Comments on: That cut internet cable is being fixed; Iran internet quickly rerouted in the crisis.

By: Shane

Shane — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 08:11:30 +0000

Reply to mark
Yeah? Explain WTC 7 then.

By: Skim

Skim — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:33:58 +0000

In response to yuckfou, that website is obviously looking only at one internet provider or is completely wrong. How do I know this? Well it may be because I’m posting from Florida right now…oh and the website http://www.internettrafficreport.com/history/111.htm is saying we have no internet! How can this be! That website is wrong. If all of florida was dead then I wouldn’t be able to post right now would I?

By: unclecolly

unclecolly — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:53:47 +0000

I’ve also seen this internet traffic report. I’m assuming the 100 percent packet loss represents one particular client, but how can we explain this?

By: yuckfou

yuckfou — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 09:34:03 +0000

conspiracy or not… iran is offline.. so some one here is lying…. http://www.internettrafficreport.com/history/267.htm (cant argue with facts)

By: Mark Mercer

Mark Mercer — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:30:38 +0000

Thanks for the quick and informative reply. That clears up my questions.

Don’t you just love conspiracy theories? My favorite: that our government planted explosives at the WTC to bring it down demolition style. Can you imagine the logistics of planting detonators inside two skyscrapers with 600 jillion offices full of busy people–and not being noticed? Great comedy material, if the story itself were not so tragic. –MM

By: Nancy Reyes

Nancy Reyes — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 22:24:31 +0000

The main reason I am not a conspiracy theorist is that my blog is regularly visited by a fellow poultry farmer who lives in Iran, and he logged on during the time when the conspiracy theorists were saying that Iran was completely off line..

1) minor cables probably break all the time. During the earthquake off of Taiwan, we were out for six weeks, although if we traveled to the main town we could log on slowly via an internet cafe.

2) Anchors don’t fall off ships. The cables holding anchors snap from stress, for example during storms.

3)the odds of hitting an underseas cable are low, I agree. Hence conspiracy.

But Iran can obviously reroute through Turkey, and since satellite internet has been around for years. That fact, and the fact that obviously ordinary folks weren’t cut off long, makes me think if it were done it was done by a terror group, not Bush, who would have arranged the Turkish cable to be cut “accidentally” also.

Terrorism? Only if they had the expertise, and if it was terrorism, it means they had some rogue government in charge. It’s not easy finding the cable unless you know the GPS location…and it would be against a government (Egyptian government) not the US.

By: Mark Mercer

Mark Mercer — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 19:52:02 +0000

Nancy–I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I do have some honest questions about the CNN article. I’m not a tech person or a sailor, so these are probably dumb questions. But here goes: (1) What causes “scores” of underwater cables to break every year? (2) How does an anchor fall off an abandoned ship? (3) What are the odds that a falling anchor would just happen to hit and sever an under- water cable? I know there are many cables, but the ocean is a gargantuan place. Seems like it would have about the same probability as a blind/deaf person firing an M-16 at randon into the sky and bringing down a Cessna.

The CNN piece reads, to me, like a propaganda piece (unrelated to the unlikely eventuality of the U.S. preparing for an imminent attack on Iran), but I don’t know enough about the subject to challenge it. If you see this post, I would be very interested in your thoughts.

By the way, I appreciated your excellent story about the Storm Superworm, and cited it in my BNN article on Putin some time back. –Mark Mercer