3 ms·

Huh? Are you kidding? Each cable bundle can transmit petabytes of data per second. Think of all the Netflix movies being watched in Japan and Australia transmit

Huh? Are you kidding? Each cable bundle can transmit petabytes of data per second. Think of all the Netflix movies being watched in Japan and Australia transmitted over that cable. Why would anyone encrypt that? Furthermore, the hardware required to encrypt, even if feasible (and that’s unclear), would be astronomical in cost. Plus, it’s not just about access. A malicious actor could always damage or destroy the cable, cutting off a primary channel of communications.

SoReadyToHelp 7y ago
"Encryption is so expensive!" cries the 1990s
- glitchc 7y ago
  ... you must be a front-end developer.
  - Jonnax 7y ago
    You don't seem to know what you're talking about. 1) A user wouldn't stream Netflix from a data centre in America. It would be local to the country on the Netflix CDN 2) The stream is encrypted. Firstly with whatever DRM the video uses then with TLS. 3) The majority of internet traffic is encrypted. It doesn't matter too much if the transport over fibre isn't. 4) If someone cared about security they would uses VPN where they had control over both sides.
    - siffland 7y ago
      You are correct Netflix goes out of their way to reduce netowrk traffic. https://openconnect.netflix.com/ https://openconnect.netflix.com/ This is a pretty good read, albiet a few years old. https://gizmodo.com/this-box-can-hold-an-entire-netflix-1592590450 https://gizmodo.com/this-box-can-hold-an-entire-netflix-1592...
  - silverfox17 7y ago
    The vast majority of data sent over these cables will be encrypted. It's all normal day-to-day traffic.
  - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
    woooosh
ac29 7y ago
That's a lousy example because Netflix movies are definitely encrypted.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  They're also almost always served via a local CDN node. A million Australians watching the latest Game of Thrones episodes probably means a couple dozen transfers of that file across the Pacific, not a million. If you're an ISP, Netflix will even send you (free!) servers for this. https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/ https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/
  - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
    > If you're an ISP, Netflix will even send you (free!) servers for this. startyourownisp.com I think this might be a bit much for getting some freebies. It would be fun, though. Unfortunately, it would take me a lot of work in the place I'm at for this to make any sense at all.
    - Operyl 7y ago
      You’d have to prove that it’d be beneficial bandwidth wise, which seems unlikely.
dalore 7y ago
Setting up an asymmetrical encryption channel can be hard (and expensive). But once it's set up it moves to a cheaper faster symmetrical encryption which rotates the keys. There are dedicated chips for this encryption that it barely takes any processing power at all. Also note that would be the backbone encryption channels, but inside those people would be using https which is encryption further up the networking stack. It's encrypted turtles all the way down.

SoReadyToHelp 7y ago

"Encryption is so expensive!" cries the 1990s

glitchc 7y ago
... you must be a front-end developer.
- Jonnax 7y ago
  You don't seem to know what you're talking about. 1) A user wouldn't stream Netflix from a data centre in America. It would be local to the country on the Netflix CDN 2) The stream is encrypted. Firstly with whatever DRM the video uses then with TLS. 3) The majority of internet traffic is encrypted. It doesn't matter too much if the transport over fibre isn't. 4) If someone cared about security they would uses VPN where they had control over both sides.
  - siffland 7y ago
    You are correct Netflix goes out of their way to reduce netowrk traffic. https://openconnect.netflix.com/ https://openconnect.netflix.com/ This is a pretty good read, albiet a few years old. https://gizmodo.com/this-box-can-hold-an-entire-netflix-1592590450 https://gizmodo.com/this-box-can-hold-an-entire-netflix-1592...
- silverfox17 7y ago
  The vast majority of data sent over these cables will be encrypted. It's all normal day-to-day traffic.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  woooosh

ac29 7y ago

That's a lousy example because Netflix movies are definitely encrypted.

ceejayoz 7y ago
They're also almost always served via a local CDN node. A million Australians watching the latest Game of Thrones episodes probably means a couple dozen transfers of that file across the Pacific, not a million. If you're an ISP, Netflix will even send you (free!) servers for this. https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/ https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  > If you're an ISP, Netflix will even send you (free!) servers for this. startyourownisp.com I think this might be a bit much for getting some freebies. It would be fun, though. Unfortunately, it would take me a lot of work in the place I'm at for this to make any sense at all.
  - Operyl 7y ago
    You’d have to prove that it’d be beneficial bandwidth wise, which seems unlikely.

dalore 7y ago

Setting up an asymmetrical encryption channel can be hard (and expensive). But once it's set up it moves to a cheaper faster symmetrical encryption which rotates the keys. There are dedicated chips for this encryption that it barely takes any processing power at all. Also note that would be the backbone encryption channels, but inside those people would be using https which is encryption further up the networking stack. It's encrypted turtles all the way down.