Posts tagged internet

The World’s Fastest Internet Cities Each quarter, Akamai, one of the world’s largest content delivery networks, issues its State of the Internet Report.  In this chart they look at the global average connection speed by city. South Korea, as usual, tops the list. Then its almost exclusively Japan — with the exception of Umea and Goteborg in Sweden — until we get out of the top 50. Boston is the first US city to make the list, checking in at number 51 with an average speed of 8.4Mbps. For those living in New Jersey, congratulations. North Bergen and Jersey City are the second and third fastest US cities (and 52nd and 58th fastest globally).  The only other countries with cities in the top 100 are Latvia (Riga at 76), Australia (Canberra at 78), Canada (Victoria, BC at 81 and Oakville, ON at 97) and Romania (Timisoara at 89). The speed differential within the global top 100 is immense. Global number one Taegu, South Korea (21.8 Mbps), for example, is more than three times faster than number 99 Hartford, CT (7.0 Mbps). Akamai’s State of the Internet Report has some interactives where you can select metrics such as average speeds and broadband adoption against a global map. Not surprisingly, countries in the northern hemisphere perform much better than those in the south. Image: Detail from the world’s fastest Internet cities from Akamai’s State of the Internet Report

The World’s Fastest Internet Cities

Each quarter, Akamai, one of the world’s largest content delivery networks, issues its State of the Internet Report. 

In this chart they look at the global average connection speed by city. South Korea, as usual, tops the list. Then its almost exclusively Japan — with the exception of Umea and Goteborg in Sweden — until we get out of the top 50.

Boston is the first US city to make the list, checking in at number 51 with an average speed of 8.4Mbps.

For those living in New Jersey, congratulations. North Bergen and Jersey City are the second and third fastest US cities (and 52nd and 58th fastest globally). 

The only other countries with cities in the top 100 are Latvia (Riga at 76), Australia (Canberra at 78), Canada (Victoria, BC at 81 and Oakville, ON at 97) and Romania (Timisoara at 89).

The speed differential within the global top 100 is immense. Global number one Taegu, South Korea (21.8 Mbps), for example, is more than three times faster than number 99 Hartford, CT (7.0 Mbps).

Akamai’s State of the Internet Report has some interactives where you can select metrics such as average speeds and broadband adoption against a global map. Not surprisingly, countries in the northern hemisphere perform much better than those in the south.

Image: Detail from the world’s fastest Internet cities from Akamai’s State of the Internet Report

Data Tools, Data Challenges

Bitly Data Chief Hilary Mason explains how the company’s infrastructure is set up, what challenges she sees ahead for data science and offers a wish list of tools she hopes the community will come together to create.

Last week, we posted other segments from this interview. They include getting started with data and how to to work with data. They can be viewed here.

How to Work With Data

The other day, Bitly’s data chief Hilary Mason explained how to get started with data.

Today, she discusses how to work with data, from getting it, to exploring it to interpreting it.

A while back, Hilary and Columbia mathematician Chris Wiggins wrote about this process, called it a taxonomy of data science, and gave a roughly chronological account of what one does with data: Obtain, Scrub, Explore, Model and iNterpret.

No, that’s not a typo, it’s part of an acronym: OSEMN, which rhymes with possum, which means you pronounce it “awesome”.

To get more details than Hilary offers here, check their article. It offers code examples and tools and tricks to work through each of the steps above.

Thou Shalt Not Commit Logical Fallacies The Internet: where arguments know no bounds. As technology writer Mike Elgan writes: Most people who argue and debate online… commit standard, well-understood logical fallacies. The problem with this is that debates never go anywhere, and they take forever to get there. By calling people on their logical fallacies, you can shorten arguments, and everyone can learn from debate. So enter Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies, a site that teaches us about flaws in reasoning. In particular, the logical fallacy: A logical fallacy is usually what has happened when someone is wrong about something. It’s a flaw in reasoning. They’re like tricks or illusions of thought, and they’re often very sneakily used by politicians and the media to fool people. In an argument? Simply hit the site and mouse over an icon to see what logical fallacy you’re butting up against. They range from the Slippery Slope to the Texas Sharp Shooter. Pro Tip: Works for offline arguments as well. Just download the free poster from the site. Image: Screenshot of a Slippery Slope. Via Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies

Thou Shalt Not Commit Logical Fallacies

The Internet: where arguments know no bounds.

As technology writer Mike Elgan writes:

Most people who argue and debate online… commit standard, well-understood logical fallacies.

The problem with this is that debates never go anywhere, and they take forever to get there.

By calling people on their logical fallacies, you can shorten arguments, and everyone can learn from debate.

So enter Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies, a site that teaches us about flaws in reasoning. In particular, the logical fallacy:

A logical fallacy is usually what has happened when someone is wrong about something. It’s a flaw in reasoning. They’re like tricks or illusions of thought, and they’re often very sneakily used by politicians and the media to fool people.

In an argument? Simply hit the site and mouse over an icon to see what logical fallacy you’re butting up against. They range from the Slippery Slope to the Texas Sharp Shooter.

Pro Tip: Works for offline arguments as well. Just download the free poster from the site.

Image: Screenshot of a Slippery Slope. Via Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies

The Internet’s Population Doubled Over the Last Five Years

Royal Pingdom susses out some interesting trends about the world’s 2.27 billion Internet users:

  • Africa has gone from 34 million to 140 million, a 317% increase.
  • Asia has gone from 418 million to over 1 billion, a 143% increase.
  • Europe has gone from 322 million to 501 million, a 56% increase.
  • The Middle East has gone from 20 to 77 million, a 294% increase.
  • North America has gone from 233 to 273 million, a 17% increase.
  • Latin America (South & Central America) has gone from 110 to 236 million, a 114% increase.
  • Oceania (including Australia) has gone from 19 to 24 million, a 27% increase.

They also note that Asia’s Internet population is almost as large* the entire Internet population was in 2007.

*My original post stated that Asia’s Internet population was almost double, not almost as large. Thanks to Anna for catching that.

[It] is threatening the rights of people in America, and effectively rights everywhere, because what happens in America tends to affect people all over the world. Even though the Sopa and Pipa acts were stopped by huge public outcry, it’s staggering how quickly the US government has come back with a new, different, threat to the rights of its citizens.

In an interview with The Guardian, Web godfather Tim Berners-Lee warns about a proposed US bill called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act that would increase the government’s ability to enforce patents and copyright.

CISPA is the love child of the recently defeated SOPA and PIPA bills that attempted to do more or less the same.

Today over half of all Internet traffic is video—51 percent. And based on the current trends, we predict that in the next three years over 90 percent of all Internet traffic will be video.

David Hsieh, VP for Marketing and Emerging Technologies, Cisco. 90% Of Web Traffic Will Be Video.

Just noting that total traffic doesn’t mean total amount of content but the numbers blow my mind when I think back to where online video was just 10 years ago.

Iran's Halal Internet Coming Soon?

If you’re a government that believes the Internet “promotes crime, disunity, unhealthy moral content, and atheism” there seem to be two options: unplug or roll your own.

Reports are appearing that indicate Iran’s going with the latter and will launch of a countrywide intranet to save the masses from online evils.

Via the International Business Times:

Millions of Internet users in Iran will be permanently denied access to the World Wide Web and cut off from popular social networking sites and email services, as the government has announced its plans to establish a national Intranet within five months.

In a statement released Thursday, Reza Taghipour, the Iranian minister for Information and Communications Technology, announced the setting up of a national Intranet and the effective blockage of services like Google, Gmail, Google Plus, Yahoo and Hotmail, in line with Iran’s plan for a “clean Internet.”

The government is set to roll out the first phase of the project in May, following which Google, Hotmail and Yahoo services will be blocked and replaced with government Intranet services like Iran Mail and Iran Search Engine. At this stage, however, the World Wide Web, apart from the aforementioned sites, will still be accessible.

In a follow-up, the IBT reports that Iran’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology denies they’ll block Iranians’ access to the wider Web and blames information about it on Western propaganda.

The idea of an Iranian Internet isn’t new. Last year, Al Jazeera among others reported that the effort was in the works, with Technology Review writing:

It would be unlikely, but not technically impossible, for Iran to step up its censorship and filtering regime to create this “halal Internet.” After all, most Cubans, for example, are priced out of the actual Internet and steered towards the Cuban equivalent, which is restricted to an internal e-mail network, and a handful of pro-government sites. In a similar vein, the Chinese Internet is limited largely only to websites that the government doesn’t view as threatening.

What Happens in an Internet Minute Via Intel: In just one minute, more than 204 million emails are sent. Amazon rings up about $83,000 in sales. Around 20 million photos are viewed and 3,000 uploaded on Flickr. At least 6 million Facebook pages are viewed around the world. And more than 61,000 hours of music are played on Pandora while more than 1.3 million video clips are watched on YouTube. All in all, that’s 625 terabytes of information sloshing about the tubes each minute. If we do some math that’s 878.9 petabytes per day which is a bit difficult to wrap our mind around. But if we convert that to the universal measurement of the MP3, we get the equivalent of about 235.9 billion songs passing through the internet and mobile networks each day.

What Happens in an Internet Minute

Via Intel:

In just one minute, more than 204 million emails are sent. Amazon rings up about $83,000 in sales. Around 20 million photos are viewed and 3,000 uploaded on Flickr. At least 6 million Facebook pages are viewed around the world. And more than 61,000 hours of music are played on Pandora while more than 1.3 million video clips are watched on YouTube.

All in all, that’s 625 terabytes of information sloshing about the tubes each minute.

If we do some math that’s 878.9 petabytes per day which is a bit difficult to wrap our mind around.

But if we convert that to the universal measurement of the MP3, we get the equivalent of about 235.9 billion songs passing through the internet and mobile networks each day.

The Outernet FJP: Had to repost. Cartoon by John Atkinson. Click through to see his other stuff.  H/T: pleatedjeans, for the find.

The Outernet

FJP: Had to repost. Cartoon by John Atkinson. Click through to see his other stuff. 

H/T: pleatedjeans, for the find.

pleatedjeans

ICANN Confirms it Will Work Closely with Governments to Shutter Domains Over Copyright Infringement

At the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers global meeting in Costa Rica this week, ICANN board members confirmed they will work closely with governmental bodies to shut down domains that are accused of copyright infringement.

ICANN governs the global naming system of the Internet.

Via Computer World:

Efforts to take down websites for copyright infringement are likely to move beyond U.S.-based registries, with ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) promising to more closely cooperate with global law enforcement agencies and governments…

…During an open session with the Government Advisory Committee (GAC), the ICANN board confirmed that it will enforce its contracts with registrars more effectively in order to meet expectations from governments and law enforcement authorities. The expectations were contained in a 12- page document submitted by the GAC, which also includes representatives from national law enforcement agencies as well as Interpol.

While ICANN itself will not shutter domains, its participation and support for law enforcement efforts will enable governments creating SOPA-style laws to more easily pursue and shut down alleged copyright infringers.

[W]e tend to think of the information age as something entirely new. In fact, people have been wrestling with information for many centuries. If I was going to say when the information age started, I would probably say the 15th century with the invention of the mechanical clock, which turned time into a measurable flow, and the printing press, which expanded our ability to tap into other kinds of thinking. The information age has been building ever since then.

In an interview with The Browser, Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains, discusses a number of books that inform his thinking. 

The Browser, Nicholas Carr on Impact of the Information Age.

Click through for the interview and Carr’s book recommendations

The Battle Over Online Freedom Continues The clash between citizens and governments over online freedom of expression is growing, according to a new report by Reporters Without Borders. Called Beset by Online Surveillance and Content Filtering, Netizens Fight On, the study explores how both authoritarian and democratic governments attempt to control online activity. To do so, the authors label a number of countries such as Syria, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Bahrain, Iran and Turkmenistan among others as “Enemies of the Internet”; and say countries such as Australia, France, Egypt, Eritrea and India among others are “Countries Under Surveillance.” Through this lens, the report’s authors declare, “More than ever before, online freedom of expression is now a major foreign and domestic policy issue,” and outline how: Internet and mobile phone shutdowns are occurring more frequently Content filtering is increasing Content removal is increasing Pressure on Internet Service Providers and Web site owners to police content is increasing Surveillance is more effective and more intrusive Government propaganda is increasing Cyber attacks are increasing Arrests, raids and roundups are increasing While not a pretty picture for online freedoms the report does include examples of how citizens are fighting back. For example: In order to combat increasingly competent censors, self-styled “hacktivists” have been giving technical assistance to vulnerable netizens to help them share information in the face of pervasive censorship. The campaigns on behalf of the Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad and Syria’s Razan Ghazzawi have transcended international borders. The hashtag #OpSyria, started by Telecomix – a decentralised network of net activists committed to freedom of expression – has allowed Syrians to broadcast videos of the crackdown. An overview of the report can be found here. The full report is available here (PDF). Image: Wordcloud of Beset by Online Surveillance and Content Filtering, Netizens Fight On. Created with Wordle.

The Battle Over Online Freedom Continues

The clash between citizens and governments over online freedom of expression is growing, according to a new report by Reporters Without Borders.

Called Beset by Online Surveillance and Content Filtering, Netizens Fight On, the study explores how both authoritarian and democratic governments attempt to control online activity. To do so, the authors label a number of countries such as Syria, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Bahrain, Iran and Turkmenistan among others as “Enemies of the Internet”; and say countries such as Australia, France, Egypt, Eritrea and India among others are “Countries Under Surveillance.”

Through this lens, the report’s authors declare, “More than ever before, online freedom of expression is now a major foreign and domestic policy issue,” and outline how:

  • Internet and mobile phone shutdowns are occurring more frequently
  • Content filtering is increasing
  • Content removal is increasing
  • Pressure on Internet Service Providers and Web site owners to police content is increasing
  • Surveillance is more effective and more intrusive
  • Government propaganda is increasing
  • Cyber attacks are increasing
  • Arrests, raids and roundups are increasing

While not a pretty picture for online freedoms the report does include examples of how citizens are fighting back. For example:

In order to combat increasingly competent censors, self-styled “hacktivists” have been giving technical assistance to vulnerable netizens to help them share information in the face of pervasive censorship. The campaigns on behalf of the Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad and Syria’s Razan Ghazzawi have transcended international borders. The hashtag #OpSyria, started by Telecomix – a decentralised network of net activists committed to freedom of expression – has allowed Syrians to broadcast videos of the crackdown.

An overview of the report can be found here. The full report is available here (PDF).

Image: Wordcloud of Beset by Online Surveillance and Content Filtering, Netizens Fight On. Created with Wordle.

Why We Need to Keep the Internet Dumb

Doc Searls reminds us that in the digital world we do not own what we think we might own and points to common objects like books and music to demonstrate his point.

That CD on your shelf? It’s a physical object. You own it in the traditional sense. Can do pretty much what you want with it be it ripping it or giving it or selling it to another person.

Downloaded digital objects? Not so much. Instead of ownership we’re given licensed rights to use it, and that license can change at any time. So terms of use such as this one from Amazon tells us: “Digital Content is licensed, not sold, to you by the Content Provider.” Or as this one from Apple that Searls points out: “Apple reserves the right to modify the Usage Rules at any time.”

This has all been well discussed before. Where it gets interesting is how mobile and internet bandwidth providers are trying to get into the licensing — or endless subscription — game.

Via Searls:

Same with TV. Nothing you watch on your cable or satellite systems is yours. In most cases the gear isn’t yours either. It’s a subscription service you rent and pay for monthly. Companies in the cable and telephone business would very much like the Internet to work the same way. Everything becomes billable, regularly, continuously. All digital pipes turn into metered spigots for “content” and services on the telephony model, where you pay for easily billable data forms such as minutes and texts. (If AT&T or Verizon ran email you’d pay by the message, or agree to a “deal” for X number of emails per month.)…

Searls then points to this remarkable article in the Wall Street Journal that explores how telecoms are increasingly trying to move away from being the “dumb pipes” through which Internet traffic moves by privileging certain content and services for their subscribers.

One of Europe’s biggest wireless companies recently started offering a new plan in France: For less than $14 a month, customers could get unlimited Web browsing on their phones.

The catch—the Internet was limited to Twitter and Facebook. Every 20 minutes spent on any other website cost nearly 70 cents.

France Telecom SA’s Orange Group is one of several wireless carriers around the world experimenting with slicing up the Web into limited offerings and exclusive deals they hope will bring marketing advantages or higher profits…

…At the mobile-phone trade show [in Barcelona] this week, Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co. offered a glimpse of such a technology. One tap of a tablet screen running Huawei’s software opened up more Internet bandwidth for a user paying more. Another function would let cellphone carriers limit which websites certain users can access, or charge them differently for different Web domains, a spokesman said.

This slicing and dicing of access, of providing privileged access to content or services of one type over that of another, is exactly the behavior that open Internet and network neutrality proponents have constantly warned against.

The Googles, Twitters, Facebooks, Amazons and Tumblrs of the world were able to launch, thrive and survive because there were no barriers to them getting online, or for consumers to access their goods and services. An open Web provides an open market place where the quality of what they do determines the success of what they do, not privileged treatment by network providers.

The dumb pipes that telecoms are trying to overturn are quite smart in this regard. You can launch whatever it is you’d like to launch in the digital space and its success (or failure) will be determined by its merits.

But siloing access — and siloing content — to run in particular ways on particular networks defeats that meritocracy. Listen to what this startup exec tells the Wall Street Journal:

“There isn’t a level playing field, quite frankly,” said Dilawar Syed, chief executive of Yonja Media Group, which runs a social network in Turkey, where Turkcell allows unlimited Facebook access for about $2 a month.

Mr. Syed said his company, whose site has more than six million members, is responding by designing Yonja’s mobile interface to consume less data and in turn lower the cost for users.

Translated: Yonja is forced to build a substandard mobile product because otherwise its six million members will be charged an arm and a leg by the likes of Turkcell to use it.

Similar telecom strategies are coming to the States. The FCC’s network neutrality rules, for example, are more stringent for landline networks than mobile ones. The result, as the WSJ tells us, is that AT&T and Verizon are looking at models like those we’re seeing abroad to squeeze more revenue out of their networks. The common theme is to shift costs back to content and services companies:

AT&T turned heads at a mobile-industry conference in Barcelona this week, after one of the second-largest U.S. carrier’s executives described in an interview a plan to shift some of the cost of data traffic onto the companies that generate it.

Network and technology head John Donovan said in an interview that he was working on a product that would allow Web developers and content providers to pick up the tab for the mobile data their products consume, meaning that certain movies and apps wouldn’t count against AT&T users’ data plans.

Put another way, AT&T is thinking about requiring companies to pay them in order for customers to have a good experience with their products and services.

There are different words for this. Shakedown is one. Protection racket are some others. I prefer extortion.