The Secret Life of the Cables That Run the Internet

Re:The Secret Life of the Cables That Run the Internet by rfolstad on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @08:47AM (#36955282)

Seems like Starlink has potential to completely disrupt undersea cables once the network is larger. Obviously it wont ever be the same latency or bandwidth as an undersea cable but it would be near impossible to tap and much cheaper.

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Re:The Secret Life of the Cables That Run the Internet by kimburgess on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @09:06AM (#36955452)

You're right that it won't be the same - it has the potential to be faster.

Speed of light in a vacuum is higher than what can be achieved in a fiber-optic. Combine that with a more direct path than what can be achieved with an undersea cable and things start to get interesting.

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Re:The Secret Life of the Cables That Run the Internet by anotherboffin on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @09:31AM (#36955716)

Genuinely wondering why you mention “in a vacuum”, as the signal would have to go through the atmosphere.

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Re:The Secret Life of the Cables That Run the Internet by kimburgess on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @09:55AM (#36956002)

For the inter-satellite links. First and last hop still need to pass from the ground to LEO.

The obvious solution is to start yeeting compute and/or users into space.

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Re:The Secret Life of the Cables That Run the Internet by notakio on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @11:16AM (#36957069)

I vote for users. I'll stay down here with compute, I know how this ends.

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Re:The Secret Life of the Cables That Run the Internet by BenjiWiebe on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @01:43PM (#36959529)

Atmosphere is practically vacuum as far as speed of light goes.

Fiber optic: 0.67c Atmosphere: 0.9997c Vacuum: 1c

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Re:The Secret Life of the Cables That Run the Internet by Gasp0de on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @10:52AM (#36956713)

Why would it be near impossible to tap? Couldn't you just fly a drone around one of the ground stations and intercept all the communication?

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Re:The Secret Life of the Cables That Run the Internet by AnimalMuppet on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @11:49AM (#36957631)

You might need a drone with an antenna the same size as the ground station's. I haven't seen the ground stations, but that might be hard to put on a drone.

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Re:The Secret Life of the Cables That Run the Internet by nobody9999 on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @01:24PM (#36959205)

>Why would it be near impossible to tap? Couldn't you just fly a drone around one of the ground stations and intercept all the communication?

Why bother with a drone? Just drive a van/truck/ATV with appropriate receivers near such ground stations.

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