" 'So cables are vulnerable.' 'Those cables used to be owned by PTAs. Which were basically just branches of governments. Hence they pretty much did what governments told them to. But the new cables going in today are owned and controlled by corporations beholden to no one except their investors. Puts certain governments in a position they dont like very much...There's been this big transfer of power that has taken place under their noses, without their having forseen it. And as we've talked about many times, there are many reasons why different governments might want to control the flow of information. China might want to institute political censorship, whereas the US might want to regulate electronic cash transfers so that they can keep collecting taxes. In the old days they could ultimately do this insofar as the owned the cables.' 'But now they can't,' Randy says. 'Now they can't, and this change happened very fast, or at least it looked fast to government with its retarded intellectual metabolism, and now they are way behind the curve, and scared and pissed off, and starting to lash out.' 'They are?' 'They are.' 'Do you have any idea what down time on a state-of-the-art cable costs nowadays?' 'Of couse I do,' Randy says. 'It can be hundreds of thousands of dollars a minute.' ... 'But that hasnt been much of an issue,' Randy says. 'The cables are plowed in so deeply now. They're only exposed in the deep ocean.' 'Yes - where only an entity with the naval resources of a major government could sever them.' 'Oh, shit!' 'This is the new balance of power, Randy' p838 & 839 of Cryptonomicon
So cables are