Don't cry for me Wikipedia

News this week of another major disruption to the Middle East's Internet capacity. 

This one might look like just an accident, but I'm still not sure. How often do ships drag their anchors over cables in other parts of the world? I'm not going to check, so lets just say never. See, never!

Even if this one was an accident, the last disruption back in Feb was as fishy as the lunch menu at Uncle Hiroki's House of Sushi. 

Three cables in three days were 'damaged by ship anchors' effectively cutting off the internet for most of the region. If you had a sprinkler system installed in your front yard and three different pipes were damaged in a few days you'd probably think that someone was doing it on purpose wouldn't you? I would, and so would my dad who loves his front yard grass so much that that analogy would probably make him uncomfortable. But back to the international conspiracy to strategically disrupt the internet... well, I reckon it's an international conspiracy to strategically disrupt the internet. 

Current theories are: 

• It's the CIA and/or Mossad testing out the robustness of the Middle East link (possibly using robotic mini-subs, possibly with lasers attached) in preparation for an attack on Iran. They will shut down phone and internet communications so that we can't hear the screams of the innocent children as the bombs rain down on their kindergartens and the blood spills over into... Ahem, you get the idea. 

• It's the CIA planting advanced wiretapping equipment into the lines somewhere and they needed to cut them in order to install the gear. Robotic mini-sub may have been used here too. This is either part of the US's Echelon worldwide surveillance program or it is being run in parallel to it in the hope that Obama won't be told of it and the republican's (who have controlled network surveillance since '64) will can catch him getting a blow-job and they can get the US back into an old white-man's hands again. 

• It's Al Qaeda testing out their capacity for literal Internet terrorism as a precursor to instigating their much pursued Islamic fundamentalist overthrow of the government of Egypt and others in the region. They need to cut the cut the internet so that bloggers can't report what is going on and the local people will only have their 500 satellite channels to bring them news and confusion will reign. There is no evidence of mini-subs, but rumours indicated Suicide Divers may have been used (sorry). 
  

None of these are confirmed, but if they were, we would all have something to worry about. 

So what is my point here? Basically that last night the speed of my internet was slightly reduced because of either ships or international conspiracies and it is not acceptable. I am one of literally hundreds of people who have no television and rely solely on the internet for AV news and entertainment. I could barely stream the BBC World News last night, let alone download Battlestar Galactica while watching redtube porn. 

What ever the reason for this disruption I just want it to go away. I guess I should really hope for the second theory to be correct, because at least they would want it reconnected as soon as possible. An extended air campaign in Iran or the overthrow of the UAE government by violent Islamic extremists would probably mean an outage of months or possibly years. 

It goes to show that the real victim of unrest are not the ones you see on the news, but rather the unseen ones trying in vain to watch the news... over the internet.