Why Amazon's Data Centers Are Hidden in Spy Country
The company powers much of the Internet, but its cloud facilities are difficult to find.
What Does the Internet Actually Look Like?
Rooms and rooms of cables, switches, and freezing cold air
In Photos: Inside the Internet
Photographs of what “the cloud” actually looks like
How Mobile Carriers Skirt Net-Neutrality Rules
“There’s something stomach-twisting about a company offering free video streaming but charging for the data used when filling out an online job application.”
The Environmental Toll of a Netflix Binge
The data centers that support the Internet use a huge amount of energy.
The Secrets of an Abandoned Microwave Tower in Kansas
A mysterious AT&T relic reveals connections between telecommunications infrastructure and the Cold War.
A Network of Fragments
There’s a poetry in the bits and pieces of Internet infrastructure that hide in plain sight all around us.
A Journey Into the Heart of Facebook
How the “sharing” company’s data centers reveal its values
Why Are There So Many Data Centers in Iowa?
“Networks, land, power, and taxes.”
Finding Dark Fiber in a Desert Ghost Town
In the American West, there are ruins everywhere.
How Railroad History Shaped Internet History
It’s no accident that Iowa, where the first transcontinental railroad began, is now home to a huge data-center industry.
A Visit to the NSA's Data Center in Utah
Why would the intelligence agency put its largest surveillance storehouse in the middle of a desert?
The Strange Geopolitics of the International Cloud
How cold weather, taxes, and sovereignty dictate the placement of data centers overseas.
Where the Cloud Rises From the Sea
The cable that connects the U.S. to the global Internet runs right next to a small coastal town in California. Why do so few of its residents have broadband?
What's Important About Underwater Internet Cables
Hint: It has nothing to do with Vladimir Putin or terrorism.
What People Mean When They Talk About ‘The Cloud’
When your data-center road trip is waylaid by rain, why not use the time to define your terms?
The Room Where the Internet Was Born
An epic American road trip—to see “The Cloud” in all its strange manifestations—begins in an old lab at UCLA.
'The Cloud' and Other Dangerous Metaphors
Contemporary ideas about data and privacy are tied up inextricably with language choices.
The Cloud's My-Mom-Cleaned-My-Room Problem
Welcome to the era of parental computing, or how the cloud makes children of us all