[p2p-research] How peering is changing the shape of the Internet

[Samuel Rose]

Thanks Matt

On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 1:46 AM, Matt Boggs <matt at digiblade.com> wrote:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/science/02topo.html?src=sch&pagewanted=all
>
>
> Peering goes back to the earliest days of the Internet, when organizations
> would directly connect their networks instead of paying yet another company
> to route data traffic. Originally, the companies that owned the backbone of
> the Internet shared traffic. In recent years, however, the practice has
> increased to the point where some researchers who study the way global
> networks are put together believe that peering is changing the fundamental
> shape of the Internet, with serious consequences for its stability and
> security. Others see the vast increase in traffic staying within a structure
> that has remained essentially the same.
> What is clear is that today a significant portion of Internet traffic does
> not flow through the backbone networks of giant Internet companies like AT&T
> and Level 3. Instead, it has begun to cascade in torrents of data on the
> edges of the network, as if a river in flood were carving new channels.
>


I think it is not just the traffic, but also how the information
flowing is used, how it is synthesized into knowledge, (how it
transforms from one type of resource to another). How this then
feedsback into the system dynamically etc

Just as it is not enough in natural systems to know that water flows
through tributaries, in order to understand the system. You also want
to know where the water comes from, how ecosystems use the water, what
the water turns into (gas, solid, liquid, etc), and how the dynamics
of living systems affect and are affected. Seems the same with digital
flows. H, and humans (and our machines). How are human systems
affected on different scales? What do people do with the information
and data that is flowing in the system? This is much more difficult to
see, of course.

On the other hand, "peering" seems like a natural emergence, as more
people get online and capacity of commercial systems doesn't afford or
can't handle volume or nature of access.


-- 
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Sam Rose
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