this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2024
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Summary

European investigators allege that the Chinese-owned ship Yi Peng 3 deliberately dragged its anchor to sever two Baltic Sea undersea data cables connecting Lithuania-Sweden and Finland-Germany.

While the Chinese government is not suspected, officials are probing possible Russian intelligence involvement.

The ship’s suspicious movements, including transponder shutdowns and zig-zagging, suggest deliberate action.

The vessel, linked to Russian trade since March 2024, was carrying Russian fertilizer when stopped.

NATO warships surround the ship, but international maritime laws limit investigators’ access.

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[–] BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one 44 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

International Maritime laws are for sober, sane, classy, respectful, gentlemanly behaviors between countries.

Russia has been the complete opposite, so that means only NATO playing this game fairly. The question is, "The fuck? Why? "

[–] Neon@lemmy.world 4 points 1 hour ago

Because it still gives us leverage to demand every country other than Russia also play by the rules.

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 7 points 14 hours ago

If China gave full access to the investigation the Russians can get fucked too.

[–] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 73 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Seize the ship and sell it to cover the cost of repair.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 50 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Seize the ship and sell it to cover the cost of repair.

Seizing a ship in international waters is a bad move. A better idea; block the docking of all Chinese ships at NATO country ports across the world until the cost of repairs are paid. Payment would arrive in about 5 minutes because the cost of of all Chinese flagged cargo ships idling outside ports for any length of time would be far far FAR more expensive.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 3 points 8 hours ago

I agree, but replace China with Russia.

[–] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 14 points 21 hours ago

I'm down with that.

And trebucheting the captain back over the border with Russia.

[–] Rapidcreek@lemmy.world 36 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Better to sue the shipping company into oblivion

[–] Linktank 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] snausagesinablanket@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago

Why not Zoidberg?

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Better to sue the shipping company into oblivion

The shipping company only has 2 ships. source

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 5 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Fuck it then. Seize their ships when they're in port. Assuming that they're not some shadow puppet company for a bigger company, you've halved their possible business.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 5 points 18 hours ago

Seize their ships when they’re in port.

I didn't dig very deep, but they may only be used in Russian and Chinese ports. This seems like a good way to insulate a larger company that does use NATO friendly ports. Create a new company, put two ships in it, and do risky shit in Russian and Chinese ports. If the company gets sanctioned the big company is protected.

[–] breakingcups@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'm a complete noob at this, but would it be possible for a submarine to cut the cable at the same time and install something to snoop on the data?

[–] lemmylommy@lemmy.world 33 points 22 hours ago

If you want to snoop you don’t cut the cable so people come to repair it where you installed your snoopy device. Also, if there is no data on the cable because it has been cut there is no data to snoop.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 14 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Not easily.

They’re deep enough down that getting to them requires some creativity (ROVs, specially trained deep sea divers, etc.)

Then, how do you sever the connection with the operator not seeing the break? Just installing the snooper is going to take time. A sudden loss of all signal and then that signal coming back? Yeah they’ll notice.

Then how do they get the data back? Either they have to run their own cable out (expensive and obvious,) or they use the cable itself and double the data going through…( also obvious. )

Further, everyone and their grandma uses encryption for basically everything. Anything actually interesting is going to be heavily encrypted. (This is also why they’d double the data through put. The snooper won’t have the power to break the encryption,)

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 9 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

FWIW, optical cables have electronic repeaters spaced regularly along their length, so it may not be necessary to interrupt the connection to put a tap on it.

Even if data is encrypted, the source and destination addresses may be in the clear. If that's the case, it is still valuable for traffic analysis. Similarly, it's possible that an attacker has the means to decrypt traffic (they have the keys, or an exploit in the implementation).

As to getting the data back, you're right that an attacker probably wouldn't want to duplicate the entire flow of traffic, but they may wish to copy all data to/from certain addresses.

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 1 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

They can actually just store the data on drives on the snooping device, and then periodically swap out the storage devices with a submarine.

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Feels like setup for a movie.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 1 points 4 hours ago

Call it Geek Squad

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Periodically like every minute?

These cables can carry terabits per second. I suppose if you had 100 petabytes of storage (that could probably be achieved with a single large rack of machines) you could just swap the entire rig every few hours or so, but that feels extremely cumbersome.

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 3 points 3 hours ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells

You can just store metadata instead of all traffic (most of it is encrypted anyway). Or just store the packets that interest you.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

True, but gaining physical access to the repeater is going to still be difficult, and I would be shocked if there’s not some type of switch that triggers an alarm when it’s accessed. It would also be extremely difficult to upload fresh firmware to it in place- at least, or without removing it to a dry environment.

(Maintenance would just upload it through the data connection.)

It would be easier (and probably actually profitable…) to gain access to it during manufacture. This was the legitimate concerns about 5g infrastructure being made in china.

Regardless, it’s almost certainly more cost effective to get hooks into the IT guy maintaining the system than any physical attack.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 1 points 17 hours ago

Even if there are tamper sensors (unlikely, for something on the seabed built by cheapskate telcos), you could very likely trip it or just take it offline, and they'd attribute it to normal wear and tear from the ocean and its denizens.

Also, you can tap fiber optic lines by bending them, no cuts required. This seems unlikely for undersea cables, considering the size and weight and thickness of sheathing, but isn't impossible.