What Would It Take To Cut U.S. Data Cables And Halt Internet Access?

In the tense relationship between Russia and the United States, the latest salvo comes via The New York Times: According to American military and intelligence officials, Russian submarines and spy ships are "aggressively operating" near submarine cables that carry Internet communications, raising concerns of a potential attack "in times of tension or conflict."

The submarine cables are obscure, yet incredibly vital infrastructure that basically carries most of the communications around the world. Descendants of the old telegraph networks, fiber-optic data cables snake across the bottom of the oceans, linking continents to each other and shuttling the vast majority of all voice and data traffic.

The Times report presents an account from unnamed military and intelligence officials that Russia's naval activities along the known cable routes are raising concerns in the Pentagon:

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