Avengers Age of Ultron

It Is a Small Net After All - Spoilers are located in this article

The Internet World Hub

Suggested in the latest instalment of the Avengers films, Age of Ultron, every single byte of data in/on the Internet travels through the "World Hub", a data centre facility that Tony Stark, Robery Downey Jr., visits whilst trying to identify the hacker anonymously helping them against Ultron.

As the Internet currently stands, there is no such data centre facility acting as a "World Hub".

The Internet was designed to make such a hub both unnecessary and as close to impossible as possible due to the potential for a vast security weakness in one single point of existence - manipulation of the world's traffic could be run from one terminal at the "World Hub".

Having stated real life specifics, the Avengers films do show superior technology to what we currently use, design & experiment with, but with the technology Tony Stark has, we can assume that Stark Industries probably supplied a lot of the hardware & software for the "World Hub". This would result in a very secure system, so it is more plausible for the future world to have a "World Hub", but it is a vast responsibility to house that.

A lot of the connected world comes through the UK - we bring the majority of data connections from the US ashore in the UK & connect them to the Europe, Africa & the Middle East, China has some direct connections to the US, but we do have a way of scanning the data leaving on those deep sea fibre optic cables - we run software in the data port (a small building that is the last land based interconnect between land fibre and deep sea fibre optic cable). This software is often accessed by NSA, GCHQ, CIA, FBI, MI5 & MI6. The Canadians & Australians can access reports & information on all of the connections due to the Global IC Analytic Community with ICReach 2.0.

ICReach 2.0 has two Brokers (NSA & GCHQ) & many organisations that can access the data.

GCHQ is the Broker for MI5 & MI6.
NSA is the broker for ASD (formally DSD), GCSB & CSEC.
NSA is the broker for CIA, which loads in the PROTON system.
The CIA PROTON system is the sub-broker for the FBI, DIA & DEA (DEA also has direct access via NSA).

GCHQ is the main uploader to ICReach 2.0 for global traffic reports & statistics.
NSA is the main uploaded to ICReach 2.0 for US based traffic reports & statistics, but does work in global traffic reports & statics too.

All of the above organisations work together with their own systems & ICReach 2.0, uploading their information to it to build a better, more intelligent system that can be used globally.

Sources of information

Edward Snowden Web Site
The Intercept Web Site
TV Tropes - Avengers Age of Ultron
Marvel Movies Wikia
Wikipedia - Internet Backbone
Gizmodo Web Site - Manhattan Important Internet Hub