Things have gotten slower for many Web users making international communications because of three (or four) undersea cables recently cut. This is especially true for those in the middle or near east, but as the traffic normally reserved for the lines that were cut is now being routed over alternate cables, everyone's traffic is a little affected.

However, for most users, the Internet is merely slower than usual. Not to make light of anyone's current pain, but it is a reminder of the triumph of computer science and computer engineering that is TCP/IP. TCP IP was designed to route around this very type of damage to deliver accurate messages.

Depending on what news reports and analysis you read, there may have been three undersea cables cut, or four undersea cables cut, and these cables were cut over a short period of time by independent, dumb decisions by civilian ships located hundreds of miles apart to drag their anchors along the bottom of the sea to cut through cables armored with steel and polyethylene. However, the AFP news service is reporting that the Egyptian government saw no ships in the area for the 12 hour periods before and after the cable was cut.

An improbable coincidence combined with contradictory evidence? That's breeding ground for conspiracy theory.

This is either an amazing, "win-the-lottery-twice" type of coincidence combined with general widespread confusion, or some sort of deliberate damage. Some on the Internet are suggesting that these lines were cut, possibly, maybe, crazily, as a precursor to a U.S. invasion of Iran.

The "Iran invasion" speculation is fueled by the fact that the router that Internettrafficreport.com uses to measure the amount of traffic coming into and out of Iran is showing a 100% packet loss. As theories go, that's a bit concerning, but that's just one router, and as blog "Cryptogon" points out, other Iranian domain names are still serving up Web pages.

Of course, this panic is caused by U.S. rhetoric regarding Iran. Many online commentators, frightened of the possibility of an expansion of the Iraq war, have taken these outages as fear that the "other shoe is about to drop."

Network Performance Daily, as the vendor blog of NetQoS, isn't in a position to make an editorial statement about war or policies from a U.S. foreign policy angle. But that said, we can tell you that there has never been a war that has improved network performance. While there are many advances in communications technology that have been made as a result of dual-use technology defense spending - TCP/IP among them - the actual act of waging war destroys communications infrastructure. In fact, as far back as electronic communication has existed, destroying the ability of the enemy to communicate effectively was seen as a tactical advantage. Indeed, telegraph poles and the rail lines which brought mail through when the telegraphs weren't working, were targets back during the American Civil War.

Even when this destruction isn't intentional, bombs - even the smartest of them - are indiscriminate. As we see with the Iraq war, delivering even basic electricity when things are frequently blowing up is a challenge.

At any rate, the why isn't quite as important as the fact that the cables are currently disconnected and it will at least take a week or two to get them repaired. In the meantime, now might be a good time to monitor carefully the performance of your global network links to adjust to this new turn of events.

Do you know what's going on out there? If you do, please send us a comment because we have no clue whatsoever.