[ct520]

Dumb question but my assumption is fiber optic cables could be “tapped”? But the disruption would be noticeable when monitoring the cable. Could you just tap it when you cut it and when it hooked back up that’s the new baseline with the tap in place? That would seem more of a logical reason then a country just randomly cutting lines to me?

[gloflo]

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/07/th...

NSA's OAKSTAR, STORMBREW, BLARNEY and FAIRVIEW

[fsloth]

It’s a message and hybrid warfare.

Hybrid warfare - the infrastructure is offline, and the repair resources are consumed. And you gather intel what the resource impact and offline time is.

Message - we can do this. Now think what else we can do.

Of course the message is also pushing EU closer to war footing. But China and Russia don’t see it that way - they think the lack of popular outcry means weakness.

[jillesvangurp]

Most/all of the traffic would be encrypted.

[donalhunt]

That wasn't the case in the past. Events over the past 15 years have resulted in most companies encrypting all traffic between datacenters (due to the perceived risk). TLS between consumers and companies is probably at an all time high though due to a push for end-to-end encryption.