How Natural Disasters and Political Unrest Affect the Internet

Using data from approximately 1.4 million users of Ono and NEWS, software programs developed by the AquaLab research group of Fabián E. Bustamante, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the McCormick School of Engineering, researchers can get a glimpse of Internet traffic from the user perspective.

"Often people look at Internet traffic from either the network itself, at network routers, or from large Internet services, to see how a crisis might have affected Internet activity," Bustamante explains. "By using data from users of our software and collaborators, we're able to see beyond firewalls and NATs (Network Address Translators) and capture the view from the very edge of the network -- the users themselves."

By analyzing the data, the team found how users in Japan only showed reduced activity within the 24 hours after the earthquake. In the case of both Libya and Egypt, which have been subject to Internet shutdowns, the events can be clearly seen in sudden drops in the number of online users.

The software of Bustamante's group can also identify effects of network throttling, a practice of limiting the rate of data transfer to control congestion. Virgin Media, a large Internet service provider in the United Kingdom, recently completed a test of its new throttling policy, targeting peer-to-peer users. The user data showed that the policy had a dramatic effect on its users, at times cutting their upload capacity in half.

About Ono and NEWS

Ono (Hawaiian for "delicious") and NEWS (Network Early Warning System), are two of the software pieces developed in the AquaLab group, led by Bustamante.

Both are extensions to the popular BitTorrent peer-to-peer system. Ono addresses the tension between Internet Service Providers and some of their customers who use P2P services. The growing network traffic credited to P2P has driven service providers to forcefully reduce user services traffic at the expense of unhappy subscribers and the risk of government investigations.

Ono helps BitTorrent peers find other peers that are nearby, in a networking sense, by reusing the network "view" of other large-scale services such as content distribution networks (CDN) like Akamai and Limelight. CDN services redistribute content from popular websites on their servers around the world and redirect clients to nearby copies based on network conditions. Using the key assumption that two computers sent to the same CDN server are likely close to each other, Ono allows P2P users to quickly identify nearby users. Bustamante and his group have shown that Ono can provide over 30 percent average download rate improvement and, in environments with large available bandwidth, a 200 percent increase in download rates.
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UNESCO Director-General launches heritage and press freedom alert for Egypt

The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, today launched an appeal to protect cultural heritage and to respect freedom of expression in Egypt.

“My compassion goes first to the victims of the civil unrest and their families,” said Irina Bokova, deploring the deaths of 190 people during the protests.

The Director-General called on all parties to protect Egyptian cultural heritage, symbol of the country’s identity, and to respect freedom of expression, pillar of democracy. Although the situation in Egypt is evolving rapidly, reports from Egypt concerning these two domains are a cause for deep concern, the Director-General said.

“Egyptian cultural heritage, both its monuments and its artefacts, are part of the ancestral heritage of humanity, handed down to us through the ages,” she said. “The value of the 120,000 pieces in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo is inestimable, not only in scientific or financial terms, but because they represent the Egyptian people’s cultural identity. The proof, hundreds of citizens spontaneously formed a chain around the museum to protect it. I solemnly request that all necessary measures be taken to safeguard Egypt’s treasures, in Cairo, Luxor and in all the other cultural and historical sites around the country.”

Irina Bokova also expressed her concern for the state of free flow of information and press freedom in the country. Internet service has been discontinued. According to numerous reports, a number of journalists have been arrested and their equipment confiscated. Reporters covering the protests have been beaten. Furthermore, several media have had their licenses suspended and their satellite broadcasting blocked.

“It is crucial that both national and foreign press be allowed to perform their duty of informing the public from an objective perspective,” stressed the Director-General. “Preventing the media from doing their job will not restore calm or create the conditions necessary for constructive dialogue.”

Egypt, as one of the founding members of UNESCO, has always worked closely with the Organization, especially in the field of culture. Egypt has seven World Heritage sites. The Centre for Nubian Studies at the Nubia Museum in Aswan and the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo were created with UNESCO support. The Organization was also closely involved in the revival of the famous Library of Alexandria, destroyed over 2000 years ago, as a focal point for culture, education and science in the Arab region. In education, Egypt is a member of the E9 (most populous countries) and was one of the first states in the region to set up a national committee within the framework of Education for All (EFA).

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