Why keeping Internet traffic within borders is a tall order

Germany’s biggest telecommunications company, Deutsche Telekom, recently proposed keeping all domestic Internet traffic within national borders. In other words, if someone in Germany wants to visit a German website, that traffic would not be routed through the US or Britain, and would therefore not be intercepted by those countries’ data-addicted intelligence services.

A Deutsche Telekom spokesman said: “Telekom is strongly in favor of keeping German Internet traffic within national borders (‘national routing’). The next step would see this solution expanded to include Schengen countries.” The statement went on to bemoan the effect the surveillance scandal is having on the public’s trust in cloud services. So, how realistic is this proposal, and what would its effect be? While the intercontinental undersea cables could be relatively easily tapped, doing the same to the terrestrial cables would be trickier. This is more-or-less analogous to what Deutsche Telekom is proposing for Europe: greater security for intra-regional communications, without cutting off the region from the outside.