My fav:

Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 12:04:33 -0500 To: cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net
Subject: Re: undersea cable cuts

The Economist did little research, it seems, or it was fed disinfo, or was induced to defuse speculation.

This list's archive, if no where else, would defuse most of the Economist's defusing. That's not to say the cpunks archives exists in full, or not easily located. [Selections below.]

For several years, if not from day one, transoceanic cables are pre-rigged for tapping, aguably for repair and maintenance by firms like Global Marine, but easily siphoned for less benign purposes. Moreover it is flat wrong that fiber optic cable is hard to tap. It takes sophisticated equipment but none that is beyond the spies and telecomms regular capability. Disinfo abounds about this as with most classified-at-birth communications technology.

The spies regularly spout that fiber has made eavesdropping more difficult, along with encryption, the out of control Internet, the ease of transborder evasion of global laws on privacy and national security.

Top US spy McConnell is on automatic about these fairy tales.

Lying about interception capability is as old as communications. The Economist is full of shit and shallowness, the silly quotes from discussion lists, with only a small chance that the story was not planted by officials.

It sure reads like the usual DNI-MI-speak when an op is discovered or deliberately leaked to divert attention from more covert derringdo.

Say, why tap when worldwide ISPs are jumping through hoops to get natsec snooping business.

I'd say global spies are desperate to keep surveillance budgets out of this world. Almost as desperate as news outlets whipsawing readers.

Nothing like that would ever happen here.