Who owns the physical Internet and where is it?

谁拥有物理互联网？它在哪里？

• 批准号: 2603217
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Queen Mary University of London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2603217
• 关键词: Who; owns; physical; Internet; where

I propose to examine the data centres, physical connectivity, route servers, infrastructure that is the internet, using location, ownership, real time access statistics, long term trends and future scenarios; mining public databases, property transactions and traffic reports to build a real time model of the Internet.The Internet ('it') as a 'Thing' is now part of everyday life, used by consumers, governments, experts/ specialists alike. It's something tangible yet sacred, modern yet fixed (and unchangeable), worth trusting yet constantly misunderstood and feared. 'It' is regularly studied, yet unknown. 'It' needs serious examination.On paper, the Internet is simple: Computer devices (PCs/mobile phones/ servers/ sensors, etc.) are attached to a worldwide network of physical cables, connected with varying degrees of sophistication/ difficulty, interlinked with 'agreements' about how and where to route data sent on these cables to these devices. Humans use, or (rarely) programme these devices; as end users, providers or operators of services. This has not changed in decades. The Internet's early systems and public sector, well-designed protocols were built to last, and they did.'It' underpins transactions in many sectors (military, banking, business, commerce, academia, government, communication via email and VOIP, consumer retail, travel, media consumption and distribution, HR recruitment and company expansion) and, more importantly, all transactions in most new sectors/ regions.Much time and effort go into studies of its 'governance', security, retail price to 'use' it (for consumers), cost and reliability ('5 9s') for providers offering services 'on' it, its 'interoperability' and 'standards' (between such disparate players as DPRK, US or India, the North and South Pole stations, space vehicles and undersea machines) whilst little to no attention is paid to the materials that make up the Internet itself, or its geography and ownership.The Internet is - almost uniquely in history - a physical thing, used constantly, by billions of people, whose material location(s), ownership, and rules are unknown (and yet not 'secret') - it just is. But where and what is it? Almost all of the research, knowledge and facts about its material existence is in of one of three areas:1. Being "on the Internet" (e.g. cost as a home user of an ISP, or a mobile user, or more rarely as someone whose business has 'an Internet presence' somewhere else, e.g. updating a blog)2. Paying for a commodity/ utility/luxury sent via the Internet (e.g. a book, or Netflix, or a 'cloud' service)3. The cost and value of employing labour to work 'on the Internet' - e.g. a new business with a websiteKnowledge of the ownership of the Internet itself (as productive labour/ constant capital) the actual cables and server rooms that make up the global Internet, the workers who operate them, install them, and upgrade/ censor/ monitor/fix or remove them remains unknown, is dismissed as 'techie' or is viewed as a natural law. What is it? Where is it? Who owns and controls it?This topic will be addressed in 3 stages:1. State of the art literature review, existing systems analysis and expert discussion - what data is currently available to begin building a picture of the current Internet?2. Toolchain building and data source examination- what data sources can be connected, scraped, created, in order to make this picture richer?3. Front end, societal and economic analysis - what can be deduced, inferred or claimed from this richer picture?To be updated by end of 2023

我建议检查数据中心，物理连接，路由服务器，互联网基础设施，使用位置，所有权，真实的时间访问统计数据，长期趋势和未来情景;挖掘公共数据库，财产交易和交通报告，以建立互联网的真实的时间模型。互联网（“它”）作为一个“东西”现在是日常生活的一部分，被消费者，政府，专家/专家一样。它是有形而神圣的，现代而固定（和不可改变），值得信任，但不断误解和恐惧。“它”经常被研究，但未知。从纸面上看，互联网很简单：计算机设备（个人电脑/移动的电话/服务器/传感器等）连接到物理电缆的全球网络，以不同程度的复杂性/难度连接，与关于如何以及在何处将在这些电缆上发送的数据路由到这些设备的“协议”互连。人类使用或（很少）编程这些设备;作为最终用户，服务提供商或运营商。这一点几十年来都没有改变。互联网的早期系统和公共部门，精心设计的协议是为了持久而建立的，他们做到了。它支撑着许多行业的交易（军事，银行，商业，商业，学术界，政府，通过电子邮件和VOIP通信，消费零售，旅游，媒体消费和分销，人力资源招聘和公司扩张），更重要的是，在大多数新的行业/地区的所有交易。（对消费者而言）、成本和可靠性（“5个9”）、提供服务的供应商的“互操作性”和“标准”（在朝鲜、美国或印度等不同的参与者之间，在北极站和南极站之间，在太空飞行器和海底机器之间），虽然很少或根本没有注意到构成互联网本身的材料，互联网是--在历史上几乎是独一无二的--一个物理的东西，被数十亿人不断地使用，他们的物质位置，所有权和规则都是未知的（但也不是“秘密”）--它就是。但它在哪里，又是什么？几乎所有关于它的物质存在的研究，知识和事实都是在三个领域之一：1。“在互联网上”（例如，作为ISP的家庭用户或移动的用户，或更罕见的是作为其业务在其他地方有“互联网存在”的人，例如更新博客）2.支付通过互联网发送的商品/公用事业/奢侈品（例如书籍或Netflix或“云”服务）3.雇用劳动力在“互联网”上工作的成本和价值-例如，拥有网站的新企业对互联网本身所有权的了解（作为生产劳动力/不变资本）构成全球互联网的实际电缆和服务器机房，操作它们、安装它们、升级/审查/监视/修理或拆除它们的工人仍然未知，被认为是“技术人员”或被视为自然法则。什么事？它在哪里？谁拥有和控制它？本课题将分三个阶段进行研究：1.最先进的文献综述、现有系统分析和专家讨论--目前有哪些数据可用于开始构建当前互联网的图景？2.工具链构建和数据源检查-可以连接、抓取、创建哪些数据源，以使这幅图更丰富？3.前端、社会和经济分析--从这一更丰富的图景中可以推断、推断或声称什么？将于2023年底前更新