Tangled cables

Tangled cables on a telecommunications mast

The term cable tangle describes unwanted and difficult to untangle knots or tangles of cables . The probability of knot formation is above a critical length practically independent of the length of the cable. However, the time required to remove these knots (by simply shaking them out) increases sharply with the length of the cable. The knots usually arise at the ends of the cables; as the tangled cables develop, they slide towards the middle of the cable. In order to prevent cable clutter, cables are laid neatly next to one another and, if necessary, fixed to one another in such a way that they do not tangle and can easily be separated from one another. Examples of cable fixings are cable ties and cable harnesses .

Use of the term in the hacker scene

The Chaos Computer Club uses the tangled cables in its logo

In a figurative sense, the term was also used by the hacker scene in the 1980s to protest against the laying of television cables by the then German Federal Post Office and the feared deterioration in data protection . The Post's cable logo was alienated into a node by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) .