Cambridge International School, Dubai

Year 9 – Reading across the curriculum

Australia is connected to the world by cables no thicker than a garden

hose – and at risk from sharks, accidents and sabotage

1 Warmer

a. Discuss these questions.

1. How are countries connected to the rest of the world?

2. How easy / difficult is it to break that connection?

3. What could happen if a country stopped being connected?

2 Key words

a. Read the definitions and use the correct words to complete the sentences. Then find and
highlight them in the article to read them in context.

anchor choke point ferry murky

backbone dredge sabotage
immune reinforce
espionage reliant

1. when something is easy to hurt physically or emotionally

She’s more now because of the accident.

2. to damage or destroy something so that your enemy can’t use it

Enemy forces tried to the roads and bridges to stop us from

entering the town.

3. not affected by a particular activity or type of behaviour

It doesn’t matter how protected your computer is: no one is

from attack.

4. the important systems (e.g. transport and communication) of a country

With the population increasing, the government needs to invest in its .

5. the main or strongest part of something

Electronics is still the of Silicon Valley.

6. the amount of information per second that can move along a wire between computers

Sorry, but if you want to watch videos, you need much better internet .
Australia is connected to the world by cables no thicker than a garden
hose – and at risk from sharks, accidents and sabotage

7. an extremely bad event that causes a lot of destruction or suffering

If the severe heat continues, farmers will face economic .

8. dark and dirty or difficult to see through; complicated and unpleasant

In the evenings, she was part of the world of computer hacking.

9. describes the political and economic relationships between countries based on each country’s size
and power

Recent tensions have caused concerns about the price of

crude oil.

10. to make an object stronger than it currently is

The security expert told me to my wooden door with a section

of metal.

11. to collect animals or objects from the bottom of a river, lake or sea

People who fish for oysters and other seafood often the bottom
of the ocean.

12. a heavy, metal object that a boat drops into the water to stop it from moving

The captain ordered us to drop the , so we had time to repair

the boat.

13. the skill of running a country and working with other countries

The president showed some amazing when she negotiated that

deal with China.

14. the strength needed to get better quickly after damage or illness

The government is confident about the of the economy despite

recent problems.

15. being involved with a thing or group and feeling connected to it

These business ideas will only work with real from

the community.
Australia is connected to the world by cables no thicker than a garden
hose – and at risk from sharks, accidents and sabotage

16. part of a path that can easily get blocked

It is dangerous for ships to pass through that because there is

no alternative route.

17. the discovery of secrets, especially political or military information of another country

Three people were also accused of taking part in against

another company.

18. the possible results of an action

Have you thought about all the of if you do this?

19. needing a particular thing or person in order to succeed

This charity is on its volunteers.

20. to transport people or objects especially regularly and often

He has to his family to school, back home and out to

football practice.
Australia is connected to the world by cables no thicker than a garden
hose – and at risk from sharks, accidents and sabotage

Last month two Baltic Sea cables were 5 “Without them, the internet as we know it would
damaged, and experts say Australia’s cables cease to exist,” Cynthia Mehboob, who is doing
are not immune from threats. How worried her PhD on the politics of undersea cables,
says. Mehboob, who is in the Australian National
should we be?
University’s international relations department, says
Tory Shepherd Australia’s reliance on the cables will only grow.
1 December, 2024 “They’re vital for defence, for sharing intelligence,”
she says. “Our Five Eyes arrangement is reliant on
1 More than 1 million kilometres of cables snake along subsea cables. “Disrupting these cables would have
the world’s ocean floor, ferrying data between distant a very serious geopolitical impact on
lands. Fibre-optic filaments whisk emails, Netflix Australian security.”
and military secrets through deep water, where the 6 In 2014, Google announced it was reinforcing
cord – about as thick as a garden hose – gathers cables with a Kevlar-like substance after a series of
barnacles and seaweed. Australia is connected to shark bites. A widely shared video showed a shark
15 of them (that we know of), with the main landing wrapping its teeth around a cable briefly before
stations in Sydney and Perth. And they’re vulnerable swimming off. But that’s not the biggest threat.
to sabotage and accidents, to hacking and (very Bashfield says fish bites are only responsible for
occasionally) sharks. 0.1 per cent of damage. It’s fishing incidents that are
2 Last month, two cables in the Baltic Sea – one far more common. Dredging, nets and trawlers can
connecting Finland and Germany, the other do damage, and anchors dragged over the cables
connecting Sweden and Lithuania – were damaged can destroy them. Then there are geological events,
in a suspected sabotage attack. They were damaged such as underwater landslides or volcanoes.
at about the same time a Chinese-registered ship 7 “That’s the unintentional damage,” he says. “Then
passed over them. On Thursday, the Swedish prime you get into statecraft … the intentional stuff, this
minister, Ulf Kristersson, said the Baltic Sea was now cutting of cables, they’re intentionally sabotaged as
a “high-risk” zone. And experts say Australia’s own an act of war or in a grey zone conflict .” There are
cables are not immune from threats. “choke points”, Bashfield says, where the cables
3 Despite the blustering promises of satellite hit the landing stations and all that data is flooding
technology, and despite the difficulty of building through. They are the potential sites for espionage
infrastructure thousands of metres beneath the and siphoning data for intelligence, he says.
surface, these cables still carry 99 per cent of 8 Mehboob says a “black swan” event, such as all the
Australia’s data. They can carry up to 300 terabits cables being cut at once, was “incredibly unlikely”
of data a second, making their capacity but not impossible. “If it happened, it would be a
“virtually limitless”. catastrophe,” she says, adding that repairs could
4 The maritime security expert Sam Bashfield is a take weeks. There are between 100 and 200 breaks
research fellow at the University of Melbourne’s a year but only a limited number of ships that can
Australia India Institute. He says satellites are critical fix them.
for remote areas, war zones and some backup, but 9 When two of the three cables connecting Tasmania
the “backbone” of the internet are cables. “We see to the mainland were accidentally cut on the same
this huge increase in demand for bandwidth … even day in March 2022, it gave an idea of the disruption
though we see satellite technology improving,” he that can occur. Tonga, which has only one cable
says. “The global demand for data is also increasing connecting it to the rest of the world, spent weeks
at this crazy rate, so it still requires these submarine without the internet this year.
cables.“ If Australia was cut off entirely from those
10 Last week, Google Cloud revealed its Australia
cables, essential services would be disrupted and
Connect project. The communications minister,
there would be political, military and economic
Michelle Rowland, said the new systems would
ramifications – digital technology contributes 167
“expand and strengthen the resilience of Australia’s
billion US dollars to the economy each year.
own digital connectivity” and “support secure,
resilient and reliable connectivity across the Pacific”.
 Australia is connected to the world by cables no thicker than a garden
hose – and at risk from sharks, accidents and sabotage

11 Australia has also announced it will spend 18 million 12 Mehboob says while Australia has cable protection
US dollars over four years on a cable connectivity zones, even flagging them makes it clear to potential
and resilience centre to strengthen engagement in bad actors exactly where the cables are. And there’s
the region. But it doesn’t own the cables – they’re no easy way to work out if damage has been done
owned by telecommunications companies and intentionally. “It’s a tricky attribution space,” she says.
increasingly the “hyperscalers”, including Amazon, “Identifying intentional sabotage on the sea bed has
Meta and Google. always been a challenge. “It makes things a lot
more murky.”
© Guardian News and Media 2024
First published in The Guardian, 01/12/2024
 Australia is connected to the world by cables no thicker than a garden
hose – and at risk from sharks, accidents and sabotage
Level 3: Advanced

3 Comprehension check

a. Answer the questions using information from the article.

1. Roughly how many cables connect Australia to the internet?

2. How thick is each cable?

3. What are the different threats for the cables?

4. How much of Australia’s data travels through these cables?

5. In what way are cables the ‘backbone’ of the internet?

6. Why are choke points potential sites for espionage?

7. According to the article, which places had their cables damaged?

8. Who will the new 18-million-dollar cables belong to?

9. Why is it difficult to know if cables are deliberately damaged?

10. In the opinion of the author, will these cables have a safe future?

4 Key language

a. Match these metaphoric phrases from the article to the ideas they describe.

1. Cables snake along the floor. a. hard to see through like dirty water

2. It’s ferrying data between distant lands. b. the main connection in the centre of a system

3. They’re the ‘backbone’ of the internet. c. travelling with snake-like movements

4. The data is flooding through. d. moving information like people on boats

5. It makes things a lot more murky. e. entering a space in large amounts

Australia is connected to the world by cables no thicker than a garden
hose – and at risk from sharks, accidents and sabotage

b. Classify the metaphors in bold into those about water (W) or not about water (NW).

1. He grabbed his laptop because ideas were pouring out of him. W / NW

2. She was drowning in work and knew she needed help. W / NW

3. They’re the ’backbone’ of the internet. W / NW

4. He hoped that his problems would just wash away while on holiday. W / NW

5. It makes things a lot more murky. W / NW

6. The data is flooding through. W / NW

7. It’s ferrying data between distant lands. W / NW

8. Cables snake along the floor. W / NW

c. Write three personalised sentences using three of the metaphors from the previous activity.

1.

2.

3.

5 Discussion

a. Discuss these statements.

• ‘No country can completely protect itself from attack’.

• ‘All technologies, even the most impressive, are physically vulnerable’.

• ‘Countries should avoid having physical connections to the internet’.

6 In your own words

a. List the advantages and disadvantages of underwater cabling. Consider how dependent
modern life is on the internet. Use these questions to guide your ideas.
• Is your house connected to the internet via a cable or via satellite?

• Why is bandwidth important for using the internet?

• What type of information is dependent on a high-speed internet connection?

• Why do you think the military and other big industries need high-speed internet connections?

• How much of what society does every day uses the internet?
 Australia is connected to the world by cables no thicker than a garden
hose – and at risk from sharks, accidents and sabotage

• How long could you survive without using the internet?

• How long could our society survive without using the internet?

• What do you imagine protects underwater cabling?

• How much of the ocean can a country expect to be able to protect?

b. Below is a recent post from a member of the government of an island country (e.g. the UK,
Japan, etc.). Read the post and write a response that convinces them of the importance of
protecting underwater cables. Write in a dramatic style that persuades people to pay attention
to the dangers that exist and the consequences of not protecting the cables. Under the post
are some phrases to help you.

As more people start new lives in our major cities, we must increase investment in city life and stop
wasting money on protecting a life we no longer have.

We have evolved; we have moved out of the water and walked into a brighter technological future.

• has failed to consider … • It must be pointed out that …

• has not taken into account … • It is important to remember that …

• has not realised … • The effect of this is …

• has not appreciated … • The consequence of this is …