It's not like the locations of any of the transatlantic or transpacific cable landing stations are a big secret. They're published in the FCC's digest reports for international authorization and whenever ownership of a cable changes hands or is restructured.
Additionally it is pretty hard to hide from modern imagery intelligence analysis any sort of building that has 1+1 or N+1 200kW diesel generators and the cooling required for a medium sized telecom facility. Locations of cables are published specifically for the purpose of helping trawlers and ships avoid damaging them, for example: http://bandoncable.org/cables.asp That said, a pretty quick way to get on some homeland security watch lists would be to hang around a cable landing station beach location with a big DSLR camera, and appear uninterested in the beach... On Thu, Jun 1, 2017 at 11:02 AM, Sean Donelan <s...@donelan.com> wrote: > > There must be a perfectly logical explanation.... Yes, people in the > industry know where the choke points are. But the choke points aren't > always the most obvious places. Its kinda a weird for diplomats to show up > there. > > On the other hand, I've been a fiber optic tourist. I've visited many > critical choke points in the USA and other countries, and even took selfies > :-) > > > http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/01/russia-spies-espion > age-trump-239003 > > In the throes of the 2016 campaign, the FBI found itself with an > escalating problem: Russian diplomats, whose travel was supposed to be > tracked by the State Department, were going missing. > > The diplomats, widely assumed to be intelligence operatives, would > eventually turn up in odd places, often in middle-of-nowhere USA. One was > found on a beach, nowhere near where he was supposed to be. In one > particularly bizarre case, relayed by a U.S. intelligence official, another > turned up wandering around in the middle of the desert. Interestingly, both > seemed to be lingering where underground fiber-optic cables tend to run. > > According to another U.S. intelligence official, “They find these guys > driving around in circles in Kansas. It’s a pretty aggressive effort.” > > It’s a trend that has led intelligence officials to conclude that the > Kremlin is waging a quiet effort to map the United States’ > telecommunications infrastructure, perhaps preparing for an opportunity to > disrupt it. >
