Okay, taking work work hat off and tossing across the room...
Wow, out of touch for a few days any everyone has started buying their
tin foil in bulk.
When you talk to anything in the Internet, they can collect a truly
ridiculous amount of information.
If you "use their services" (as in have an account with them) they can
collect even more.
All in all, it is far more than any reasonable person should be
comfortable with.
But, it is no different than shopping at the local grocery or bulk store
with a CC, or with a CC and membership card.
Distributed content systems (Google Cache, Netflix Cache, Akamai cache,
etc) are pretty simple...
They have a bunch of content engines scattered around the network.
You hit a load director...
The load director sends you to the closest/best engine that contains
that content.
Content providers love them, they reduce load on the providers core and
improve performance for their users.
Service providers love them because they reduce load on long-haul links
and /smooth out/ peak time loads (cache engines load content off peak).
End users generally love them (even when they do not realize they are
there) because it puts the content much, much closer to them and greatly
improves performance.
It is lazy, it is cheap but all on a good way that improves things for
all parties.
Simple example....
Apple product download (software patch for the Mac or iTunes content) or
a Netflix movie......
Without the local content engines... Around here you are looking at
pulling the content 1200 miles or more... That is at least 7 hops and
35ms+ RTT just to get to the L48...
Or, your system makes the request of the load director, it sends you to
the "local" server...And the content comes from say... <3ms, 5ms or 10ms
away from the DSL head ends in the 3 largest markets.
The data these devices can collect is the data you "GIVE THEM" by using
the services...
It does not matter if the content comes from the content provider core,
from a cache engine located at a provider along the path or from a cache
engine inside of your direct ISP. The data that is available to them
does not change, only the loading of the provider network and *your
performance* changes.
Sure, be aware or even paranoid about the sheer volume of info you share
with the world, but local cache engines anre not part of a conspiracy,
and do not "improve the ability" of third parties to collect info about you.
Or, look at US wiretap related laws, the ones that any US based
communications provider must follow, this is unrelated to content
engines but along closer to what all of the fuss is about.
And of course, do not confuse a content engine with a forced proxy cache
or an intercept system.
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Received on Wed Oct 16 23:01:34 2013
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Wed Oct 16 2013 - 23:01:34 AKDT