99% of International Internet Traffic Travels Through Cables on the Ocean Floor. There Are Only 550 of Them.

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There's a thing most people don't know about the internet.

It's underwater.

Not metaphorically. Literally. 99% of all international internet traffic, everything from your emails to Netflix streams to billion-dollar financial transactions, travels through fiber optic cables laid on the ocean floor.

“When people say 'the cloud,' they imagine something floating and ethereal. The reality is a cable thinner than a garden hose, resting on the ocean floor 4,000 meters deep, being occasionally bitten by sharks. That cable carries your email, your Netflix, your bank transactions, and your government's classified communications. All of them. Through the same tube.”