[governance] Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S
Jeffrey A. Williams
jwkckid1 at ix.netcom.com
Sat Aug 30 07:46:10 EDT 2008
Sivasubramanian,
Sorry to read that you feel that my response was "Propagandizing"
in any way. But yes I do believe that some government entity needs
to be or act as a regulator at some level. An Internet that has no
controlling authority that has enforcement powers is an Internet that
will become nearly useless for ecommerce, or non-commercial use
in any viable sense. Kaos cannot be a reasonable alternative as you
seem to be suggesting. Self governance has never for any length of
time, shown to be effective as a means of governing anything of any
international or in any instance I know of, on a national basis or
scope.
I am sure some would prefer that some UN organization such as the
ITU be put in charge of the Internet. Such would be a horror of
monumental proportions as UN organizations have for several decades
shown clearly unable to manage anything of an consequence, including
their own budget, which still the US provides 70% of. This is also the
predominant view of the vast majority of our members as well, BTW and
most of which are not US citizens... We don't want to hoist yet another
"Oil for food program" fraud upon the greater good or all the worlds
citizens...
So though cooperation has between LEA's and other governmental
entities has been far less than good, intergovernmental cooperation
with the US and vice versa, is paramount lest miscreants, malcontents,
fraudsters, and terrorists remain able to loose their havoc upon good
and honest stakeholders/users in whatever country them may reside.
Ergo everyone should be able to access and use the internet with
confidence that their privacy and safety will not be compromised
unwittingly nor their private correspondence or interaction be spied
upon by anyone regardless of their status. Nor should our use
in whatever form or manner be collected, sold or used for purposes
it was never intended for as some ecommerce organizations and
corporations have clearly done and are doing. As Vint Cerf once
uttered, "the Internet is for everyone"! It is not for abusing by
anyone or ANY entity, IMO.
We all know whom some of the abusers are, and yet there are
some that are abusers that are not so obvious to determine or
detect. It is here that LEA's and all of us should work in concert
to thwart or otherwise deal with lest we further cripple the goose
that lays the golden eggs...
When we notice such abusers, or are attempted to be solicited
to become victims of these not so obvious abusers, we must take
the initiative and report them to our available LEA's accordingly
AND additionally follow up once reported with those LEA's that
they are doing their job in pursuing such reports properly and
diligently
but do so without malice or prejudice of any sort, and do so
insistently,
persistently, and consistently....
Sivasubramanian Muthusamy wrote:
> Hello Parminder and All,
>
> The trends reported in the NY Times article point to the possibility
> of the Internet becoming a level playing field. But can we afford to
> assume that there would be a perfect balance?
>
> I would rather wonder where the next center for power would be.
> China? Europe? Japan?
>
> History shows several instances of one imbalanced replaced by yet
> another kind of imbalance in the process of the intended act of
> balancing.
>
> On the Internet what next ?
>
> As far Jeffrey's response, I have a feeling that the Security Concerns
> are usually exaggerated or even propagandized to make it easy to argue
> that the Internet needs to be controlled and regulated.
>
> Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
> ISOC India Chennai.
>
> On Sun, Aug 31, 2008 at 1:06 PM, Jeffrey A.
> Williams <jwkckid1 at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> Parminder and all,
>
> Yes the New York Times and slasdot also have been carrying
> a similar story.
>
> (see below my remarks )...
>
> I wrote both of my senators and congressmen about this
> expressing my
>
> and our members concerns and questions regarding this
> "Event" which
>
> was of course expected or should have been. We in the US
> are still
>
> very concerned or paranoid, depending on your point of view,
> of
>
> terrorism, fraud, and abuse of various sorts from within and
> from
>
> without our own boarders. The level of concern seems to
> some
>
> us citizens, justified, and to others not justified.
>
> Given the number of phishing scam Email I have received
> and
>
> immediately reported yet have seen no apparent action upon,
>
> and the amount of "Child Porn" spamming I have also received
>
> with seemingly just as little recognizable *Proper* if any
> action
>
> upon, I am puzzled as to what the broader justification is
> or
>
> may be for the recent passed legislation/laws both state and
> federal
>
> that has actually aided in any significant way that citizens
> reporting
>
> themselves could not have otherwise achieved within
> previously
>
> existing law. Yet I remain steadfast in favor of once
> establishing
>
> whom these perps are of may be to be sought out and dealt
> with
>
> accordingly. Problem is how does one accurately define whom
>
> such sorts of perps be positively identified if originating
> outside
>
> my own country and without much better cooperation of non-US
>
> LEA's accordingly. A real circular conundrum indeed!
>
> See:
>
> New York Times story about how internet
> traffic is
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/business/30pipes.html
> increasingly flowing around the US as web-based industries
> catch up in other parts of the world. Other issues, such as
>
> http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/1959201&tid=217
> 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."
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Parminder
> Sent: Aug 31, 2008 2:28 AM
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Subject: [governance] Internet Traffic Begins to
> Bypass the U.S
>
> Thought will be useful to the list. Parminder
>
> Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S. By JOHN
> MARKOFF
>
> SAN FRANCISCO The era of the American Internet
> is ending.
>
> 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.
>
> 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, 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.
>
> "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.
>
> 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."
>
> 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."
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> That lack of investment mirrors a pattern that has
> taken place elsewhere in the high-technology
> industry, from semiconductors to personal
> computers.
>
> 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.
>
> "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."
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> As Internet traffic moves offshore, it may
> complicate the task of American intelligence
> gathering agencies, but would not make Internet
> surveillance impossible.
>
> "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.
>
> 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.
>
> "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."
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Firms that have slipped in the rankings have all
> been American: Verizon, Savvis, AT&T, Qwest,
> Cogent and AboveNet.
>
> "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."
>
> Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
>
> Regards,
>
> Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k
> members/stakeholders strong!)
> "Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
> Abraham Lincoln
>
> "Credit should go with the performance of duty and
> not with what is
> very often the accident of glory" - Theodore
> Roosevelt
>
> "If the probability be called P; the injury, L;
> and the burden, B;
> liability depends upon whether B is less than L
> multiplied by
> P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
> United States v. Carroll Towing (159 F.2d 169 [2d
> Cir. 1947]
>
> ==============================================================
>
> Updated 1/26/04
> CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network
> data security IDNS.
> div. of Information Network Eng. INEG. INC.
> ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402
> E-Mail
> jwkckid1 at ix.netcom.com
> My Phone: 214-244-4827
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________
>
> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
> governance at lists.cpsr.org
> To be removed from the list, send any message to:
> governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org
>
> For all list information and functions, see:
> http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/sivasubramanianmuthusamy
>
Regards,
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
Abraham Lincoln
"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt
"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
===============================================================
Updated 1/26/04
CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security IDNS.
div. of Information Network Eng. INEG. INC.
ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402 E-Mail
jwkckid1 at ix.netcom.com
My Phone: 214-244-4827
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org
For all list information and functions, see:
http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
More information about the Governance
mailing list