Unrelated but fun story about antagonists and undersea cables that I saw in some Cold War history book in college.
The CIA had cooked up a bonkers covert mission to send a submarine with an airlock right into the soviets’ top submarine harbor. There, divers were to place a tap an underwater data cable that fed the nearby submarine base—a crown jewel of Soviet sub deployment intel.
The CIA knew the cable passed through the harbor somewhere. But where?
To search the entire harbor for a tiny cable would have taken too long. The mission planners were stuck on this problem until one day one of the CIA planners is out on his personal boat. He sees a sign that says “WARNING: Undersea Cable” and has a moment of clarity.
They brought a translator, popped up the periscope in the Soviet harbor, and spotted an equivalent sign which they used to carry out the mission successfully.
For extra credit they had to go back to exfiltrate the data if my memory serves.
I think you're misremembering the part with the signs. The guy came up with the idea to look for a sign on the beach that forbids anchoring. They found it and the cable proved to be there. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Man%27s_Bluff:_The_Untol...
The CIA had cooked up a bonkers covert mission to send a submarine with an airlock right into the soviets’ top submarine harbor. There, divers were to place a tap an underwater data cable that fed the nearby submarine base—a crown jewel of Soviet sub deployment intel.
The CIA knew the cable passed through the harbor somewhere. But where?
To search the entire harbor for a tiny cable would have taken too long. The mission planners were stuck on this problem until one day one of the CIA planners is out on his personal boat. He sees a sign that says “WARNING: Undersea Cable” and has a moment of clarity.
They brought a translator, popped up the periscope in the Soviet harbor, and spotted an equivalent sign which they used to carry out the mission successfully.
For extra credit they had to go back to exfiltrate the data if my memory serves.