NZ's internet and sovereignty

Thanks to Tim O'Shea

Well this is BLOODY interesting - talk about the "5 Eyes Alliance and TPPA jigsaw puzzle" coming together !

Below are 2 links - the first one is to what would have been considered fairly innocuous at the time - from that well-known left wing publication, the North Shore Times, in 2010 !

The article talks about evidence released by Wikileaks' founder, Julian Assange which confirmed how crucial the Southern Cross Cable, that comes in under Takapuna Beach, is to US interests. In an email by Hilary Clinton that Wikileaks released, which referred to the Cable at Takapuna Beach, "Mrs Clinton asks embassies to report on the state of security around these facilities and they are told to "consult with host governments."

The second link is to one of various articles from 2012 that discuss an unauthorised outage on the Southern Cross Cable at the time. 

Suggestions are now emerging that this may have been when the 5 Eyes Alliance (NZ/AUS/US/CAN/UK) tapped in to the Cable, so that they could carry out mass surveillance, and share data between the "club members".

Why I find it interesting is that it all ties in (coincidentally of course) with what we have been told by Greenwald, Assange and Snowden.

Add to that the recent (totally forced and previously completely secret) "revelations" (confessions) that John Key "considered" mass surveillance on New Zealanders, AND that there are NSA agents working at our military bases in New Zealand, one doesn't have to be a "flipping" rocket scientist to work out that WE ARE being spied on, and that our Prime Minister is a well-trained LIAR !NATO and the United States should change their policy because the time when they dictate their conditions to the world has passed," 

Takapuna in Wikileaks

BEACHGOERS are stunned at news that an undersea cable at Takapuna Beach has been declared crucial to American security by the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

North Shore Times,

12 December, 2010

Her message was among the latest leaks revealed by whistleblower Wikileaks, a website that has been publishing vast numbers of secret American diplomatic communications.

New Zealand's sole reference in Mrs Clinton's message relates to the Southern Cross cable, a fibre-optic link between the US, Australia and New Zealand via Fiji.

The cable comes ashore on Takapuna Beach and is buried in a 15km link across the Shore via Whenuapai before diving back into the sea at Manukau Harbour and heading to Australia.

Mrs Clinton asks embassies to report on the state of security around these facilities and they are told to "consult with host governments."

Many beachgoers approached by the North Shore Times had no knowledge of the cable.

Chloe Christie says she doesn't think of Takapuna Beach as a place that has something so important to the American government.

The beach is just somewhere she goes to hang out, she says.

She doesn't think the cable could be a risk.

"I think they're over-reacting to be honest," she says.

Ash Singh is surprised the cable links all the way to America.

He can't believe the cable is so important.

"There's no way it's crucial to them," he says.

North Shore councillor George Wood is more concerned about someone pulling up the cable if they anchor in the area, rather then the United States interest in it.

Mr Wood is not surprised that the US would take an interest in a fibre optic link like the one at Takapuna.

Southern Cross cable hit by an outage

A fault on the Southern Cross subsea cable is impacting services in New Zealand, including those offered by Vocus.

ZdNet,

9 November, 2012

Southern Cross cable has reportedly been hit by a "catastrophic failure" at its Alexandria landing station in Sydney.

New Zealand Labour IT spokesperson Clare Curran said today that the outage occurred this morning due to an "unauthorised and un-notified software change" made to the wavelength switching platform.

One industry representative on the Australian Network Operators group indicated that Southern Cross had told vendors that the company was still suffering from a software upgrade issue this afternoon.

Southern Cross had not returned calls at the time of writing.

The outage is understood to be affecting Australian telecommunications and datacentre provider Vocus.

Curran said that partial services had been restored, but said that it highlighted the need for the New Zealand government to roll out a second cable out of the country.

"This is a crisis for New Zealand. Without international connectivity, our financial system and a large percentage of business would be severely affected," she said. "The government must address the issue of international connectivity with urgency, and provide a full assessment of the risks New Zealand faces through software failures and natural events on the single cable."

Earlier this week, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom proposed reviving the defunct Pacific Fibre subsea cable proposal, using funds from his new file-sharing website Mega. The plan has hit a few road bumps, however, because the Gabon government is looking to stop him using a .ga domain, and the cable would require the approval of the US government to land in the United States.

US authorities are unlikely to welcome any proposal from Dotcom while he is due to front extradition hearings in March next year. He will face charges of racketeering, copyright infringement, and money laundering in the United States, where he could face up to 20 years in jail.