In the many breaks that have occurred along the Asia America Gateway internet cable since it went online in 2009, Vietnamese telecoms have been unable to determine the culprit. According to The Independent, we may finally have a suspect – sharks.
Though ships are sometimes cited as the perpetrators, internet videos of sharks chomping down on undersea cables have given rise to a theory that the sharped-tooth fish are to blame for the outages which make it incredibly difficult to access international websites.
According to the paper, sharks may mistake the cables’ electromagnetic waves “for bioelectric fields that surround schools of fish.”
Google, facing similar problems last year, covered its undersea cables in a Kevlar-like material to sharkproof their fiber optic lines.
Apparently, sharks will eat pretty much anything. Just ask Samuel L. Jackson.
