25% of the World's Internet Users Rely on Infrastructure That Is Susceptible to Attacks:
[...] About 25% of the world's Internet users live in countries that are more vulnerable to targeted attacks on their Internet infrastructure than previously thought. Many of the at-risk countries are located in the Global South, which broadly includes the regions of Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania.
That's the conclusion of a sweeping, large-scale study conducted by computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). The scientists surveyed 75 countries.
[...] The structure of Internet connectivity differs dramatically in different parts of the world. In many developed countries, such as the United States, a large number of Internet providers compete to provide services for a large number of users. These networks are directly connected to one another and exchange content, a process called direct peering. All the providers can also plug directly into the world's Internet infrastructure.
[...] In other nations, many of them still developing countries, most users rely on a handful of providers for Internet access, and one of these providers serves an overwhelming majority of users. Not only that, but those providers rely on a limited number of companies called transit autonomous systems to get access to the global Internet and traffic from other countries. Researchers found that often these transit autonomous system providers are state-owned.
Journal Reference:
Gamero-Garrido, Alexander, Carisimo, Esteban, Hao, Shuai, et al. Quantifying Nations' Exposure to Traffic Observation and#1, (DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-98785-5_29)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Booga1 on Monday May 30 2022, @08:46AM (1 child)
In my neighborhood there are four choices. Three of them are 1.5 mbps or less, and Comcast offers gigabit. I can guarantee you if you knocked Comcast out in my city you'd probably hit at least 80% of the population.
There may be a "large" number of ISPs in the US, but they've colluded to carve up regions so they don't actually compete with each other.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SomeGuy on Monday May 30 2022, @11:54AM
"In my neighborhood there are four choices."
How many of those are service repackagers?
Around here, there are effectively only two options - AT&T or Comcast. But there are several other companies that are more than happy to take your money, take a percentage, and then provide repackaged service through one of the above. Sometimes there are advantages doing it that way, but when things go wrong their useless brain-dead Indian tech support just forward the issues to AT&T or Comcast.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bradley13 on Monday May 30 2022, @10:05AM (8 children)
Is this paper an example of "publish or perish"? I mean, the results were obvious without doing any sort of study. The "Global South" (with 2-3 exceptions) consists of relatively poor countries. Which means less infrastructure. They have fewer telephone providers, fewer roads, fewer businesses, basically less of everything. I've spent some time in Ghana, among other places. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how good their infrastructure is, all things considered.
Fewer ISPs in poorer countries? What a surprise... /s
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Monday May 30 2022, @11:19AM (3 children)
I take it you are hand waving South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil and a few others away in your '2-3 exceptions'? You do realise that they account for a huge part of the southern hemisphere and are certainly not poor countries, don't you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2022, @12:03PM (2 children)
actually, the news coming out of south africa has been bad for several years now. or should I actively browse their local papers before saying that, because as a european I'm unlikely to hear about anything other than extreme news coming out of south africa?
And Brazil has proper slums, why wouldn't it be called a poor country?
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Monday May 30 2022, @03:41PM (1 child)
Brazil: GDP of 1.445 trillion USD (2020) is hardly poor. The USA has 'proper' slums - but it is still one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Australia has a GDP of 1.331 trillion USD (2020), so less than Brazil, but we don't tend to think of it in the same way..
According to the World Bank's most recent Logistics Performance Index for 2018-2019, Brazil ranks 56th out of 160 countries in the quality of its infrastructure. That is still comfortably in the top half.
It is easy to imagine that some countries are a long way behind because that is the sort of reporting that gets viewing figures on TV or readership in newspapers. But you should remember that the BRIC countries - those advancing quickly into significant global players - consist of Brazil, Russia, India and China. It is in that short list for a very good reason.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 01 2022, @06:30AM
Doesn't help to the internet penetration - probs a better metric would be GDP/sqm, where small and densely populated countries can afford internet mostly everywhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2022, @12:52PM (3 children)
you want an example of "publish or perish"? there's a long incomprehensible proof that 1+1=2 that was published some years ago by this pair of parasites.
and the whole community is idiotic, this has been cited 5 thousand times or so... https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=9773925232548545072&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2022, @04:07PM (2 children)
I'm not sure which link you're referring to on that Scholar page.
By the way, do you have a link to a shorter proof that starts from first principles?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2022, @06:23PM (1 child)
oh come on. I was referring to russel and whitehead (who were cited 5 thousand times. the google scholar link was supposed to give the list of citing papers).
I apologize. several people have told me I don't know how to make jokes, but I keep trying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 31 2022, @06:00AM
This is a great place to practice. If _anyone_ here ever gets a joke the planet might split in two. Morose bunch SN is.
That said and true, probably most of us aren't familiar enough with Russell and Whitehead to have grasped the humor. But thank you for trying. I appreciate levity, even when it's not quite LOL level.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2022, @10:14AM (6 children)
They're saying that 75% of Internet users only use infrastructure that isn't susceptible to attacks? That's a ridiculous assertion to make.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2022, @10:48AM (3 children)
So it's "people behind a single or few AS are susceptible to attacks because of that", eh?
Nice metric you have there, what a shame if any fact broke it ...
Did they consider China, hosting 20% of the worlds poulation, where the state *is* the attack? Is there any traffic inside or out of China that doesn't get filtered until clear of " dissent"?
Did they consider the US, with its multitude of interconnected AS, and *all* of them are bugged by the NSA? Basically running a half-china on all traffic?
You bet they didn't. But there you go: counterexamples for both sides of the argument.
(PS: refusing to RTFA due to cookie wall)
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday May 30 2022, @11:05AM (1 child)
Interesting - I am not seeing any cookie requirement from that site. I wonder who is inserting them?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2022, @12:39PM
According to the onsite privacy info it's the work of
---
Our privacy policy covers Ezoic Inc., Ezoic Limited and this Website:
Ezoic Inc.
6023 Innovation Way, Carlsbad, California, United States
Ezoic Limited
Northern Design Centre, Abbott's Hill, Gateshead, NE8 3DF United Kingdom
---
My location is in central continental Europe. I'm browsing with a quite-old Firefox on modified Android, with extensions AdBlock Plus and Privacy Badger enabled.
HTH?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday May 30 2022, @03:45PM
Here's the map: https://scitechdaily.com/images/Internet-Vulnerability-Map.jpg [scitechdaily.com]
I looked at the site using Old Opera, with javascript, cookies, etc., globally OFF. It came up fine.
Some sites use css that renders horribly in Old Opera, and a few lock Old Opera requiring right-click force close, and then you can "View -> Style -> User Mode" to turn off css for that page. Or turn it off globally, ymmv.
https://www.kyleabaker.com/goodies/opera/download-old-opera-versions/ [kyleabaker.com]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday May 30 2022, @10:54AM
If nothing else, essentially all Internet infrastructure is susceptible to admittedly-usually-not-intentional backhoe attacks.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Monday May 30 2022, @11:26AM
The opposite of that statement is 'less vulnerable' and not 'impervious' to attacks as you are suggesting they have asserted. They didn't say what you are claiming at all. They are saying that those in the northern hemisphere tend to be more resilient to attacks, but nobody is claiming that they are totally secure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2022, @11:59AM
But, it's, like, in the cloud. So it's safe and secure and nothing can go wrong. Yea.
Oh, hey, Ow My Balls is on!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2022, @05:11PM (1 child)
More than 25 percent of road/telco/water/electricity users rely on infrastructure that's susceptible to attacks.
Just bomb a few big power stations and dams even if the servers don't go down most users aren't going to be charging their phone or laptops for a while.
So just yawn. That's why any decent military has their own comms stuff.
Huh? The last I checked the USA is a joke when it comes to corporations "competing" to provide "first world" internet service to users: https://newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm [newnetworks.com]
So? Big fucking deal. There's been plenty of examples where having corporations take over utilities doesn't make things better or more reliable or even cheaper than when the government was running it. And in fact things got a LOT worse.
It's not as if this stuff needs multiple corporations to provide it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 31 2022, @06:06AM
One big stupid fact is the redundancy in having multiple supposedly competing corporations running any infrastructure. I would prefer a publicly-owned, open-books, non-profit. These giant corporations like Comcast are far too wealthy and there's no benefit to society.
(Score: 4, Informative) by MIRV888 on Monday May 30 2022, @07:59PM
If you have a means to bring down a natural gas distribution system, destroy a power plant turbine, or otherwise incapacitate or destroy vital infrastructure, you aren't going to advertise that fact.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2022, @11:22PM
i don't see a problem if the "glue" networks belong to clubbermint.
in any case, "national security" would trmup private (public listed with promise of dividends) ownership anytime.
this way at least it's transparent. however i can see that private ownership of glue networks might be preferable when local clubbermints are mostly just a glorified authorized toll booth without real interest or knowledge. money first (money buys everything), function is secondary.
give them rules and regulation, sit back, order martini and collect taxes ... is also a popular solution?