The Internet I.R.L.

Jun 05, 2015 · 11 comments
Nicole (Pennsylvania)
While I find these photos fascinating and the project's goal laudable, it seems wildly irresponsible to publish these buildings' precise locations in this age of terrorism in which we live. Would it not have been equally sufficient to just label a building as being in Philadelphia, Pa. or Los Angeles, Ca.?
OpposeBadThings (United Kingdom)
As with so much, these things develop almost by accident, incremental at first then an uncoordinated rush. Is it any wonder that with the massive pace of internet advancement it happened in physical form, so haphazardly and with little thought to position or security?

The time however, has come for some serious thought as to what to do about the security and medium-long term structural reliability of the physical internet in the event of a major disaster - natural or man made. Our vulnerability is clear, so now we know it what are we going to do about it?
Bicycle Bob (Chicago IL)
The internet is an adjective, not a noun. It isn't anything it just describes something.
Many networks exist, connected by an inter-network that we know of as the internet.
Any internet is always spelled lower-case.
OSS Architect (San Francisco)
With the exception of the Google data center all the buildings shown here are old. Built in the early hay days of the Bell System. Another reminder that America's infrastructure is waiting for investment.
Bicycle Bob (Chicago IL)
Why aren't companies investing in this needed infrastructure? It would be better than keeping the money in offshore banks or paying their executives so much.
eusebio vestias (Portugal)
I love technology
bosconet (Baltimore MD)
What no pictures of MAE East or MAE West?
Brian G. (NYC)
That was exactly my thought too! I remember running tracerouts for cross country traffic and always seeing one of those pop up in the reverse lookups.
curtis dickinson (Worcester)
Nondescript buildings. Let's have a look inside.
WastingTime (DC)
Giving the physical address seems irresponsible. Hi, Terrorists! Here we are! I sure hope every tenant in that building either moves out posthaste or has a fully redundant system. The hackers must marvel at how stupid and incompetent we are (IRS, OPM...really? Why is our government so bloody incompetent?)
Charlotte (New York)
Since this information isn't classified, I'm surprised there isn't a little more security being implemented at these sites. Or are we to think that that is invisible as well?
--Charlotte