Internet Sleuths & The Yi Peng 3
A few days ago I signed up for Blue Sky and one of the first things I randomly spotted in my zero follower "discovery" tab was this thread. It was discussing how the above Yi Peng 3 ship crossed both the C-Lion1 and BCS undersea Internet cables when they were mysteriously cut.
Those two cables have been selected above to show their connection points which break down to:
BCS
- Sventoji, Lithuania
- Katthammarsvik, Sweden
C-Lion1
- Rostock, Germany
- Helsinki, Finland
- Hanko, Finland
Thankfully for all these countries - the loss of both of those cables did not severely disrupt their internet traffic as proven via Cloudflare Radar. It was simply re-routed automatically through less optimized routes. However, some of those less optimized routes include Russia controlled cables which fuels my paranoia.
When I saw this post by auonsson I was hooked immediately.
This took public AIS (Automatic Indication System) data of ship travel times and compared it with the loss of connectivity on the two undersea cables. Sure enough it was proved the Yi Peng 3 ship crossed both of those cables at the exact times they were disrupted.
Now that might not prove the cables were broken by that action, but it sure is convincing given the timing.
So I kept reading on - this time the author looped in others (pekka & garygnutter) who provided further context on this situation. This time with images showing the track Yi Peng 3 took as it left Russia.
So of course given the present situation with Russia - seeing a massive bulk carrier Chinese ship departing from Russia and allegedly breaking 2 undersea cables seems like sabotage.
I had to look up the last time this happened and it was October of 2023 when yet again another Chinese vessel (Newnew Polar Bear) broke gas pipelines and undersea cables. Now of course the owner of a ship and who is pilot/crew of a ship don't have to be the same country.
So I read on this time seeing an image from garygnutter who plotted Yi Peng 3's movement which clearly changes right before crossing the BCS cable.
At this point I'm convinced the Yi Peng 3 intentionally did this and absolutely mind blown that these random people I stumbled upon were a treasure trove of information.
Sure enough they are quick on providing updates showing the military getting involved.
It feels like I'm part of a live investigation and I'm thousands of miles away watching some feeds. I'm hoping we all learned from the last sabotage via NewNew Polar Bear and not letting this ship go without boarding it and performing an investigation.
Sure enough I scroll again and get excited - the boat has been chased down and slows to a crawl.
It seems a large military presence is growing on the Yi Peng 3 with many countries in support. The ship is passing between international waters and specific country water so either very much intentional or something greater in play.
While The Yi Peng 3 sits in the water guarded by a few war ships, others are researching the owner of this ship.
Helsingin Sanomat visited Yi Peng 3 ship's management company Win Enterprise Ship Management and interviewed them briefly. They also visited the address of the OWNER, Ningbo Yipeng Shipping Co., LTD. Address was empty. It's currently marked as a “Military Management Zone”.
https://bsky.app/profile/ainorautahuopa.bsky.social/post/3lblxmascss2k
This was a bit expected - the management company knew nothing and the owner of the ship's registration pointed to some business that had been closed for 8 years. Instead the military is using the area as a "management zone" and request the investigative journalists to leave.
So now we have a ship (Yi Peng 3) that is being watched by war ships (Bad Dueben & P523) owned by a company/entity that is difficult to pinpoint. Every day a new ship is discovered getting involved and tensions rise. All I know is huge undersea cables that carry immense amounts of Internet traffic seems like an attractive target for an increasingly cyber warfare.
Head on to auonsson's Blue Sky account if you want to follow this story further.