Only 13 Computers?
I was shocked today when I read an article at CNN.com about a computer hacking attack that took place. What is so shocking about computer hacking? Afterall, some of the world's most "secure" servers have been compromised. What could there possibly be on the hacking front that hasn't been seen before?
In truth, it wasn't the hacking itself that shocked me. It was this line: "Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three of the 13 computers that help manage global computer traffic." 13 computers? There are 13 computers that help to manage global computer traffic? Do you know how many computers there are on the internet? Millions. Do you know how much traffic is generated daily on the internet? Perhaps as much as an exabyte (1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bytes or 1 billion gigbytes)? That is one figure that I'm not at all sure of. Regardless, there is a lot of daily internet traffic. And to think that there are 13 computers sitting somewhere that are helping to direct all of that!
Of course, I realize that these 13 computers aren't the only computers serving and directing data. Significant portions of the workload have been distributed around the world, but still, to think that there are 13 computers that are responsible for the bulk of internet traffic management is astounding to me.
This intrigued me, so I did a little digging, and found a study that was done at my place of employment - UC Berkeley - in 2003. The study aimed to estimate the amount of data generated worldwide each year. The study is called "How Much Information?" According to the study, the "size of the internet" in 2002 was about 92 pedabytes. This represents raw data that existed on the internet as webpages. In addition, it was estimated that there were ~441 pedabytes of original e-mail data (excluding forwards and quotes replies). That was in 2002. It is now 2007, and I suspect that the internet is far larger than that with the recent advances in video on the internet. Even this blog entry is adding to the the size of the internet right now.