Here's a handy map of the major international cables; one known as the SEA-ME-WE 3 is the longest at 39,000km, running from Germany to South Korea and some 30 countries in between, while the FLAG cable that was affected on Thursday comes in at a not-insignificant 28,000km, running in several sections between the US, UK, Mediterranean and the far East. These cables, while obviously built to withstand a substantial amount of wear and tear, have been shown to be vulnerable to natural disasters, vandalism, fishing trawlers and even piracy; last June an eleven-kilometre section of SEA-ME-WE 3 was stolen, and the 100-ton snake was sold as scrap, leaving residents of Vietnam with achingly slow internet connections.

If, as the compulsive conspiracy theorists would have us believe, the recent damage is a carefully orchestrated campaign by someone or other to provoke someone else into doing something, there's certainly no shortage of cable for the dark forces of eveil to start hacking away at. But whatever the cause, one group of people will undoubtedly benefit: the specialist teams of submarine cable repairmen, who are no doubt already sucking air through their teeth, giving an outrageous quote for the work, and adding that they can't get started until at least a week on Thursday.

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