Undersea Cable Cuts: When Digital Warfare Hits Close to Home
The recent news about severed undersea cables between Finland and Sweden has sent shivers down my spine while sitting here in my home office. These aren’t just any cables - they’re vital digital arteries connecting entire nations to the global internet infrastructure.
What’s particularly unsettling is how this incident mirrors similar events we’ve witnessed recently. Last time I discussed this topic with my mate over coffee at Hardware Lane, we were talking about the Nord Stream pipeline incident. Now we’re seeing the same pattern of critical infrastructure being targeted, but this time it’s our digital lifelines.
The timing and precision of these cuts are too perfect to be coincidental. Both cables were severed within 24 hours of each other, and reports suggest the damage points were merely 10 meters apart. That’s about the length of my local café’s breakfast queue on a Sunday morning - hardly a random occurrence.
The global response has been frustratingly tepid. Sure, there are the usual strongly-worded statements and promises of investigation, but it feels like we’re watching a slow-motion car crash in international relations. Having worked in IT for two decades, I understand just how crucial these undersea cables are to our daily lives. Everything from our Netflix streaming to international banking relies on these cables.
This hits particularly close to home for us Australians. Being an island nation, we’re completely dependent on undersea cables for our international connectivity. Remember the internet slowdown of 2018 when the SEA-ME-WE3 cable was damaged? That was just one cable - imagine if multiple connections were systematically targeted.
Looking at the bigger picture, this isn’t just about internet connectivity. It’s about the vulnerability of our critical infrastructure in an age of hybrid warfare. While everyone’s pointing fingers at various nations, the reality is that our digital infrastructure remains worryingly exposed. The fact that someone can potentially slice through our global communications with what amounts to a really big pair of underwater scissors is deeply concerning.
The tech community needs to push for better protection of these crucial infrastructure elements. Maybe it’s time to invest in alternative technologies, like the low-orbit satellite networks that companies are developing. Though honestly, watching my NBN connection struggle during peak hours doesn’t fill me with confidence about our backup plans.
We need to take these threats seriously. While I’m typing this on my MacBook in my climate-controlled home office, billions of dollars worth of digital traffic is flowing through cables sitting vulnerable on the ocean floor. It’s a stark reminder that our modern digital comfort rests on physical infrastructure that’s surprisingly fragile.
The next few weeks will be crucial in determining how the international community responds to these incidents. Right now, I’m backing up my important files to local storage - just in case. Perhaps we all need to think more carefully about our digital dependencies and what we can do to protect ourselves in this increasingly uncertain digital age.