NATO Considers Watching Undersea Internet Cables with a Fleet of Unmanned Boats (defensenews.com)
- Reference: 0175596903
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/05/0528240/nato-considers-watching-undersea-internet-cables-with-a-fleet-of-unmanned-boats
- Source link: https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2024/12/03/nato-draws-up-plans-for-its-own-fleet-of-naval-surveillance-drones/
> Following a pattern of undersea cable damage across European waters in the last year, with the most recent disruptions happening just weeks ago, top NATO officials have begun envisioning a capability that would allow the alliance to have permanent eyes above and under the waterline. In an interview with Defense News , Admiral Pierre Vandier, the alliance's Norfolk, Virginia-based commander for concepts and transformation, likened the idea to police CCTV cameras installed on street lights in urban trouble spots for recording evidence of crimes. "The technology is there to make this street-lighting with USVs," he said, using the military's shorthand for unmanned surface vessel. Vandier said his team is in the early stages of developing an unmanned surface vessel fleet so that "NATO can see and monitor daily its environment."
>
> The first step would be to achieve this at a surface level, and then later under water... According to Vandier, the goal is to launch the drone surveillance fleet before the next NATO Summit, which will be held in the Netherlands next June.
The article notes the U.S. Navy's Task Force 59 (launched in 2021) is already "dedicated to [2]integrating unmanned systems and AI in the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet area of operations." This prompted Admiral Vandier to say the technology for an unmanned cable-watching fleet "already exists... everything is known and sold, so it is much more a matter of adoption than technology."
[1] https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2024/12/03/nato-draws-up-plans-for-its-own-fleet-of-naval-surveillance-drones/
[2] https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/3977042/task-group-591-conducts-digital-talon-30
OK, let's say they "watch" someone cut a cable (Score:2, Funny)
and it's intentional. What is the punishment going to be?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The parties cutting these cables are Russia and China, and nobody is going to do anything concerning the behavior of either country.
Re:OK, let's say they "watch" someone cut a cable (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean unlike the sanctions on Russia which are crippling its economy so much [1]people are stealing butter [express.co.uk] due to high inflation? Or the sanctions which have set fear in Chinese banks causing them to [2]no longer do business with Russian banks [newsweek.com] or industry?
[1] https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1980693/russia-supermarkets-butter-theft-economy-vladimir-putin
[2] https://www.newsweek.com/russia-china-banks-sanctions-blow-1994542
Re: (Score:2)
> You mean unlike the sanctions on Russia which are crippling its economy so much [1]people are stealing butter [express.co.uk] due to high inflation? Or the sanctions which have set fear in Chinese banks causing them to [2]no longer do business with Russian banks [newsweek.com] or industry?
Pretty much the same as the sanctions on Canada that are crippling our economy so much [3]people are stealing butter [ctvnews.ca] due to high inflation.
Seriously though, their economy isn't wrecked to the point that they cease their military invasion of another country... so it's not wrecked enough. Now... when there's no butter to be stolen and the populace deposes its leaders and recalls the troops, then we can say sanctions are actually working.
[1] https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1980693/russia-supermarkets-butter-theft-economy-vladimir-putin
[2] https://www.newsweek.com/russia-china-banks-sanctions-blow-1994542
[3] https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/here-s-why-thieves-may-be-stealing-butter-in-canada-1.7107341
Re: (Score:2)
Both countries are under sanctions.
Obnoxious behavior makes it harder to have the sanctions lifted.
If they want to be part of the civilized world, they must act like it.
Re: (Score:2)
"If they want to be part of the civilized world, they must act like it."
Spoken like you get to define what the civilized world is.
Russia and China don't recognized the west as the civilized world, they recognize it as the enemy. Sanctions are to be lifted, they are to be defeated.
Re: (Score:2)
Sanctions are NOT to be lifted, they are to be defeated.
Re: (Score:1)
> and it's intentional. What is the punishment going to be?
Nuclear , I hope.
Re: (Score:2)
If they are caught in the act, they can also have their ships sunk, because it's not speculation about what happened.
While they're at it... (Score:2)
...invest in more redundancy to the global internet backbone to make sabotaging things like this less appealing.
Re: (Score:2)
> ...invest in more redundancy to the global internet backbone
There's already a crapload of redundancy.
Many cables are dark because capacity exceeds demand.
internet becomes a US only thing once again (Score:2)
Given that China / Russian don't want free, open internet and that the rest of the world can't be bothered to protect themselves ...
It looks like we are headed toward the US becoming the only place where people can internet
Probably not good for anybody
Re: (Score:3)
> U.S. internet is censored
Are you crazy, man? They're not going to let you say that!
Not a bad plan but not the best either. (Score:2)
As military programs go this one seems to be reasonably economical.
What I would have preferred to see is an array of sensors along the length of the cable and built into it. Right now the cables are heavily sheathed and have active nodes at regular intervals, but those nodes don't have anything that looks outside. They get power from the cable sheath and they condition the fiber signals but that's it.
You should have a sensor network included that would give an ops center immediate what/where informati
Re: (Score:2)
They may be able to get much of that from TDR already.
What I hope for is that they will find a way to make the whole system more robust against sabotage or natural disasters, maybe to the point where sabotage simply isn't worth the effort
And doing what? (Score:3)
As it stands they are unable to engage vessels in international waters without the potential to trigger international conflict. How would looking more closely at the problem solve anything?
A quick torpedo into the ship that cut the cable last time would likely send the right message, but since that is the only real solution next time as well it's not like monitoring the situation more closely will change anything.
Re: (Score:3)
If this works, you're about 90% of the way towards having an underwater torpedo drone force guarding the transoceanic cables.
Re: (Score:2)
...operated by Leon Musk's AI, complete with overrides built in for comrade Vladimir.
Re: (Score:1)
Oh, so is it now that Mr. Musk is a Russian troll? Not Trump this time?
Re: (Score:2)
Aren't they the same guy now?
Nothing new here (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone interested in this topic should read Neal Stephenson's (yes that guy) [1]epic essay [wired.com] about the development of the undersea cable industry. He wrote that back in 1996, and related a story where near China the operator of an undersea cable would find nodes just cut out of the cable. Clearly someone wanted one to take apart to see how it was built.
This type of thing isn't new but it sure seems to be getting stepped up recently.
P.S. if someone has a better link to that document please post it.
[1] https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/
How About A Nice Torpedo? (Score:2)
They make some very nice bottom-based torpedo launchers these days, so I've been told. Link it in with a nearby submarine cable: if the cable gets cut, the torpedo launches toward the nearest ship dragging an anchor :-)
Re: (Score:2)
"Please move away from the cable. You have 20 seconds to comply."
Re: (Score:2)
Rodney Dangerfield impression : Hey you scratched my torpedo!
'Tis what my 8 yr old niece proposed (Score:1)
Did this come from Dept. of Capt. Obvious?
Sharks with lasers, obviously. (Score:3)
I mean c'mon, if this is not a mission practically made for them, what is?
Automatic counterstrike weapons (Score:2)
It is possible to detect the cut point in a cable, and it is possible to have undersea missile systems.
So what we need here is a system that reports to the scene of a cut within minutes, then traces the cable of the offending ship back to its point of origin and calls in a strike while attaching itself to the hull as a locator beacon.
Nothing lethal, maybe a warhead equivalent to a bank's exploding dye pack.
Re: Automatic counterstrike weapons (Score:1)
yeah that's kind of what this is, on a diplomatic level. we HAVE been looking at the satellite imagery and saying âoewell it sure is odd that in the four days prior, a ship from (NATION) was loitering near this location."
but think of (NATION) as being idk the wealthy frat boy child of a local politician with a seven-figure defense lawyer. they will say "well i just like loitering in that part of the ocean."
so at that point, what do you do? we either admit that law and evidence is stupid and too much tr
Re: (Score:1)
fwiw i've said before that we should just MINE the fucking things with kill-drones.
the only rational objections i received were
1) "it would kill marine life": roflmao, uh yeah, maybe some (otoh if it functions as a sufficient deterrent, then it wouldn't kill anything! wouldn't that be nice?). meanwhile, the fishing industry is literally predicated on "killing marine life" on a mass scale and it makes $276,000,000,000 per year so ... uh... who cares? MAYBE it MIGHT kill a whale that happened to be there, but
Boondoggle (Score:2)
Just how many USVs (Unmanned Surface Vehicles) are we talking about? And how are they actually going to help? Sea traffic is already fairly well monitored - note that they caught the Chinese ship that cut the last two cables. What are several hundred (maybe thousand) sea-going drones going to add? Don't forget that, next to development and production costs, drone floating around on salt water are going to need continuous maintenance. Why would anything think this is a good idea?
Oh, I know! I know! Money i
CIA (Score:2)
There's no way anything will come of this because it prevents the CIA from doing it in the first place, and then blaming it on some country they want to make people hate.
That's how the CIA operate, and this would work against them...so, won't happen.
Cable sabotage is an attack on comms = act of war (Score:2)
It would be legitimate self-defense to interdict anti-cable attacks by sinking the attacker.
Comms are of course critical to modern life so damaging them as policy is an act of war no different than sinking a nav buoy or shooting down a satellite.
Seems like a great plan. (Score:1)
This seems like a great way to easily demark where these undersea cables are. Which will make those not intending harm avoid them, and make those intending harm have easy to follow direction-pointers available. Seems like win-win to me!
Re:Seems like a great plan. (Score:4, Informative)
Their locations are public, so that there can be no excuse for "accidentally" cutting one.
Re: (Score:1)
Except they are in fact a hundred or more incidents where they are cut. There are two that are getting a lot of publicity, are being described as "deliberate" and are now being used to promote an investment in expensive defense measures.
Re: (Score:1)
Do they pay you in rubles or bitcoin to make these posts?
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, there were around a hundred incidents. However, there are a bunch more cable cuts that seem to be deliberate. That includes three that happened off the coast of Yemen when we know that the Houthis have been threatening such attacks. As it is, since there's no monitoring there's no way to tell if that's 90 deliberate cuts for 10 accidental or completely the other way round, and in itself being able to know that number is a good thing.
What's more important, though, is that sometimes these cables can sup
Re:Seems like a great [patrol] plan. (Score:2)
Mod parent funny, but I was looking for the joke about how big the ocean is. Patrolling the ocean? "That trick never works."
Re: (Score:3)
"Germany built 1,162 U-boats during World War II and 785 were destroyed by the end of the war." Overall the casualty rate for u-boat crews was 70% to 75%.
Re: (Score:1)
What does that mean? U-boats in the WWI and WW2 sense were not undersea boats, they were diving boats that operated primarily on a diesel engine on the surface. Even their snorkels - basically an above-water exhaust port - were detectable on the primitive radars of the day. Most were located using directional finding of radio broadcasts from the boats.
Modern passive sonar has good points, but it is not a slam dunk to find stuff underwater. There are chokepoint seabed sensors - the relatively well known
Re: (Score:2)
The cables are underwater. The proposed monitoring boats are surface vessels.
Re: (Score:2)
The attackers are using underwater vehicles of some sort to make these cuts. That is the point. These aren't anchor draggings, as I experienced when I was in the Middle East. To stop them, you'll have to be able to detect the underwater craft.
Re: (Score:2)
They should have called Aquaman to protect the cables.
Re: (Score:3)
Only thing is, why robots? Wouldn't a buoy with a solar panel and cameras on the anchor chain and starlink feed be sufficient?