[HN Gopher] The Swedish cabin on the frontline of a possible hyb...
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The Swedish cabin on the frontline of a possible hybrid war
Author : Sami_Lehtinen
Score : 78 points
Date : 2024-12-23 13:31 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| fifilura wrote:
| Tangential, after reading the description of the archipelago.
|
| Sweden is the country with most islands in the world, followed by
| Norway and Finland.
|
| https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/which-countries-have-the...
| yoavm wrote:
| If you've never visited the Stockholm archipelago, I highly
| recommend it. In fact, I think it's perhaps the best thing
| about Stockholm, and one of the most beautiful places in the
| world in general -- if you're into sailing, islands and seas.
| It's almost too easy to find an island just for yourself for
| the weekend, and "Allemansratten", the law that grants people
| the right to access wilderness, only makes it even more
| accessible. Going there at the midst of winter or during summer
| are both very different experiences, but both are very
| charming.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| Also, the superb torpedo museum!
| eesmith wrote:
| Do they use the same methods to define "island"?
|
| The section for Australia seems very broad: "Australia itself
| dominates the islands around its coastal fringe, which range in
| size from smaller rocks that are not covered by water at high
| tide to ..."
|
| While it says the US has 18,617 islands, I struggle to find an
| official source for that very precise number.
|
| I also see how
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_of_Florida says
| "The U.S. state of Florida has a total of 4,510 islands that
| are ten acres or larger", suggesting that ten acres is the
| minimum sized used for "island" in the US.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_of_Maine says
| "Maine is home to over 4,600 coastal islands, ranging from
| large landmasses like Mount Desert Island to small islets and
| ledges exposed above mean high tide."
|
| Clearly these are not using the same definitions.
|
| I managed to find the Global Islands data set at
| https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/63bdf25dd34e92aad3c...
| with an explorer at https://rmgsc.cr.usgs.gov/gie/ which should
| have exactly what I want, except 1) it only lists ocean
| islands, not inland ones, and 2) I can't figure out how to get
| the data by country.
|
| It categories things as "Big Islands (greater than 1 km2),
| Small Islands (less than or equal to 1 km2 and greater than or
| equal to 0.0036 km2), and Very Small Islands (less than 0.0036
| km2)." "There are 21,818 big islands in the database. The
| remaining 318,868 islands are all less than 1 km2 and are
| classed as small islands.'
|
| I give up.
| Etheryte wrote:
| I don't think that quote implies a limit for the definition
| in any way. It just says that this is the count below a given
| threshold. It doesn't say anything about that threshold being
| a standard or anything of that sort.
| LtWorf wrote:
| In sweden if you dig a canal around some land, they call the
| result an island.
| CPLX wrote:
| There's just literally no possible way that Sweden has an
| order of magnitude more islands than the US or Canada.
|
| Open up Google Earth and scan around northern coastlines of
| all these countries and you'll laugh at the premise of this
| article.
|
| With that said I wouldn't be surprised if they have the most
| documented/counted islands. That's another thing entirely and
| also sort of interesting I suppose.
| tester756 wrote:
| Why write about it then?
|
| Even if you assume that enemies' intelligence already knows about
| it, then doesnt it just show that it doesn't work?
|
| Or maybe it is just fake cabin?
| 23B1 wrote:
| There's no mystery to infra being both vulnerable and
| accessible, especially to belligerent world powers. It's all
| just degrees of consequence for attacking those components.
|
| Additionally, a journalist would probably (reasonably) argue
| that writing about it exposes just how little consideration
| governments give to protecting this infra.
| mrbluecoat wrote:
| Good thing they have a giant neon green spindle of fiber optic
| cable right next to the discreet cabin to help it blend in..
| LtWorf wrote:
| I'd bet it's done this way to blend with the landscape, not to
| be a big secret.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| Why doe it need to blend in? It's not a secret installation.
| The cabin is discreet simply because the red paint is the
| traditional colour for pretty much all rural plank clad non-
| residential buildings in Scandinavia. I doubt that any thought
| went into the colour scheme.
| unwind wrote:
| It's called Falu red [1], btw. Made from mining residual
| products and originally liked because it resembled luxurious
| brick.
|
| [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falu_red
| wildzzz wrote:
| Also common in early farm structures in America too which
| could likely be due to large immigration from Scandinavia.
| The iron oxide acts as an anti-fungal as well.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Undersea cables are also marked explicitly on all nautical
| charts. If a rented pleasure boat can, with plausible
| deniability as to intentionality, drag a hook across the sea
| floor and easily get away, the cabin isn't the issue.
|
| This isn't the main weak point.
| a0-prw wrote:
| War groupie BS.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| yes, drumbeats of war take so many forms!
| llamaimperative wrote:
| I remember seeing similar comments in January of 2022. Curious!
| leobg wrote:
| > [T]he Guardian was given exclusive access to the Stockholm
| datacentre site. [...] Daniel Aldstam, the chief security officer
| at GlobalConnect, which transports 50% of the internet capacity
| of the Nordics and runs the centre, described the approach to its
| location and ordinary outward appearance as "security through
| obscurity".
|
| How do you do that facepalm emoji on HN?
| askonomm wrote:
| Probably a stupid question, but why don't we encase the
| (undersea) cable in some metal container or something so that it
| would not be so easy to break? Is it due to economics? Is the
| constant fixing in the end cheaper than making it hard to break,
| or perhaps it needs maintenance anyway often enough to make it a
| hassle?
| sandermvanvliet wrote:
| Because it would need to be pretty beefy in order to stop an
| anchor dragged by a big(-ish) ship and would be uneconomical.
|
| If it does get damaged then repair would also be more expensive
| than current methods
| chiph wrote:
| They are armored when they get close to land. But at depth they
| are not because of weight & economics. Even if a cable were
| armored for the full length - I'm not sure it would withstand
| an intentional anchor-dragging.
|
| Someone needs to do an A/B test. (no not really)
| gruez wrote:
| You have to encase the entire length of the cable, which can be
| hundreds of miles, but the attacker only needs to attack a
| single spot. The nordstream pipeline attacks have shown that
| planting explosives on undersea infrastructure isn't exactly
| hard, so you end up paying an enormous price to add a knee-high
| barrier for a would-be attacker.
| efnx wrote:
| They mention at the end that it makes it heavier and harder to
| deploy, as well as how rare it is that they get damaged.
|
| But I think this is the point of the article - that we start
| thinking with "a wartime mindset". Which is a shame, but maybe
| necessary given the state of the world.
| nradov wrote:
| The other approach that can work in some areas is to use a
| plough to bury the undersea cable in a trench. This is much
| slower, more expensive, and damaging to the marine environment.
|
| https://www.royalihc.com/offshore-energy/offshore-equipment/...
| wkat4242 wrote:
| It would cost so much material. I think it would be more
| economical to just bury it. With an automated robot of course.
| It would also make it a hell of a lot harder for an attacker to
| locate the cable. But I don't know if these already exist.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42498928
| pvaldes wrote:
| [delayed]
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