Here’s how to shut down the Internet: Snip undersea fibre-optic cables

A crewman pulls on undersea cable that will be laid in the Caribbean in this 2001 photo from the Port of Miami. The crewman stands in a cable well holding 120 miles of cable. (Charles Trainor Jr./Miami Herald/TNS)

WASHINGTON: Hundreds of thousands of miles of fibre-optic cable lay on the ocean floors, a crucial part of the global internet's backbone, and only rarely do ship anchors, undersea landslides or saboteurs disrupt them. 

Still, a few voices now call for stronger global mechanisms and even military action to protect the cables against future malicious activity by states, saboteurs or extremists.