A sweeping, large-scale study was conducted by computer scientists at the University of California San Diego, who surveyed 75 countries.
“We wanted to study the topology of the Internet to find weak links that, if compromised, would expose an entire nation’s traffic,” said Alexander Gamero-Garrido, the paper’s first author.
The study finds that a wider array of internet providers reduces the risk that any one attack would have a significantly disruptive impact upon a country’s internet infrastructure.
It cites the US as an example where a large number of firms compete to provide services for a large number of users. These networks are directly connected to one another and exchange content in a process known as direct peering. All the providers can also plug directly into the world’s internet infrastructure.
“But a large portion of the Internet doesn’t function with peering agreements for network connectivity,” Gamero-Garrido said.
In other nations, many...