Re: No need to splice fibres to evesdrop
"What you do instead is bend the fibre to tap it."
" you'd likely have to shave off the cladding.
This is not impossible"
Am I the only one who read the article and/or has seen the inside of deep ocean cable before?
Aside from the fact that those heavily armoured, extremely thick, multi-layered cables of fibre, poly and steel will have a limited amount of bend in them (which may not be sufficient bend for this type of tap) you're still having to cut through the high voltage electrical feed to get to fibre pairs where you've bent it.
Assuming that there's redundancy in those electrical cables and cutting them at one side for your splice doesn't take out one or more repeaters you've still got the danger and inherent problems in cutting through a live high voltage cable, whether that be a diver under the water or inside a hypothetical winch equipped submarine.