C&W sold off their cable laying operation to Global Crossing. C&W still
owns, and continues to deploy new submarine fiber systems.
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul D. Robertson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2001 20:57
To: HUNGRY PIRANHA
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
[EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Submarine Network Sniffer - Do such a product
exist??
On Thu, 18 Jan 2001, HUNGRY PIRANHA wrote:
> Paul,
>
> first of all, what in the world would one do with such gadgets ?
I assume the same sort of thing that Echelon is used for- though we
have diverse pathing, major backbones are stable things in general and
the
potential exists for monitoring.
> anyway..
> i guess the laws that apply are those that would apply to illegally
making
> calls on the lines of a telephone company.
If you're passively monitoring, without physical line intrusion are
things
covered by treaty? I expect fairly normal property stuff in the
treaties,
but I don't expect that privacy type concerns are covered.
> the cables ARE private property and as such are covered by
> multiple trade and war pact agreemnts.
I'm still digging through the UN Conventions, but the Geneva stuff
doesn't
seem to offer monitoring protections. Admittedly not being a lawyer or
even playing one on the 'Net, I'm not sure how International Law handles
treated items in multiple treaties. The obvious coverage in specific
sections doesn't seem to apply much at all to the cables specificly in
terms of protection outside of territorial waters, even though in
territorial waters there are specific sections.
> (geneva, euro-dollars, nafta....)
>
> there are a limited numbers of IRC's on the planet..
Indeed, making target selection rather easy. Of course, sponsored
terrorism DoS is probably a more likely worst-case scenerio, but for the
discussion at hand, I'm interested in the culpability and protection
against sniffing.
> IRCs are supercarriers or 'International Record Carriers'
> such as C&W, BT, FranceTelecomm, AT&T and Global Crossing
> to name a few.
I thought C&W had sold off their undersea cable- am I mistaken?
> the cables may be in international waters under whatever
> sovereign government trade agreements, but the cable and
> its associated infra-structure BELONGS to the supercarriers.
Certainly, but does there exist a treaty or law that protects the bits
on
the physical wire from passive eavesdropping? Russian "trawlers" were
routinely shadowed in International waters in the late 70's while
eavesdropping for regular SIGINT, so I'm not convinced that there's
specific privacy protection available.
Paul
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Paul D. Robertson "My statements in this message are personal
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