US No Longer the World's Internet Hub

museumpeace brings us a New York Times story about how internet traffic is increasingly flowing around the US as web-based industries catch up in other parts of the world. Other issues, such as the Patriot Act, have made foreign companies wary about having their data on US servers. From the NYTimes: "Internet industry executives and government officials have acknowledged that Internet traffic passing through the switching equipment of companies based in the United States has proved a distinct advantage for American intelligence agencies. In December 2005, The New York Times reported that the National Security Agency had established a program with the cooperation of American telecommunications firms that included the interception of foreign Internet communications. Some Internet technologists and privacy advocates say those actions and other government policies may be hastening the shift in Canadian and European traffic away from the United States."

No surprising

Americans would also be up in arms if most of their traffic was routed through China.

Good Riddance

The Internet isn't supposed to have a "hub". It's supposed to be completely distributed and decentralized.

Besides, why should the US carry all the rest of the world's traffic? The world is a globe, which doesn't have a center. Why should Europe / East Asia connections pass through the US? Let them build their share of the interconnects. They've got way more people, and we need all our bandwidth for ourselves, just like anyone else.

The US invented the Internet. We should be exporting equipment and expertise, so the rest of the world can do business with us (and with each other our way), and get paid right to do it.

Re:Good Riddance

I'm pretty sure the world has a center... but it'd be a heck of a feat trying to cool that server farm.

Re:Good Riddance

Aha! So that's what Al Gore was proving with global warming! That the world's servers are overheating.

Re:Good Riddance

The Earth has a center, because it is a sphere. But no one lives outside a small band +/- 400m from the surface, so "the world" is a shell that has no center.

No one except the Mole Men, and they've got their own Internet. Which is really more an "Infranet", but that's their problem.

Re:Good Riddance

So you are saying I could leave the world by going up or down?

Hmm, I think there are religions based on that...

Re:Good Riddance

The Earth has a center, because it is a sphere. But no one lives outside a small band +/- 400m from the surface, so "the world" is a shell that has no center.

No one except the Mole Men, and they've got their own Internet. Which is really more an "Infranet", but that's their problem.

There are large population centers [wikipedia.org] more than 400m above sealevel (more than twice that, actually). Plus there are people in the dead sea [wikipedia.org] which is 420 meters below sea level.

And that's before we start counting the people living on the ISS, the people living in the salt mine city [wikipedia.org], Atlantians (Deeper or Higher than 400m depending on who you talk to) or the mole men.....

Re:Good Riddance

Of course there are Internet "hubs". I've got several of them right there in my office LAN. But that's different from something being "the" hub.

The Internet is so diverse and capable of so much decentralization that it even includes lots of hubs. But that's different from the majority of the world's traffic going through a single country that isn't at an endpoint. The US being "the world's Internet hub" was a temporary historical artifact, at odds with actual Internet architecture once the Internet was truly global, and not just "the USA's extranet".

Just a marketing problem

Other countries wouldn't have a problem with routing their traffic through the United States if we had good public relations...

"For every packet your country sends through the U.S., you will automatically be entered in a drawing for one of your citizens to win an all-expenses paid trip to exotic, sunny Cuba!"

That would get them excited!

I'm glad!

The complete and utter arrogance of our Government and it's treatment of, not only us, but the rest of the World is starting to bite us in the ass. Not only with our Government's attitude with tapping the internet but also with our perceived superiority in space. We are no longer the leaders in space technology thanks to our Government. Other countries have workarounds to our technology because it was too much of a pain to do business with American firms. [economist.com] All because our Government believes that we have a monopoly on technology and smart people.

See, our paranoia and fear is now hurting our economy. And as a result it's hastening our decline. Maybe this will be a wake up call to the powers that be.

Re:I'm glad!

And in the UK the government have mandated that much of your data is stored by ISPs via the braindead RIP act, and some other act demands that you hand over decryption keys or be in breach of the law. Hey, not much better.

Thanks, washington

Thanks, Washington. Between the patriot act and the DMCA, you've managed to legislate one of the few booming industries we had out of the country.

Used to be, there were four things we did better than anyone else:
music
movies
microcode
high-speed pizza delivery

You're really trying to cross things off that list as fast as you can, aren't you?

Re:Thanks, washington

Well, truth be told, those people in Washington are elected. Perhaps people should look in the mirror and if they've voted for President Bush or anyone, and I mean ANYONE, that has voted for the UN-Patriot Acts I & II, the DMCA, et al., seriously consider educating themselves before voting this time. Of course that won't happen.

Re:Thanks, washington

Ah, you Americans and your quaint complaining about the price of petrol [kshitij.com] :-).

Free Market

This is a free market at its best. The United States provides a poor service (allow us to carry your data, and we will spy on it), so foreign telecomms decide the better value is not to route traffic through the United States. Our own laws that promote spying, snooping, invasion of privacy, and generally going against the spirit of the Constitution (I say spirit because it does not apply to foreign citizens in most cases) will be used against us. Other nations will decide that we are increasingly irrelevant: our dollar is on a trend of weakening against foreign currencies due to the massive trade deficit which in turn puts our balls squarely in the hands of countries such as China. This weakens our clout in international markets. This story is just one facet of the weakening of the United States as a superpower and our downward slide into becoming a third-world country. Our politicians and corporate executives are so concerned about maintaining their wealth that they are willing to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

No, I am not cynical. I am also not sarcastic.

It doesn't matter

In the long run, I don't think it matters that some countries are routing traffic around the United States. The truth of the matter is simply that the U.S. intelligence agencies will find new ways to get the data by either covertly installing monitoring and capture equipment in the countries of interests or by strong-arming those governments to send traffic our way. Yes, I realize that governments don't centrally control most internet hubs in most countries but you can bet that when money or other aide is at risk, they'll find a way to make it happen.

And other intelligence agencies in other countries

don't spy on the communications in and out of their countries? The US does not have a monopoly on signals intelligence. This is one of those issues where any country that has any sig int capabilities are using it to monitor the tubes.

SOX probably more influential than Patriot Act

Other issues, such as the Patriot Act, have made foreign companies wary about having their data on US servers.

No. Other forces such as wanting increase profit margins are probably having a bigger influence.

WRT legislation, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act [wikipedia.org] has probably had a greater impact on influencing companies on their move. Provisions within S-OX require companies to provide access to data to allow for full data audits. That would include emails, internal reports, etc.

The whole point about the Internet...

... is that it's supposed to be redundant and fault-tolerant -- where "fault" includes people trying to sabotage it either physically by cutting wires, or virtually through censorship and spying. The more different routes there are, the better.

Better idea

How about we have an international network that is completely free from politics and that politicians can't touch?

Re:Pick your favorite intelligence agency

Yeah, because American intelligence agencies have morals!

Re:Oh hey

The U.S. has about 5% of the worlds population and is separate by large amounts of water from more than 80% of the global population.

Thus, in the long term, it simply doesn't make any sense that the U.S. would be the world's internet hub, so this isn't really evidence of decay or any other silliness, it is just as easily interpreted as global progress.

Re:Oh hey

The problem is not that the US is not a 'hub' but rather that the US is lately seen as a place that is not a safe place to keep your data (for US citizens as well, actually). It's bad business.

Re:Logical conclusion of this

Someone left a few Yahoo Internet Life Mags [ozzu.com] from 1998 on my chair yesterday. There was a predictions for 1998 section in the January issue with some similar thoughts.

Penn Jillette (Penn and Teller), 1998

We will continue to be told that freedom is a bad idea. The Net will be blamed for more kiddie porn, terrorism, and loss of privacy. those who remember that these things predate home computers (and maybe even pong) will get blue in the face to keep the future getting better.

Emmanuel goldstien (Publisher of 2600 magazine), 1998

The net will continue to grow, and so will the conflicts -- 12 year olds will battle multi-national corporations, Net Nazis will fight hackers, Governments will have it out with activists. For a time, the wide-open environment of the net will force opposing sides to listen to each-other. Once they all get tired of that, the Net will factionize and break apart so that, similar to TV, we never have to deal with things that disturb us or make us think too much. we'll have the Military Net, the childrens Net, the black net, the white Net, and so on. the days where we actually had to listen to our enemies will become a memory, and finally a myth.

Re:Logical conclusion of this

If the servers are already accessed via strong encryption the location is not very relevant unless the jurisdiction bans such encryption. The main danger to such communities is then the seizure of their equipment by local authorities, on the basis of one or other real or imagined infraction (child pornography, terrorism, patent infringement, copyright infringement, hate crimes, etc.)

I'm not sure Europe is better than the USA in terms of freedom from such seizures. There are surely better locations.

Cloud computing... is a buzzword but is interesting nonetheless. Over time we may see secure or private clouds, which would then correspond to these islands, and which might become fully independent of vulnerable physical servers.

So we may have a future of virtualized, distributed, secure islands connected by a sea of insecurity.

But then again, it's late on a hot Saturday afternnon here in Brussels and it's beer o'clock. :-)