Tubes
by Andrew Blum · first published 2012
60% recommend40% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Accessible tour of the physical internet: data centers, exchange points, carriers and undersea cables, told in a travel-memoir style. Suited to non-technical readers curious about network infrastructure.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A travel book exploring the physical places and connections of the infrastructure of the Internet. Along the way, he explores data warehouses, meets some of the historical figures in the creation of the Internet and the people who keep everything humming along so we can get on with our virtual lives.
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What Hacker News says
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"Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet" by Andrew Blum - This book takes readers on a tour of the physical infrastructure that underpins the internet, including the network of undersea cables that connect…
on “U.S. and China wage war beneath the waves – over internet cables” ↗I heartily recommend Andrew Blum's book Tubes: Behind the Scenes at the Internet for any non-technical folks interested in the physical infrastructure that makes all that internet magic happen. It's more in the travel memoir/popular history genres…
on “Equiano, a subsea cable from Portugal to South Africa” ↗"Tubes: a Journey to the Center of the Internet" by Andrew Blum[1] examines the transatlantic cables from a historical perspective, along with the rest of the internet. It's not especially technical and he talks…
on “Eyeballing US Transatlantic Cable Landings” ↗Nice read, thank you. See also Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061994952/
on “Google Invests in $300M Submarine Cable to Improve Connection Between Japan, US” ↗Also, Tubes by Andrew Blum to get a taste of the physical part of the Internet. (http://www.amazon.com/Tubes-A-Journey-Center-Internet/dp/006...)
on “How the Internet works” ↗Tubes by Andrew Blum does a great job at introducing how the infrastructure is layed put and operates to a certain degree, https://www.amazon.com/Tubes-Journey-Internet-Andrew-Blum/dp... That said, I would…
on “The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities” ↗Also very much worth reading on this topic: Tubes by Andrew Blum (https://www.andrewblum.net/tubes-2)
on “Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes” ↗…others. This is how it worked for 100 years (read up on telecoms/fiber; train companies/railroads; heck, even roads used to belong to people in the UK). This is why we have net neutrality - I recommend Tubes by Andrew Blum to go the heart of the matter. Imagine Internet if Google was able to throttle other services if you are not using their own? Here the author is arguing the search index is like infra that…
on “Waiting for dawn in search: Search index, Google rulings and impact on Kagi” ↗…http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog47/presentations/Sunday/R... He really gets into how, with traceroute, you can get a glimpse of how everything fits together, beyond just "oh, this hop and now that hop". Also, Andrew Blum's book Tubes is a good casual look into how the world of data centers, IXPs, carriers, etc all fit together.
on “A Note from one of Cloudflare's upstream providers” ↗I'm in the middle of reading "Tubes" by Andrew Blum, which is the story of how the Internet was physically built. MAE-East, PAIX, Ashburn, and all that. The Kindle version is $1.99 right now. I paid $9.99 for it last week. http://www.amazon.com/Tubes-Journey-Center-Internet-ebook/dp...
on “The Basement” ↗There is also this book Tubes by Andrew Blum about the cables: https://www.amazon.com/Tubes-Journey-Internet-Andrew-Blum/dp... Someone gave it to me at a previous job but never left a note to say who so I couldn't thank them.
on “How the Internet Travels Across Oceans” ↗…but I haven't read them so can't vouch for quality or content: Network Geeks: How They Built the Internet by Brian E Carpenter The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires by Tim Wu Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet by Andrew Blum How the Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone by Brian McCullough Maybe someone else here has read them and can comment.
on “US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case” ↗In his book Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet, Andrew Blum presents a partial defense of the late senator's analogy: "I have confirmed with my own eyes that the Internet is many things, in many places. But…
on “The Case Against ISP Tolls” ↗Recommend the book The Weather Machine by Andrew Blume (also wrote Tubes) on some history of forecasting and what happens in the background nowadays: > In The Weather Machine, Andrew Blum takes readers on a fascinating journey through an everyday miracle. In a quest to understand…
on “Weather forecasts have become more accurate” ↗Google never left China, they literally just moved to a new building on the other side of the road (in Zhongguancun, Beijing). They even “left a couple of boxes there”[1]. [1] Blum, Andrew, Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet. New York, Ecco, 2012. https://archive.org/details/unset0000unse_p9b6
on “French court orders Google, Cloudflare, Cisco to poison DNS to stop piracy” ↗