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Data Storage The Internet Technology

Providing Access to Info in Developing Countries 102

Posted by michael from the bandwidth-of-a-747-full-of-dvds dept.
matt writes "Widernet is a program run at the University of Iowa to provide developing countries access to information. Most of the universities they work with (mainly in Nigeria) have no internet access or have a very expensive, limited one. So Widernet ships hard drives with a data dump of about 100G to place on the local network. Students have access through the eGranery. Some the of the problems they are dealing with are how to provide updates to the already distributed libraries, how to provide the eGranery such that it can be setup with little or no IT knowledge, and how to stretch a limited budget and donations. I sadly had to turn down an internship with them, but would still like to contribute. Surely we can help with time, resources, and/or knowledge." And you thought sneakernet was dead.
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Providing Access to Info in Developing Countries More

Providing Access to Info in Developing Countries

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  • And here i thought this whole time that UI's access to technology was sub-par. Thought they were mostly a medical school. Shows what i know about my state. :/

  • So Widernet ships hard drives with a data dump of about 100G to place on the local network. ... Some the of the problems they are dealing with are ... how to provide the eGranery such that it can be setup with little or no IT knowledge
    Surely anyone who can set up a local network can plug a hard drive into a machine and reboot it?
    • You could mount them in removable hard drive slides...
    • Never underestimate the bandwidth of an cargo vessel loaded with 100GB hard drives.

      However, the latency might not be worth it. I.e. what information is being sent? How likely is it to need to be changed?

      It seems to me that although this may be adequate as a temporary fix, we need to take a close look at what can be done to help developing countries actually develop the infrastructure that they need (including internet infrastructure) and then this will be obsolete.
    • Surely anyone who can set up a local network can plug a hard drive into a machine and reboot it?

      Well, probably, but you're assuming that they have access to modern platforms. What if they're still using 286s with MFM drives, or worse? Sure, sending a 200GB drive is great, but what if they have nothing that can read it when it gets there? Of course, I haven't RTFA, but just off the top of my head, these issues come to mind.

      It reminds me of just how spoiled and lucky I am!

  • Nigeria has a lot of money (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:07AM (#9406014)
    This article is lying. I know several people in Nigeria that have Internet access, they send me messages every day. They also seem to have a lot of money to send me, so Nigeria is not really developing country.
    • I'll send $18m to The University of Nigeria, but I must trust you my godfearing friend, please send $2000 as an escrow fee to my barrister BarristerJohn@yahoo.com and a picture of yourself holding up a sign with the password "Iblow Hossis". Oh and put a fish on your head too. Your esteemed friend Arthur Teetwanq

    • Re:Nigeria has a lot of money (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Teun ( 17872 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:48AM (#9406114)
      You are right. And yes it is funny.

      But also very sad, it seems Nigeria has the IP rights (SCO-style) on corruption (and is clearly not able to enforce them).
      It is such a rich country in many aspects, diverse cultures, fertile nature and lots of oil and gas.

      Yet as long as the western world does not act against these utterly corrupt leaders Nigeria will remain in its present state were even universities have difficulty to, for example, accessing the internet.

      It is nice to see projects like this were the needed information still reaches the students.
      But knowing Nigeria I wonder for how long these hard disks will remain at the university.

      • Re:Nigeria has a lot of money (Score:4, Insightful)

        by pangian ( 703684 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @10:40AM (#9406533)
        Why does it have to be the western world that stands up to corrupt Nigerian leaders? Not that western leaders shouldn't stand up to them, but aren't the best people for this the Nigerian people? Maybe the best way to change the situation is to get Nigerian citiznes information about which of their leaders are screwing them over and what they can do about it.
        • but aren't the best people for this the Nigerian people?

          Yeah, right. Just like Nicaragua. Or Afghanistan. Remember Rambo III, dedicated "to the brave afghan nation?", Talibans funded and equipped with stingers by CIA? And what about Saddam's sources for chemical weapons?

          If somebody with large $$$ from the west didn't have some interest in keeping status quo in Nigeria it would have changed a long time ago. But by some correctly placed funding one can change wages of every revolution. Sure -you- might thi

      • Re:Nigeria has a lot of money (Score:4, Funny)

        by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @11:11AM (#9406690) Journal
        We're too busy with our own corrupt leaders.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:10AM (#9406019)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • TeraScale SneakerNet (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ann Elk ( 668880 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:12AM (#9406028)

    Jim Gray [microsoft.com] (Microsoft researcher, grand Poo Bah of transactions, etc) cowrote an interesting paper 2 years ago entitled TeraScale SneakerNet: Using Inexpensive Disks for Backup, Archiving, and Data Exchange. [microsoft.com] (Word .DOC file) which analyzes the economics of transferring huge amounts of data by shipping hardware.

    (Insert obligatory "never understimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of 9-track tapes" reference here.)

    • Do you refuse to read .DOC files? If so, Gray's idea is to ship complete computers. You solve the standards/format problem by putting every network file sharing system known to man on the computer's hard disk and putting in a Gigabit Ethernet card.

      Then the recipient has to sweat bullets wondering what kind of viruses are on the system you just shipped.

      The Gray paper suggests plugging the sneakernet box into the untrusted side of your firewall or trusting the sender.

      I'd suggest booting from Knoppix. But c

      • Re:Security (Score:3, Funny)

        by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
        But could the sender booby-trap the BIOS to load a different image

        If they want to booby trap it, they could pack one of the "drives" with C4. That would be a REAL Trojan Horse.

  • Only Nigeria ? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:14AM (#9406035)

    or thats what it seems, what about other developing countries that dont have access at all, surely they would be better served with project like this ?, dont get me wrong im all for charity (if you can call 120$ for a 120gig hard drive and $112 p&p charity) but Nigeria already has quite good network access, (judging by the amount of internet cafes and budding enterprise [scamorama.com]) perhaps we should let them develop with what they already have and concentrate on bringing computing and networks to those who are even less fortunate

    120$ for a 120gig hard drive seems rather steep (and 75$ for a demo USB box) as this is more than a complete computer in the local classifieds, (not to mention a shitload of cash in developing countries) is this a charity or a commercial profit making venture ?
    i always am suspicious when i see the face of a charity/good cause but then they charge for the service at above-cost especially when other companies are supplying their services for free)

    cough*scam*cough ?

  • Give them info, and teach them to USE it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:15AM (#9406037)
    Give them info, and teach them to USE it. Having one without the other will just lead to a duplication of the situation we have here. Wired 100% of the time, unprecedented access to so much information... but still lead down a path of war by a bible bashing president and allowing our own government to turn over and beg for the RIAA, MPAA, ignoring our own rights at home AND those of prisoners of war overseas.

    Information is one thing. Using it is something else entirely.

    • Re:Give them info, and teach them to USE it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by flimnap ( 751001 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:28AM (#9406068) Homepage

      I know someone who went to Nigeria (and other nearby countries) as part of setup for an Africa-wide online learning university (computer science components). It was a miserable failure because none of the Nigerian universities were able to meet the requirements for computing, most notably steady electricity supply.

      Rather then shipping developing countries information, it is much more important to get them set up with infrastructure so that they will eventually have the access required to retrieve the information themselves.

      Information is one thing. Using it is something else entirely.

      Part of using information effectively is learning how to get it properly, and extract effective information from it. That's what we do every time we use Google: filter the wheat from the chaff, if you will.

      • Re:Give them info, and teach them to USE it (Score:4, Insightful)

        by pangian ( 703684 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @10:26AM (#9406472)

        How exactly do you get a national power grid to a country of 130 million people with extremely overcrowded cities and a rainy season that wipes out most of the roads and above ground power lines every year?

        I can tell you one thing, the University of Iowa and the U.S. government and the World Bank aren't going to give it to them. Perhaps the best way to move toward and infrastructure in Nigeria is to educate Nigerians the best you can so that you can create demand for these services and find creative solutions.

        Yes, there are problems with electricity provision. Power goes out several times a day. But Nigerians are very creative people (as all the forms of 419 attest), and they find ways around it. Most businesses and universities run off generators much of the day. A UPS is part of any computer purchase.

        Without knowing anything about your friend's project, I'd say that he/she wasn't trying hard enough. There are Internet cafes all over the major cities. There are some extremely talented computer technicians in the major universities. Setting up and maintaining a computer network is more *interesting* than in the developed world, but certainly not impossible.

        • There is a plan to harness wind energy using inexpensive kites.

          That and higher effeciency computers (Small LCD Screens?) could provide free electricity and access to information.

          Why does every computer user have to have a full screen full color experience.

          A monocolor non-lit LCD screen is adequate - even if it isn't executive quality.

          AIK

        • I am getting real tired of hearing about 'bringing technology to the underpriv's of the world' - guess what : Nigeria's problems are not going to be solved via the Internet.

          Countries do not evolve, grow, or progress because an extra 2% of them get dial up access to the Internet. Countries evolve, grow, and progress because every single person in the country gets involved and does some work. Look at the conditions of America circa 1650 or 1800. Those poor fuckers worked 16 hours a day to build farms, hom
          • I completely see that this isn't a direct reaction to my post, but I have to disagree anyway.

            Un(der)developed countries aren't that way because they aren't working their asses off. Hell, I've seen women older than my grandma carrying their weight in firewood on their heads. The problem isn't that they are aren't willing to work, the problem is that given the infrastructure, corruption, undereducation, etc. that they deal with, one reasonably earnest person in the West can still outproduce ten Nigerians w
            • Whoops - my bad. I didn't mean that they shouldn't have access to tech until they 'earn' it, I just meant that making tech available to them wasn't going to make a difference.

              Easy analogy : giving one of us nerds a 3 megabit connection to the Internet and a list of web sites full of porn isn't going to get anybody laid. The only way to get laid is to go outside, meet a woman and do all of the actual courting related work that leads to sex.

              There are some things you can't fix by throwing tech at it, and I
    • Give them info, and teach them to USE it. Having one without the other will just lead to a duplication of the situation we have here.

      Or, to rephrase what you said, "People who disagree with me do so because they're ignorant, uninformed, and/or stupid." And a comment like that is what passes for insightful these days.

      I'm just about ready to dump this place and come back after the election is over, when the mods - both left and right - will hopefully stop feeling compelled to ratchet up posts they happen

  • Broadcasting data. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dinodrac ( 247713 ) <jrollyson@2m b i t.com> on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:17AM (#9406043) Homepage
    I used to work for an ISP offering one way satalite internet. Needless to say, it was rather difficult to support, usually not because of problems with the reciever, but because of the dialup issues and TCP/IP stack problems courtesy of whatever spyware the users have downloaded.

    As most of the issues that make one way satalite data delivery problematic for consumers don't exist for this type of application, it would seem like satalite technology is a good answer to the data delivery problem.

    Time could be leased on commercial communications satalites, or maybe some sort of agreement to use idle capacity at reduced rates could be reached.

    The reciever hardware for one way satalite systems is relatively inexpensive, in the $200-$500 range, so it would seem financially feasable as well...

  • Optical drives!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JaF893 ( 745419 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:17AM (#9406044) Journal
    Surely the best solution is to install a DVD drive and then simply post them a load of DVD-Rs. Perhaps it might even be cheaper to use a CD drive and a load of CD-Rs. As long as sufficient instructions are provided the installation of an optical drive should be fairly straight forward.

    • Re:Optical drives!!! (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I work on a similar project in Nicaragua. Optical drives are too fragile for the tropics/ third world. There usually isn't as clear a border between inside and outside as there is in north america.
      In one case a CD drive failed 2 days after we installed it. Opened it up and it had an enormous spider laying eggs inside. High humidity also takes a toll & causes drives to stick. Since it takes a lot of energy to seal and air condition a room, we've switched to compact flash & hard drives for everythin

  • 120$ for a 120gig hard drive ? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    so much for charity egh when pricewatch want $64 for 120Gb EIDE drive, 100% markup seems rather greedy ?

    120$ for 120gb HD
    250$ just to set up a server ?
    112$ for postage
    75$ for USB drive case

    be cheaper to buy them a brand new computer from wallmart than go with this deal, seems like this is a buisness venture aimed at cashing in on less fortunate people, but then thats what western companies do in Africa right ?

  • "developing countries" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:41AM (#9406095)
    I hate that phrase. We are ALL in "developing countries", I hope - or we are screwed. The phrase sounds like the West has "finished developing" - which may be not be inaccurate as it drowns itself in a sea of intellectual "property" litigation, but I know I would like to see a guarantee of MY free access to information, as my fellow countrymen are doing their best to lock down that access and turn the country into a fascist police state that would have given Stalin wet dreams of joy.

    • I guess that depends on what developing means...If it means getting more civilized and educated then the eastern countries are not very far behind the western ones.

      In fact in palces like India, China, Education is highly coveted and scholars are respected and honoured as against being picked on as Nerds.

      But if developing means, better infra structure , better public safety measures, better health care, or in general high value of human life, then places like India and china lag far behind the wester world

      • In fact in palces like India, China, Education is highly coveted and scholars are respected and honoured as against being picked on as Nerds.

        How romantic; how untrue.

        In modern China, businessmen are gods. University teachers have trouble pauying the rent, and are under constant suspicion from the government for not toeing the line.

    • I hate that phrase. We are ALL in "developing countries",
      Choose your euphemism:
      the South;
      Third World (or Fourth for places like Bangladesh);
      Less developed...

      Like racial terms, or words for the place where you shit, after a while every euphemism starts to seem pejorative and you have to come up with a new one.
  • Dual layers single side DVD holds 9GB... (about 10% of the library)...

    With compression could hold much more...

  • Unfortunate souls... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by cd_serek ( 681446 )
    It is difficult for some of us lucky people to comprehend life without the internet as we know it.

    Considering the difficulty of updating the dumped pages (eg: possibility of bad links, etc) and the high costs of hard-drives and shipping costs, I would have thought that it would be more practical to HAVE a satellite connection at the eGranery and have a LARGE proxy-cache (eg: 1TB?).

    Because, by deploying internet to those unfortunate fews using data-dump methods would mean that services that we take for gra

  • Nigeria is a rich nation (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zogger ( 617870 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @09:42AM (#9406296) Homepage Journal
    Look at this info on nigeria, it's an opec member and has tremendous oil and natural gas reserves [doe.gov]

    According to this DOE fact sheet article, until recently they were flaring off almost all the natural gas, yet local villages had little electricity. I think I see the problem here. Looks like government payola, ripping off the people, various ill will, begats violence, more bad vibes, back and forth.

    Just perhaps if they hadn't been ripped off for a long time maybe the people there wouldn't be so poor. Flaring off the gas for years instead of putting in generators to use the gas seems a scosh lame to me. I imagine this fact was not lost on the locals either. Who would be blamed then, the oil producers, the government doofus who gave them the contract? I have no idea, but right there you can see just one instance on how they got shafted.

    I also just read a few pretty current news articles when I was looking for that reference link. Your typical back and forth warfare,massacres, people tapping into pipelines to get fuel, oil spills and fires and explosions then, etc. Chaos and anarchy mixed with huge international money and corruption and fascism. I have no idea how to help those people there, tribalism and warfare and serious government/oil industry corruption look like the major problems. I think perhaps if they just scrap the oil contracts and renotiate and require some actual infrastructure be put in instead of just arranging more cash to whatever local warlord du juor happens to be there with his hands out might work better. The actual hardware for electricity and normal communications, make the oil companies put it in. I would bet in one day some millionaire trader sitting in an office far away from nigeria, making a bundle off the nigerian oil, swapping oil futures commodites around could pay for this localised internet deal and then some, a lot of "then some". It's this whole system that causes the problems, so it's the whole system that needs to change. There's no excuse for a nation that wealthy to have such poor people and lack of the basics.

    • According to this DOE fact sheet article, until recently they were flaring off almost all the natural gas

      Flaring is a method used in the oil and gas industry to get rid of the portion of flammable gas that is produced during oil recovery, and which is uneconomical to recover. Safety issues are also sometimes a driver for flaring - you don't generally want a lot of flammable gas just hanging around your well site. Blowing up is bad. If you sum over the well sites in a geographical area, there may be a

      • I am not trying to restrict them from the internet. the entire premise of the story is that the uni there is so poor they can't get it. I merely pointed out where the money is going-out of the country and mosty of the rest into local warlords pockets-at least a huge amount of it.. They have oil up the wazoo, yet the people remain poor. maybe you think this is OK, perhaps just normal capitalism or something,too bad, the people who can grab it are "entitled" to it or something, but I think it's abhorrent and
  • The word is granary (Concise Oxford: "storehouse for threshed grain".)

  • We've got a World Book Encyclopedia set here from 1979. They do look nice on the shelf, but I'd be willing to donate them.

    Seriously, information can still be shared without a computer. Books are easier to get to places without Wifi, Broadband, or even electricity

  • 100G? That seems like an awful lot. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pedantic bore ( 740196 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @09:58AM (#9406368)
    When I look at how much useful information is crammed on something like the old Microsoft Encarta CD, or consider that the entire project Gutenberg mirror takes up only a few gigs, it makes me curious why they need 100G. That's a lot of info; more than anyone could read in a lifetime.

    It seems like they could spread the wealth a lot more widely if they just burned a bunch of CDs and sent them out. They could even send updates more quickly and easily than sending more disks.

    Before the obvious comment comes back saying "but CD-ROM drives don't exist everywhere" please remember that CD-ROM drives became the standard way of distributing bulk data a few years before ATA controllers that can grok disks larger than 32G appeared. So I'm guessing that a computer in some remote area is at least as likely to have a CD drive as a controller that can take a huge disk.

    • More than one person can read, yes, but not more than all the folks at this University can read - especially when you consider that they can't know what they'll want unless it's there.
      • This is not meant to be a replacement for a university, this is meant to provide a leg up for people who have access to almost nothing. In any case, most people start by reading the same things.

        The reading list for a very sound K-12 education would probably fit in a few Megs (compressed). Even a fairly complete encylopedia (i.e. Brittanica) fits in a few Gigs.

        I suspect that if they're really filling these disks, they're not being very choosy and they're giving people tons of stuff they don't want.

  • Do we really want to sponsor more competition to our jobs?

    • Re:competition? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Maljin Jolt ( 746064 )
      Do we really want to sponsor more competition to our jobs?

      Some other people see affairs in wider context as "Do we really want to sponsor american lifestyle?"

  • nigeria (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Judging from my mailbox, it strikes me that Nigeria's problem is that they have too much internet access.

  • LTSP is by far the most interesting and easiest way to get a lot of older boxes running quickly. K12LTSP [k12ltsp.org]. Well worth the time at your local school districts. In this age of cut-backs the easiest cut is on the exhorbitant prices school's pay for proprietary apps. Look around in some of the under-funded school districts in the 'developed world' and you'll see the same have and have-not situation. K12LTSP is an ethical solution meeting the need for better distribution of tools for education for everyone everyw
  • Every country has its criminals and scamsters, and the US is no exception.

    This is a serious story about how to get information to people who desperately need it but who are disconnected from the world in a way most of you can't even start to imagine.

    The Internet has ignored most of Africa, with several attempts to lay fibre-optic cable around the continent abandoned due to politics and war. For most people, "internet" means shared access to a VSAT link, which is a $50,000 investment and expensive charges

  • Similar project in Afghanistan (Score:3, Informative)

    by harmonica ( 29841 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @12:26PM (#9407046)
    Surfen auf Trümmern [spiegel.de] (in German).
  • Send the big HD the first time. Make sure the info is sent following a tree structured around ISO library standards for the humanities and sciences.

    Then send diffs with the updates on the new dual-layer CDs that can take up to 8.5 GB HDs. The first time, you may need to include a DVD drive -external would be preferable- along with the DVD. They can then copy the information either through a LAN or by using sneakernet and taking the external DVD drive around.
  • It's eGranary which stems from the word granary which means a storehouse for grain.
  • What bunk - simply that the students in the CS department feel guilty so they want to do some good and this is the only way than can think of.

    Here's a tip: save the money on the hard disks, put it together and install a new water source (called a stand pipe in Africa - pipe with a faucet on the end).

    It will do more good, help more people and improve the quality of life far far more than a fat hard disk. Puleez!

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