New US submarine can intercept undersea communication

[The diplomat]

Apparently, the new US submarine, the USS Jimmy Carter has a new unique ability to intercept communications in undersea fiber optic cables.

Cool!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/18/submarine.secrets.ap/index.html

[MRT144]

how the f do you tap fiberoptics?

[Verto]

We're Americans. We can do everything.

[Dinner]

Re: New US submarine can intercept undersea communication

Originally posted by The diplomat
Apparently, the new US submarine, the USS Jimmy Carter has a new unique ability to intercept communications in undersea fiber optic cables.

Cool!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/18/sub....ap/index.html

We've had subs that do this since the 60's. I'm trying to remember the name of the sub but we had one starting in the 1960's which had doors that open on the bottom so divers could go out and hook up the stuff. We tapped just about all of the Soviet's undersea lines.

[chequita guevara]

Why the heck did the USSR need undersea cables?

[Dinner]

USS Halibut had a specialy designed hull so that divers, a diving bell, and associated equipment could al be launch underwater and had decompressin chambers so the divers could decompress after a dive. It also had a robotic arm and camera so it could attach listen devices to Soviet underwater communications line.

I read a book about this around 5 years ago and the Americans had to favorate targets. One was the Soviet Navel base next to Norway's north coast because it's communication lines went through the north sea so the US could listen to most of the Soviet's northern fleet communications while the other was the top secret Soviet sub base in Kamchatka which had lines running through the sea of Otkosk. The Americans tapped into those 40 years ago. and the Soviets didn't figure it out until the mid 1980's.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Why the heck did the USSR need undersea cables?

From their navel base in Ark'anglisk the communication's lines went through the White Sea. From Kamchatka they went across the sea of Okhotsk to Vladivostok. The Americans found out about those undersea lines some how and specially made a sub just to run spy missions on them. Recording devices would record everything said on those lines and the sub would pick up the box every few weeks.

[Urban Ranger]

You cannot tap fiber optic cables unless you cut them and splice something in the middle. IIRC it is extremely hard to do. Besides, you cut a cable and you don't think the other side would notice?

[notyoueither]

I'm sure you think so.

[Urban Ranger]

This sounds to me like the missile shield and the laser weapon that can shoot down planes and missiles.

[Drake Tungsten]

Yeah, an American missile shield is almost as laughable a concept as a Chinese fighter plane with modern avionics...

[Krill]

It is impossible to tap a fibre optic cable. The light that is interpreted as data would refract out of the fibre optic cable, so the original destination of the light would stop recieving the light signal. You could interpret this in one of two ways: either the line has broken, and you aren't recieving the light, or some spliced in a cable, and you aren't receiveing the light.


Because the light never escapes the cable (because of total internal reflection) you haave to cut the cable. When you cut the cable, some (all of the light if it is a monomode cable) will escape from the cable. This would either scramble the message, as part of it is missing (ie the light has refracted out of the cable) for both the original destination and the eavesdropper. If you cut the cable to get the complete messaage, the origiinal destination gets nothing.



however, I think that it could be possible to cut the cable completely, and listen to the message, and at the same tme send the original message back along the remaining cable, as you know what the message is in binary code. In this way you could tap a fibre optic cable, but there would be a delay in the message, which may be picked up...

[Pekka]

Yeah I suspect it's very possible to cut it completely, recieve the signal, and then send that same data again forward to the remaining end of the cable. Other than that, I don't see how you could do it.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Yeah, an American missile shield is almost as laughable a concept as a Chinese fighter plane with modern avionics...

They have crack pilots like Wrong Way to make up for that.

[Pekka]

no I think that's what they called his wife.