Egypt Arrested Divers Trying to Cut Undersea Internet Cables

These days, if you want to shut down the Internet, you mount a large-scale DDoS attack, like the "nuclear bomb" that got dropped on the global web earlier this week. But what if you need a more, erm, complete solution? Well, you might try to actually cut the physical undersea cables that connect one country to the global web.

Exactly that happened in Egypt this week, where that country's coast guard caught a trio of divers who'd successfully cut a cable about 750 meters off the coast of the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, according to Reuters. Reportedly, the cable in question is part of the SEA-ME-WE 4 set of undersea comm cables that connect the Mediterranean with the Indian Ocean and Asia via the Suez Canal.

Egypt has been reporting slower than usual Internet connections, but officials told Reuters that it wasn't clear if that is related to the cable-chopping. It's also unclear why the divers were trying to cut cables, as it's not enough to shut down Egypt completely from the web, but perhaps it's related to the political unrest that's simmered in the country since 2011's unseating of Hosni Mubarak.

Still, even if the effort is futile, it's an awesome reminder that the Internet is actually a physical thing. Undersea cables route all over the world as part of a physical structure that powers all of our bits and bites. As noted by author Andrew Blum, that fact has broader implications than you might expect. While a terrorist couldn't hold the internet for ransom with a pair of scissors, the global, physical network is rarely discussed, even if it is highly lucrative. That's what we talk about when we talk about freeing the network: the debate about who owns data often forgets that said data is transmitted by companies who own the tubes themselves.

@derektmead