submarine cables

Data flows along paths set in the age of sail

25 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for the look ahead.

International submarine fiber optic cables traverse many of the same routes that sailing ships followed in centuries gone by. In one sense, that’s not such a surprise. If goods move between the U.S. and Britain, say, then information is going to flow that way to something like the same extent. Even so, an interactive graphic on Vox.com brings that relationship to life in a fascinating way, by combining a shipping map from 1912 with the latest edition of Telegeograhy’s submarine cable wall map, published retro-style with everything except Here be Dragons included.… More

Latest Snowden revelations will push Internet infrastructure and traffic away from U.S.


Expect more lines in the future to bypass the U.S.

If there was ever any doubt that there’s no privacy on the Internet, the latest nuggets from Edward Snowden’s trove of documents detailing U.S. electronic spying efforts should remove it. Stories on the ProPublica.org website and in the New York Times show how telecommunications companies have cooperated with the National Security Agency to trawl emails that pass through their systems, regardless of where the messages originate or where they are destined.… More