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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>Thought will be useful to
the list. Parminder <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>Internet Traffic Begins to
Bypass the U.S. By JOHN MARKOFF<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>SAN FRANCISCO </span></font><font
size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>—</span></font><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>
The era of the American Internet is ending.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>Invented by American
computer scientists during the 1970s, the Internet has been embraced around the
globe. During the network’s first three decades, most Internet traffic
flowed through the United States. In many cases, data sent between two
locations within a given country also passed through the United States.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>And now, the balance of
power is shifting. Data is increasingly flowing around the United States, which
may have intelligence </span></font><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>—</span></font><font size=2
face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>
and conceivably military </span></font><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>—</span></font><font size=2
face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>
consequences.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>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,” <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>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.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>Indeed, 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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>“Since passage of the
Patriot Act, many companies based outside of the United States have been
reluctant to store client information in the U.S.,” said Marc Rotenberg,
executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington.
“There is an ongoing concern that U.S. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>intelligence agencies will
gather this information without legal process. There is particular sensitivity
about access to financial information as well as communications and Internet
traffic that goes through U.S. switches.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>But economics also plays a
role. Almost all nations see data networks as essential to economic
development. “It’s no different than any other infrastructure that
a country needs,” said K C Claffy, a research scientist at the
Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis in San Diego. “You
wouldn’t want someone owning your roads either.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>Indeed, more countries are
becoming aware of how their dependence on other countries for their Internet
traffic makes them vulnerable. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>This leads to odd routing
arrangements, referred to as tromboning, in which traffic between two cites in
one country will flow through other nations. In January, when a cable was cut
in the Mediterranean, Egyptian Internet traffic was nearly paralyzed because it
was not being shared by local I.S.P.’s but instead was routed through
European operators.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>The issue was driven home
this month when hackers attacked and immobilized several Georgian government
Web sites during the country’s fighting with Russia. Most of
Georgia’s access to the global network flowed through Russia and Turkey.
A third route through an undersea cable linking Georgia to Bulgaria is
scheduled for completion in September.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>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.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>That lack of investment
mirrors a pattern that has taken place elsewhere in the high-technology
industry, from semiconductors to personal computers.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>The risk, Internet
technologists say, is that upstarts like China and India are making larger
investments in next-generation Internet technology that is likely to be crucial
in determining the future of the network, with investment, innovation and
profits going first to overseas companies.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>“Whether it’s a
good or a bad thing depends on where you stand,” said Vint Cerf, a
computer scientist who is Google’s Internet evangelist and who, with
Robert Kahn, devised the original Internet routing protocols in the early
1970s. “Suppose the Internet was entirely confined to the U.S., which it
once was? That wasn’t helpful.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>International networks that
carry data into and out of the United States are still being expanded at a
sharp rate, but the Internet infrastructure in many other regions of the world
is growing even more quickly.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>While there has been some
concern over a looming Internet traffic jam because of the rise in Internet use
worldwide, the congestion is generally not on the Internet’s main trunk
lines, but on neighborhood switches, routers and the wires into a house.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>As Internet traffic moves
offshore, it may complicate the task of American intelligence gathering
agencies, but would not make Internet surveillance impossible.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>“We’re probably
in one of those situations where things get a little bit harder,” said
John Arquilla, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey,
Calif., who said the United States had invested far too little in collecting
intelligence via the Internet. “We’ve given terrorists a free ride
in cyberspace,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>Others say the eclipse of the
United States as the central point in cyberspace is one of many indicators that
the world is becoming a more level playing field both economically and
politically.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>“This is one of many
dimensions on which we’ll have to adjust to a reduction in American ability
to dictate terms of core interests of ours,” said Yochai Benkler,
co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard.
“We are, by comparison, militarily weaker, economically poorer and
technologically less unique than we were then. We are still a very big player,
but not in control.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>China, for instance,
surpassed the United States in the number of Internet users in June. Over all,
Asia now has 578.5 million, or 39.5 percent, of the world’s Internet
users, although only 15.3 percent of the Asian population is connected to the
Internet, according to Internet World Stats, a market research organization.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>By contrast, there were
about 237 million Internet users in North America and the growth has nearly
peaked; penetration of the Internet in the region has reached about 71 percent.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>The increasing role of new
competitors has shown up in data collected annually by Renesys, a firm in
Manchester, N.H., that monitors the connections between Internet providers. The
Renesys rankings of Internet connections, an indirect measure of growth, show
that the big winners in the last three years have been the Italian Internet
provider Tiscali, China Telecom and the Japanese telecommunications operator
KDDI.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>Firms that have slipped in
the rankings have all been American: Verizon, Savvis, AT&T, Qwest, Cogent
and AboveNet.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>“The U.S.
telecommunications firms haven’t invested,” said Earl Zmijewski,
vice president and general manager for Internet data services at Renesys.
“The rest of the world has caught up. I don’t see the
AT&T’s and Sprints making the investments because they see Internet
service as a commodity.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>Copyright 2008 The New York
Times Company<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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