Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S.

JOHN MARKOFF
NY Times
Saturday, Aug 30, 2008

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.

(Article continues below)

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.

Full article here

• 
• Social bookmarks
• 
• Email this article
• 
• Print this page

Comment Terms Of Use

10 Responses to “Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S.”

1. Nescio Says:
   August 30th, 2008 at 6:05 am

   The era of the American Internet is ending…..as it should be.
   Far too powerfull a tool in the hands of someone proven to be so irrisponsible and power-hungry.

2. Cotton Mather Says:
   August 30th, 2008 at 6:28 am

   You mean, sort of like the Neocons?

3. Thomas Jefferson Says:
   August 30th, 2008 at 6:29 am

   Yes, some people seem to have a problem with free speech unless it’s their idea free speech, so of course, they would approve the internet ending.

4. Heyman Nationwide Says:
   August 30th, 2008 at 6:34 am

   Nescio? You’re right! I’m a born and bred American. I can see that far too many morons live in my country. All they care about is trivial bullshit. And what’s on television. They all deserve to be rounded up and put in FEMA detention camps.
   Not prepared. Don’t have a clue how to gut a wild animal. Or live off the forest.
   Friggin’ morons.
   Myself?
   I’m leaving EVERYTHING when the jerks declare martial law. Not telling NO ONE where I’m going.
   What’s your game plan?

5. medicis Says:
   August 30th, 2008 at 8:53 am

   Nescio …. in the first post: You have that exactly correct.

6. medicis Says:
   August 30th, 2008 at 8:57 am

   Heyman Nationwide … I sympathize with your feeling but no one should ever be put in a FEMA camp except the perps … after open, transparent and constitutionally correct trials for treason to the Republic.

7. MAC Says:
   August 30th, 2008 at 11:43 am

   Do you know what Microsoft really means?

   http://illuminatimatrix.wordpr.....oss-oft-i/

   Now you will.
   Don’t bite that apple…

8. Alienation Says:
   August 30th, 2008 at 6:53 pm

   Many would argue that it has already ended. Been on a business trip to Beijing lately? Learn some computer science and then see how easy it is to exploit DNS caching and then tell me how you can be 100% confident you’ve never been hijacked. Unless you wrote it yourself, the only thing you will ever see on your screen is what someone else wants you to see on your screen. Happy world wide wibbling…

9. FLAWED ARGUMENT Says:
   August 31st, 2008 at 8:05 pm

   The world will trundle on without America. just as it did before America existed.

   In fact its ending might be a boon to mankind.
   It might be positively beneficial.
   The USA has no credibility left.
   Its govt sh!ts on its civilians and in turn the civilians lay down to be sh!t on.
   They both deserve to be ended.

10. wolfgang Says:
    March 6th, 2009 at 7:22 pm

    hmmm….. wonder if the concentration camps will have internet access…
    oh well…. fuck the NWO