https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter
It is 100' longer than other subs in the same class thanks to special equipment "which allows launch and recovery of ROVs and Navy SEAL forces".
Once the tap is in place, how do you get the information from the tap back to HQ? The sub won't have the manpower and computers needed to gain meaningful intel from such a cable. Getting the data back to shore would require either another cable or an in situ recording device a la ivy bells. Recording devices would both delay any data by weeks/months and limit the ability to insert data, an essential task when attacking encrypted connections.
That's an excellent point but I think they have a way to lift the cable off the seabed and make a splice even though it's hard. NSA are masters of making the impossible work.
What I can't figure out is how they collect the data. These optical cables carry tens of terabits of data per second so how do you store & transmit it back for analysis? I'm guessing they filter some of it but you still end up with lots of bits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-nsa-slid...
https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/files/0/55_201110-ISS-IAD-T1-...
It's be much easier to mess with routing (in secret or not) and capture data at another point.
complete guess, but probably just chop it and quickly install another "repeater" that does everything the existing repeaters do, in addition to copying the information into their own system.
Now, how do they filter out and find what they're looking for ? who knows. probably run a secondary fiber line to an underwater "server room" and/or to a buoy with an antenna for remote control ?
Citation needed. And not Hollywood movies.
(If that wasn't possible, then repairing cable breaks would be insanely expensive.)
As far as spying goes, the game has evolved to the point where it's not really embarrassing any more. Everybody knows that everybody does it, and there's pretty strong resistance to going public. If anything did get discovered it'd probably be used for disinformation or behind-the-scenes political capital if not just destroyed. Finding a box of electronics at the bottom of the sea isn't quite the same as capturing an enemy pilot in a spy plane [1] and it's gotten to the point that embarrassing yourself for being spied on is just as bad as embarrassing an adversary (or friend) for doing the spying. Plus, how are you going to attribute blame anyway?
I wonder how many reported cable breaks were in fact screwed up tap installs ;)
The first assumption is that any such announcement by any entity public or private is either calculated or forced with plenty of forces in the background pulling the stings. It would make the most sense that pieces of Google were in the know, being forced by secret orders, and begging to be able to feign outrage publicly to save face.
A person doesn't have to be a conspiracy nut to have reasonable doubt about any of this. Secret courts, secret orders, and massive NSA data collection are all general public knowledge. It's hard to believe there is any public disclosure that is not planned and carefully negotiated.
Something's going on
The ads implied the device worked on jacketed fibres; I suppose that depends on the transparency of the jacket to 1064nm IR radiation.
It seems like they learned about a neat concept, made a proof of concept that actually worked, but ran into physical reality when they tried to turn it into a reliable product (while being optimistic along the way). It's real hard to stop being optimistic at exactly the right time, and I'd be pretty forgiving if it seemed like everybody was giving an honest effort.
If I was to build a queryable database, I'd grab something like Lucene, and stick that on top of something like Postgres. The next step would be to build an interface so my non-technical business partners don't have to write SQL or some other query and manually send that to the server, but instead can ask stupid questions like "how long are Trumps fingers" and get results. That last part is PRISM.
I'm betting not. Ivy Bells was back in the days of copper wires being tapped by external sensors placed atop undersea cables. Today's undersea cables are optical. You'd need to splice in, or at least open up a cable to get at the individual fibers to install similar taps. I cannot see how that would be done in the pressurized world of submarines. Normal procedure for such work involves hauling the cable to a surface ship where it can be picked apart by hand. A sub would have to somehow pull the cable inside its pressure hull, a very dangerous task. Any sub equipped for such an operation would surely be noticed (massive doors, reconfigured interior spaces, special station-keeping thrusters etc).
Maybe they do it in very shallow water, but then you would still need a dry environment. You would have to deal with the current passing through the cable, somehow without detection or cooperation from the cable's operators. There are just too many difficulties to make splicing-by-submarine practical.