T he Web Beneath the Waves by Samanth Subramanian. The oceans of the world are now crisscrossed by millions of miles of data cables: “In the abyssal depths of the ocean, a data cable is a scrawny, lightly clothed thing. Its core consists of fibers of glass, each no thicker than a human hair, through which light transmits information at roughly 125,000 miles per second. Around the fibers, there is first a casing of steel for protection, then another of copper to carry electr