Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S. - NYTimes.com - The Diigo Meta page

• 02 Sep 08
  

  Pranger Prangerson

  internet technology tech surveillance

• 01 Sep 08
  

  craig roland

  The era of the American Internet is ending.

  internet readings

• 31 Aug 08
  

  Babafemi Akinrinade

  The increasing flow of data around the United States may have intelligence, and possibly military, consequences.

  Espionage business

• 

  Ape Con Myth

  internet world

• 

  John Travers

  internet

• 

  Robert Cannon

  zxc backbone firsta

• 30 Aug 08
  

  Michael Mullarkey

  Economic Politics business

• 

  Takuya Homma

  Internet

  • Engineers who help run the Internet said that it would have been impossible for the United States to maintain its hegemony over the long run because of the very nature of the Internet; it has no central point of control.

    And now, the balance of power is shifting. Data is increasingly flowing around the United States, which may have intelligence — and conceivably military — consequences.

    American intelligence officials have warned about this shift. “Because of the nature of global telecommunications, we are playing with a tremendous home-field advantage, and we need to exploit that edge,” Michael V. Hayden, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2006. “We also need to protect that edge, and we need to protect those who provide it to us.”

  • Indeed, more countries are becoming aware of how their dependence on other countries for their Internet traffic makes them vulnerable. Because of tariffs, pricing anomalies and even corporate cultures, Internet providers will often not exchange data with their local competitors. They prefer instead to send and receive traffic with larger international Internet service providers.

  • Ms. Claffy said that the shift away from the United States was not limited to developing countries. The Japanese “are on a rampage to build out across India and China so they have alternative routes and so they don’t have to route through the U.S.”

  • Andrew M. Odlyzko, a professor at the University of Minnesota who tracks the growth of the global Internet, added, “We discovered the Internet, but we couldn’t keep it a secret.” While the United States carried 70 percent of the world’s Internet traffic a decade ago, he estimates that portion has fallen to about 25 percent.

  • Internet technologists say that the global data network that was once a competitive advantage for the United States is now increasingly outside the control of American companies. They decided not to invest in lower-cost optical fiber lines, which have rapidly become a commodity business.

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