Sabotage remains a possible explanation for the severing of five undersea telecommunications cables in late January and early February, according to Agence France-Presse.

"We do not want to pre-empt the results of ongoing investigations, but we do not rule out that a deliberate act of sabotage caused the damage to the undersea cables over two weeks ago," Sami al-Murshed, head of the International Telecommunication Union, told an AFP reporter at a cybercrime conference in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar.

From this refusal to disavow, some news outlets cast the story in more definitive terms. "Sea cable snappage was sabotage," the U.K.-based Inquirer declared. "Undersea cables 'cut by saboteurs,' " said U.K.-based vnunet.com.

Stephan Beckert, director of research at Internet bandwidth consultancy TeleGeography Research, thinks such speculation goes too far. "There's this big game of telephone going on between bloggers and reporters," he said. "Anything is possible. But it doesn't do any good to speculate."

On Feb. 7, India's Flag telecom said that the Falcon cable between Oman and the United Arab Emirates was cut by a ship's anchor. Further definitive information about the cable cuts has not been released.

Beckert believes that fishing nets or wayward ship anchors remain the most likely explanations. Sabotage of undersea cables, he said, "is extremely rare. I'm not aware of any [incidents], but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened."

It may be worth noting that the ongoing investigation hasn't ruled out the possibility of malicious mollusks either. Once the investigation is completed, a clearer picture is likely to emerge. Until then, be careful when swimming around shellfish, particularly if there's any undersea cable nearby.