was mainly following. | | That seems like a very long lifespan. | | [0]: https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ | lolc wrote: | Whenever I read of an undersea cable breaking, I worry that the | next world war has started. Seeing pipelines getting blown up for | presumed geopolitical reasons hasn't reduced this anxiety. | | I know these cables regularly break for ordinary reasons. And | every time I hope it's just that. | SilasX wrote: | Phantom Menace: "A communications disruption can mean only one | thing: invasion." | ta1243 wrote: | Or DNS. | yreg wrote: | Many nations DDoS each other all the time outside of scope of a | war. I can imagine them breaking cables as a similar hostile | action without an implication of war, especially if it's | difficult to prove who's the culprit. | radicaldreamer wrote: | Likely nothing you can do anyway, unless you've already moved | to patagonia or something. | rotten wrote: | Even if another world war isn't starting, think of the data | pollution from all those leaking bits! | 6th wrote: | Nothing to really worry about. | | Being fiber optic cables; this will be light pollution. | forgetfreeman wrote: | There's no point in being scared when running isn't an option. | sqeaky wrote: | Logically, I know you are correct, but that does nothing to | help. | forgetfreeman wrote: | Probably nothing will, but understand I have significant | sympathy for younger folks who are getting their first real | taste of zero-sum geopolitics and have nothing to compare | it to for scale/threat level. For those of us that grew up | in the 80s the days headlines represent a slow news day | from our childhood. | ilamont wrote: | Not many details in this article, but further north there is | another threat to undersea cables carrying Internet traffic: | | _On Feb. 2, a Chinese fishing vessel sailing close to the Matsu | Islands severed one of the two cables, which connect the islands | with Taiwan proper. Then, six days later, a Chinese freighter cut | the second cable._ | | https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/21/matsu-islands-internet-... | cld8483 wrote: | What a truly unfortunate coincidence. | Animats wrote: | Is this an effort to force Vietnam to route all their traffic | via China? Through the Great Firewall? | sayrer wrote: | No, they're trying to get to Singapore. Business in Vietnam | is highly dependent on things like Facebook and Google. I | was there last year, and have some friends that run | businesses there. | | https://vietnamembassy-usa.org/news/2001/02/vietnam-puts- | reg... | noah_buddy wrote: | If it is intentional, I would guess it's more likely | general intended to scare Vietnam into accepting island | territorial claims | macintux wrote: | Rather like the Russian elite who keep mysteriously falling | out of buildings. | chrisdhoover wrote: | Defenestration, what was once medieval is hip again. | [deleted] | tpmx wrote: | On the renewed China-Vietnam tensions: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Vietnam_relation. | .. | TulliusCicero wrote: | How do fishing vessels sever internet cables lying on the sea | floor? Or is this a case of the ships being "fishing vessels"? | spiritplumber wrote: | It's at least possible - drag nets can and do touch the | bottom. | reaperducer wrote: | As do crab pots and lobster traps. | gregshap wrote: | It's called "bottom trawling" and it's pretty much what it | sounds like. | ta1243 wrote: | Also known as cruising? | eitland wrote: | Last fall an internet cable to Svalbard was cut. | | AIS recordings showed a Russian fishing vessel traveling many | times over a vulnerable spot just before it happened. | codetrotter wrote: | > traveling many times over a vulnerable spot | | I am reminded of this classic Ali G skit | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdOQYlYS2q0 | punnerud wrote: | And they are spoofing their AIS data frequently. Now they | control if they are where the AIS send information about, and | use satellites to help with the location task (because they | don't trust the AIS from Russian ships). | | Could probably be the same with other countries ships | kokanee wrote: | Now we have to worry about Russian phishing attacks and | Russian fishing attacks | purututu wrote: | [flagged] | throwaway742 wrote: | I don't know it seems plausible to me that it was just an | accident. There is plenty of legitimate Russian activity in | that area. I'm no fisherman so someone correct me if I am | wrong, but I don't think it is that unusual for them to go | back and forth. It's not surprising that it happened to a | vulnerable spot, because if it wasn't vulnerable the cable | wouldn't have broke and no one would be looking into it. | Finally the Russians have submarines they could use to cut | the cable without being detected. Who runs a covert op with | AIS on? | bjelkeman-again wrote: | Why do you need a throwaway account to post that? | oldgradstudent wrote: | Just ask plainly: | | Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist | Party of the United States? | throwaway742 wrote: | No but I did go to a meeting once. They had doughnuts. | akiselev wrote: | That was clearly an FBI honeypot. Real communist meetings | only serve Engels Food Cake. | oldgradstudent wrote: | I once went to a talk at Berkeley's Revolution Cafe. | | Fortunately, I doubt if they could topple a suburban HOA. | [deleted] | throwaway742 wrote: | I make these accounts every so often, use them for a | while, and then make a new one. It is just for general | privacy reasons. | Guthur wrote: | Well it seems many are hell bent on war so it would hardly be | surprising that more infrastructure is deliberately | sabotaged. | brink wrote: | Title makes it seem like Vietnam is in an internet blackout. Not | the case apparently, they're still connected and are fine. | ninesnines wrote: | But what are the implications of this internet cable being | down? Will there be a slowing of internet? Is there an easy | fix? | toast0 wrote: | Based on a different article[1] and the submarine cable map | [2][3][4]... Asia Africa Europe 1 (AAE-1) is currently broken | between Vietnam and Hong Kong, but presumable is functional | from Vietnam to the rest of the cable that travels west | (landings in much of southern asia and a couple points in | southern Europe). Intra Asia (IA) is broken between Vietnam | and Singapore, but it also lands in Hong Kong and the | Philipines. SMW3 lands in a lot of places, but is reported to | be obsolete. | | So, it seems Vietnam no longer has a direct fiber connection | to Singapore, and has reduced capacity to Hong Kong. There | will likely be some slowdown as Hong Kong and Singapore are | both popular locations for data centers. | | There's not really an easy fix. Traffic will flow over | alternate paths, but repair boats need to go out and locate | the ends of the broken cables, bring them up to the surface, | splice them back together, and then let them sink again. | | Terrestrial cabling tends not to get damaged by ships, and is | a lot easier to locate for repairs, but it's hard to run it | over mountains and through forests, and you can't run a | terrestrial cable from Vietnam to Singapore or the United | States. | | [1] https://en.vietnamplus.vn/internet-slows-as-four-out-of- | five... | | [2] https://www.submarinecablemap.com/submarine-cable/asia- | afric... | | [3] https://www.submarinecablemap.com/submarine-cable/tata- | tgn-i... | | [4] https://www.submarinecablemap.com/submarine- | cable/seamewe-3 | wongarsu wrote: | Or maybe more accurately: they are not fine and have a lot of | problems with their undersea cables, but assure us that losing | this specific cable didn't make it any worse than it already | is. | latchkey wrote: | The problems with Vietnam's internet have been going on for a | long time now. | | https://www.computerworld.com/article/2872728/dont-blame-sha... | | https://saigoneer.com/saigon-technology/11885-sharks,-anchor... | | https://vietnaminsider.vn/apg-undersea-internet-cable-which-... | hummus_bae wrote: | [dead] | v8xi wrote: | Article gives scant information but found this from 01/30/23: | https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/internet-slows-to-a-crawl-... | | From that article: | | Vietnam is currently connected with seven undersea cables: SMW3, | AAG, IA, APG, AAE-1, SJC2 and ADC. Besides the recent breakage of | the IA, problems with the AAE, AAG and APG cables that have been | present since 2022 and early 2023 have yet to be fully resolved. | | The SJC2 and the ADC are yet to be officially operational, while | the SMW3 cable is outdated and about to be decommissioned. | | The fact that Vietnam currently only has one fully functional | undersea cable has caused internet speeds between Vietnam and the | rest of the world to slow to a crawl. | sandworm101 wrote: | >> about to be decommissioned. | | I presume this means disconnected and forgotten about on the | sea floor. Or do they actually do anything to pull them up? I | imagine pulling an old cable might be very difficult but I | don't like things just being left for the sea to deal with. | There is far to much trash on the seafloor already. | erentz wrote: | Typically they're just left there. But every once in a while | someone will decide it makes sense to acquire the cable for | cheap, pull it up, and re-use it somewhere else that doesn't | have high bandwidth requirements but would still benefit from | getting subsea connectivity. Seen this for Pacific and some | Caribbean islands. | jagged-chisel wrote: | I would think pulling up a cable would be detrimental to any | ecosystem that built on and around the cable. I would not be | surprised to learn that ecosystems were affected negatively | when the cables were laid, too, so I think we probably want | to limit damage by letting them lie there. | uoaei wrote: | Depends on what kinds of substances are present there, that | will leach out over time. | frosted-flakes wrote: | Steel, rubber, and glass? Doesn't seem so bad. | justinclift wrote: | Future archaeologists may find "the fossilised remains of | continent spanning worms!". | [deleted] | v3ss0n wrote: | That's why internet is extremely slow here, I am in Myanmar | radicaldreamer wrote: | Internet infrastructure in Myanmar is still relatively | underdeveloped, which is why it's slow. These cables are not | heavily used for routing your traffic typically. | orangepurple wrote: | That's probably not why you are having slow internet. If you | hear about cable cuts in the Malacca Strait _THEN_ you can | worry. | | Myanmar is not directly connected to Vietnam via sea cables | specifically. The major connections to the outside world via | the sea are: | | https://www.submarinecablemap.com/submarine-cable/seamewe-5 | | https://www.submarinecablemap.com/submarine-cable/asia-afric... | | https://www.submarinecablemap.com/submarine-cable/seamewe-3 | | https://www.submarinecablemap.com/submarine-cable/singapore-... | [deleted] | pancrufty wrote: | Myanmar has its own cables: | https://www.submarinenetworks.com/stations/asia/myanmar | | Additionally the cable in question comes from Europe, so the | Vietnam break shouldn't affect Myanmar (which also has direct | access to it) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SEA-ME- | WE-3-Route.pn... | lawrenceyan wrote: | Starlink is the future here right? You can't sever a satellite | link like you can with a cable. | | Well, actually I guess you technically can. But it's definitely | way more difficult. | acuozzo wrote: | You can lower the SNR to the point at which it's unusable. | | A system of distributed, hidden, state-sanctioned jammers doing | C&C over a unaffected back channel would be roughly equivalent | to "cutting an undersea cable", I believe. | actionfromafar wrote: | Shower(-ish) thought: such cables are lasting and obvious | artefacts for the future. These cables will stay where they are | for eons. These Starlink satellites are like dragonflies. Once | they are no longer continuosly replenished by new launches, | they will disappear. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-02-22 23:00 UTC)