No! Undersea?
Do you take a copy of EVERYTHING and send it back? That might have been more feasible in the old days, but when a single fiber can run 64 wavelength optically amplified 10 Gig traffic, I really really doubt it. Or at least, this would require an undertaking large enough that I doubt they could hide it.
If they select some traffic then we have to ask, how do they select the traffic? Even there the mind boggles thinking about the kinds of gear necessary.
I suspect it's a combination of all sorts of stuff...remember too that all that traffic has to land somewhere, so theoretically they can access a good deal of it terrestrially. What you might see, therefore, is a sheath coming out of, say Iran, is tapped for fibers that proceed on to other unfriendly nations, and a copy of the traffic pulled back to some nearby land-based station in a friendly country (so that lots of amplifiers aren't needed).
I'd bet you do see the occasional Variola suitcase, though, requiring a sub visit once in a while. But I bet they avoid this kind of thing as much as possible, given the traffic volumes.
-TD
From: Matt Crawford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: crypto <cryptography@metzdowd.com> CC: osint@yahoogroups.com, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Code name "Killer Rabbit": New Sub Can Tap Undersea Cables Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 12:33:56 -0600
On Feb 18, 2005, at 19:47, R.A. Hettinga wrote:"It does continue to be something of a puzzle as to how they get this stuff
back to home base," said John Pike, a military expert at GlobalSecurity.org.
I should think that in many cases, they can simply lease a fiber in the same cable. What could be simpler?
