The Cuban CDN • Hacker News Board

Re: The Cuban CDN

#41

Post by jitix » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 6:19 PM UTC

Reminds me of my college days. I studied at a college in India that was located in the mountains (in Sikkim). While there was decent Internet for all academic work, access for fun stuff was very limited. So our solution was to download as much stuff (games, movies, series, books, etc.) as we could during vacations at home, bring them back and share them on a organically grown LAN. The downloads were sometimes pre-planned: one person downloads this and the other person downloads that.

The take is that people always find a way to access stuff from the Internet.

Re: The Cuban CDN

#42

Post by CompuHacker » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 6:19 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #15

eastdakota wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, it's quite probable. Doubt it'll happen in 2016, but bet it will by the end of 2017.

> we'll have a PoP in Cuba Why though? Cloudflare doesn't have POP's in most countries, and Cuba isn't somehow very advantageous compared to having a POP in Puerto Rico, Florida, Mexico, or any of the more connected Caribbean nations. Is it for the novelty, or am I missing some advantage of setting up infrastructure in Cuba... ?

Cubans would benefit from infrastructure in Cuba.

Re: The Cuban CDN

#43

Post by roninb » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 6:20 PM UTC

dleslie wrote: post #10

roninb wrote: post #5

I wonder what the future of El Paquete Semanal will be once Cuba inevitably gets less ridiculously priced and more available internet access. As it stands, there could be a large percentage of users who don't even have NICs, as all you'd need for El Paquete Semanal is a USB port. I'm also interested in whether it's more of a loan/library service where this org has hundreds or thousands of hard drives that get loaned…

It will disappear. El Paquete Semanal is not at all unlike the combination of sneakernet and shareware CDs that I enjoyed in semi-rural western Canada, during the 80s and early 90s. We were crippled by long-distance fees, and very few FidoNet BBS' were available; IIRC, there was one in my local calling area, and it was hideously expensive. The local community bookstore started by selling shareware discs, in 5.25 and…

Thanks for your input, this is a really interesting parallel. Although, you didn't have to worry about censorship and a repressive government in Canada, you're probably right that it will disappear.

Do you remember what kinds of software was available at the bookstore? Was it only media like games/simulations/etc or did they have business/productivity software and operating systems?

Re: The Cuban CDN

#44

Post by roninb » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 6:21 PM UTC

sspiff wrote: post #7

roninb wrote: post #5

I wonder what the future of El Paquete Semanal will be once Cuba inevitably gets less ridiculously priced and more available internet access. As it stands, there could be a large percentage of users who don't even have NICs, as all you'd need for El Paquete Semanal is a USB port. I'm also interested in whether it's more of a loan/library service where this org has hundreds or thousands of hard drives that get loaned…

Most Cuban computers are older (~5-10 years) laptops and a lot of netbooks, which do include WiFi and often RJ-45 Ethernet.

That actually makes a lot of sense. There's not a particularly good reason for OEMs to make specifically Cuban machines without Ethernet ports or WiFi adapters.

Re: The Cuban CDN

#45

Post by shklnrj » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 6:22 PM UTC

NocturnalWaffle wrote: post #32

shklnrj wrote: post #18

This reminds of the LAN we had in college. We used to use the software DC++ and then students shared the files that they had downloaded. You could access almost any file at 100MBPS.Someone was sure to download the latest episode of what you wanted to watch. If someone did not, then you went on the internet. Sometimes it was fast to download the file via LAN, than to transfer a file from pen drive to the computer. Thi…

Purdue? Purdue still has a strong community based of DC++. People have servers sharing 50+ terabytes of data, with designated release managers and bots to auto download new tv shows, etc.

I am from India, my college had decent internet speed but slower Internet speeds(around 1MBPs when it was fast), hence the use of DC++. 100MBPS on lan was pretty fun. This was in 2011. Its interesting to know that Purdue has strong DC++ community, also auto bots is something that I did not know about in college :) From what I have heard from my US friends is that the rules are much more stringent in US about file sharing and colleges enforce it much more strongly.

Re: The Cuban CDN

#46

Post by melvinmt » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 6:27 PM UTC

This brings back memories to the Twilight CD-ROMs [1] we had in the Netherlands in the late nineties that came out every month and had all the latest (cracked) games and applications on it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_(CD-ROM)

Re: The Cuban CDN

#47

Post by chillydawg » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 6:27 PM UTC

CompuHacker wrote: post #42

Alupis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we'll have a PoP in Cuba Why though? Cloudflare doesn't have POP's in most countries, and Cuba isn't somehow very advantageous compared to having a POP in Puerto Rico, Florida, Mexico, or any of the more connected Caribbean nations. Is it for the novelty, or am I missing some advantage of setting up infrastructure in Cuba... ?

Cubans would benefit from infrastructure in Cuba.

But cloudflare would not.

Re: The Cuban CDN

#48

Post by MOARDONGZPLZ » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 6:27 PM UTC

cag_ii wrote: post #28

deegles wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if instead of a USB drive, it was a truck with wifi that would swing by the front of your house and rsync some files to your computer? To sign up, you'd give your address and wifi password.

Wouldn't the simpler option be to just make it available over the web?

Presumably this would be in areas where downloading over the internet is difficult/prohibitive, like in Cuba. Just connect to the truck's wifi, not the internet at large.

Re: The Cuban CDN

#49

Post by Alupis » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

CompuHacker wrote: post #42

Alupis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we'll have a PoP in Cuba Why though? Cloudflare doesn't have POP's in most countries, and Cuba isn't somehow very advantageous compared to having a POP in Puerto Rico, Florida, Mexico, or any of the more connected Caribbean nations. Is it for the novelty, or am I missing some advantage of setting up infrastructure in Cuba... ?

Cubans would benefit from infrastructure in Cuba.

Cubans would benefit from having access to the internet... Cloudflare doesn't provide any of that, nor is a PoP required in Cuba for Cubans to browse websites (even those running behind Cloudflare). Nor will Cubans benefit from a data center being built in Cuba, since majority of said data center's clients will be internationals (not businesses nor people in Cuba).

It does seem like a Cloudflare PoP in Cuba is merely for the novelty.

Re: The Cuban CDN

#50

Post by dandelany » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 6:31 PM UTC

Nutomic wrote: post #36

tuna-piano wrote: post #24

One super funny thing about the Wifi cards referenced in the article that I saw when I was there earlier this year. You are only able to officially buy the wifi cards at certain government offices. Of course, many of these have weird locations, long lines, and inconvenient hours. You also need to show your ID, and there are certain rules about the cards you can buy. Understandably, this has led to an underground Wifi…

I was in Cuba this January, and I didn't get the feel that this was illegal. We bought the cards on a busy street in Havanna with no problems at all. Also, we paid 2 CUC and were told the official price was 1 CUC.

I did the same last October. It's definitely illegal, only ETECSA kiosks are allowed to sell the cards. But resellers are ubiquitous and it seems that the authorities mostly turn a blind eye.