Papua became part of Indonesia in 1969 after a controversial and very limited
vote. Ever since there have been calls from some Papuans for independence and
for decades a low-level armed resistance has been rumbling on, largely unnoticed
by the outside.
Last year, important internet cables connecting Europe to Asia were mysteriously severed, resulting in days of outages for millions of internet users. It was a stark reminder that, no matter how instantaneously our information seems to travel, it is, in fact, moving through cables on the bottom of the ocean. And, while the internet might seem like the cutting edge of technology, it's interesting to note that information has been traveling this way since the first telegraph cables were laid across the Atlantic ocean in the 19th century.
