Posted by Mike on November 08, 2000 at 22:47:36:
In Reply to: optic fibre cables posted by Scrawny on November 08, 2000 at 22:29:24:
Unfortunately not. If you tried to interfere with a fibre cable in any way it would reduce the amount of light passing through it and this would be detected straight away. Also any "tap" on a fibre optic cable would cause internal reflections at tha tap point and it would be very easy for the service provider to detect exactly WHERE the tapping was taking place simply by sending a pulse of light down the cable and measuring the time taken for it to be reflected back (time domain reflectometry is the technical term)
It is also very dangerous to tap fibre optic cables because the laser beams can cause permanent blindness if it gets directly into your eye and as many systems use infra red beams you cant see the beam until the damage is done