{"id":2698,"date":"2014-08-06T11:00:59","date_gmt":"2014-08-06T19:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/?p=2698"},"modified":"2014-08-06T19:50:50","modified_gmt":"2014-08-07T03:50:50","slug":"owen-mundy-just-ruined-the-internet-and-the-last-days-for-the-kickstarter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/owen-mundy-just-ruined-the-internet-and-the-last-days-for-the-kickstarter\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Owen Mundy just ruined the Internet&#8221; and the last days for the kickstarter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It has been an intense couple weeks since my last post. It turns out the internet loves cats even more than data, maps, and politics. So here is an update on many things &#8220;cat&#8221;&#8230;<\/p>\n<h4>Update on the project<\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/iknowwhereyourcatlives.com\" target=\"_blank\">I Know Where Your Cat Lives<\/a> has received an overwhelmingly positive response from international press. Besides photos of cats on a world map, there are <a href=\"http:\/\/iknowwhereyourcatlives.com\/charts\" target=\"_blank\">charts<\/a>, an <a href=\"http:\/\/iknowwhereyourcatlives.com\/about\" target=\"_blank\">FAQ and (now) links to press<\/a> on the website. <\/p>\n<p>I have to admit I specifically picked cat photos as an accessible medium with which to explore the privacy issue. Still, I was astounded at just how much the internet responded. It&#8217;s not only cats, the issue was important for discussion, and I appreciated that as well as the thoughtful responses from everyone. Even the puns. <\/p>\n<p><iframe src='http:\/\/player.theplatform.com\/p\/2E2eJC\/EmbeddedOffSite?guid=n_farrow_cat_140723_265238' height='473' width='600' scrolling='no' border='no' ><\/iframe><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/ronan-farrow-daily\/watch\/the-privacy-implications-of-cat-pictures-311778883537\" target=\"_blank\">The privacy implications of cat pictures<\/a> (4:24) MSNBC Interview with Ronan Farrow<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2014\/07\/24\/334989329\/meet-the-guy-whos-putting-your-cat-on-the-map-to-prove-a-point\" target=\"_blank\">Meet The Guy Who&#8217;s Putting Your Cat On The Map \u2014 To Prove A Point<\/a> (2:12) Interview with National Public Radio&#8217;s <i>All Things Considered<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/npr_logo.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/npr_logo.png\" alt=\"npr_logo\" width=\"130\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2746\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;If you have posted a picture of your cat online, data analyst and artist Owen Mundy, and now, the rest of the world, knows where it lives. And, by that logic, he knows where you live, too. That should probably creep you out a little bit, and that&#8217;s really the point.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"cite\">&mdash;<a href=\"http:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/read\/this-guy-is-cyberstalking-the-worlds-cats-in-the-name-of-privacy\" target=\"_blank\">This Guy Is Cyberstalking the World&#8217;s Cats in the Name of Privacy<\/a>, <em>Motherboard \/ Vice Magazine<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/read\/this-guy-is-cyberstalking-the-worlds-cats-in-the-name-of-privacy\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-06-at-2.53.29-PM.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2014-08-06 at 2.53.29 PM\" width=\"200\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2741\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Using cat pictures \u2014 that essential building block of the Internet \u2014 and a supercomputer, a Florida State University professor has built a site that shows the locations of the cats (at least at some point in time, given their nature) and, presumably, of their owners.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"cite\">&mdash;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/07\/23\/upshot\/what-the-internet-can-see-from-your-cat-pictures.html\" target=\"_blank\">What the Internet Can See From Your Cat Pictures<\/a>, <em>The New York Times<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/07\/23\/upshot\/what-the-internet-can-see-from-your-cat-pictures.html\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-06-at-9.41.41-AM.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2014-08-06 at 9.41.41 AM\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Attention all 4.9 million users of the #Catstagram hashtag: You\u2019re being watched.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"cite\">&mdash;<a href=\"http:\/\/time.com\/3019671\/i-know-where-your-cat-lives-website-data-visualization\/\" target=\"_blank\">This Website Knows Where Your Cat Lives<\/a>, <em>Time Magazine<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/time.com\/3019671\/i-know-where-your-cat-lives-website-data-visualization\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-06-at-2.54.23-PM.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2014-08-06 at 2.54.23 PM\" width=\"138\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-2742\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I recognize that a single serving site like this should be easy to quit, but I&#8217;ve been refreshing for hours and looking at all the different cats of the world. Near, far, wherever they are, these cats just go on and on and on.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"cite\">&mdash;<a href=\"http:\/\/jezebel.com\/heres-the-website-you-will-never-ever-leave-1609263457\" target=\"_blank\">Here&#8217;s The Website You Will Never Ever Leave<\/a>, <em>Jezebel<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/jezebel.com\/heres-the-website-you-will-never-ever-leave-1609263457\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-06-at-9.53.46-AM1.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2014-08-06 at 9.53.46 AM\" width=\"190\" height=\"57\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2731\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;If I put up a &#8220;cat&#8221; photo on Instagram, I am not just sharing a cat photo on Instagram. I am offering up data about my, and my cat&#8217;s, location. &#8220;I Know Where Your Cat Lives&#8221; is, as a title, meant to be vaguely threatening.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"cite\">&mdash;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2014\/07\/here-is-a-map-of-1-million-cats\/375147\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Cats of the World, Mapped: A lesson in digital privacy<\/a> <em>The Atlantic<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2014\/07\/here-is-a-map-of-1-million-cats\/375147\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-06-at-9.53.54-AM.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2014-08-06 at 9.53.54 AM\" width=\"180\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2727\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Owen Mundy just ruined the Internet. What were once innocuous photos of grumpy cats, tired cats, and fat cats, have now become adorable symbols of just how little privacy we have online.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"cite\">&mdash;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.refinery29.com\/2014\/07\/71617\/cat-photos-internet-privacy\" target=\"_blank\">Cat Photos, The Privacy Debate, &#038; The Project That Brought Them Together<\/a> <em>Refinery29<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.refinery29.com\/2014\/07\/71617\/cat-photos-internet-privacy\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-06-at-9.54.06-AM.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2014-08-06 at 9.54.06 AM\" width=\"100\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2728\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h4>Some charts<\/h4>\n<p>Because, charts.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/chart_world.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/chart_world-600x386.png\" alt=\"chart_world\" width=\"600\" height=\"386\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-2760\" srcset=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/chart_world-600x386.png 600w, https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/chart_world-1024x660.png 1024w, https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/chart_world.png 1123w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/catsworld-citiesworld.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/catsworld-citiesworld-600x234.png\" alt=\"catsworld-citiesworld\" width=\"600\" height=\"234\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-2757\" srcset=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/catsworld-citiesworld-600x234.png 600w, https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/catsworld-citiesworld-1024x400.png 1024w, https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/catsworld-citiesworld.png 1149w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/chart_eu.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/chart_eu-600x370.png\" alt=\"chart_eu\" width=\"600\" height=\"370\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-2759\" srcset=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/chart_eu-600x370.png 600w, https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/chart_eu-1024x632.png 1024w, https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/chart_eu.png 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/chart_AT-DE.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/chart_AT-DE-600x226.png\" alt=\"chart_AT-DE\" width=\"600\" height=\"226\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-2758\" srcset=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/chart_AT-DE-600x226.png 600w, https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/chart_AT-DE-1024x387.png 1024w, https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/chart_AT-DE.png 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h4>Traffic and hosting<\/h4>\n<p>So far 19,169 cats have been removed from the map due to privacy settings on their photographs being increased. I think this is awesome. And, it is also the ironic part of this project in that its success is measured in increased privacy. Meaning, the more people who are convinced to manage their data better, the less cats I will be able to represent on the map! <\/p>\n<p>Truthfully speaking, I don&#8217;t think I have to worry about running out of cats, since this is a small portion of the total one million. And, I figured out a clever way to show this progress as it unfolds:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-06-at-10.46.31-AM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-06-at-10.46.31-AM-600x309.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2014-08-06 at 10.46.31 AM\" width=\"600\" height=\"309\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-2732\" srcset=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-06-at-10.46.31-AM-600x309.png 600w, https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-06-at-10.46.31-AM-1024x528.png 1024w, https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-06-at-10.46.31-AM.png 1465w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The bandwidth and computing resources consumed by this project have been crazy. Even with a very fast Amazon EC2 server (high I\/O computing-intensive 4XL server with 16 virtual cpus and 30 GB RAM) I watched the CPU hover at 100% for the entire day of The New York Times article. And this is after I put many hours indexing the database columns and making the scripts efficient in other ways. All told my bill for &#8220;going viral&#8221; was $1,019.73 (the month of July 2014).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-07-31-at-10.01.18-AM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-07-31-at-10.01.18-AM-562x400.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2014-07-31 at 10.01.18 AM\" width=\"562\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-2734\" srcset=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-07-31-at-10.01.18-AM-562x400.png 562w, https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-07-31-at-10.01.18-AM.png 971w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 562px) 100vw, 562px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I used a few different logging tools to monitor the status of the server. Here are some basic stats (from awstats installed on the server) from the three weeks since I launched the project. This is for the requests and bandwidth on the EC2 server only. It <em>does not include the actual cat photos<\/em>, only the website itself (html, css, json, php, etc): <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>353,734 unique visits<\/li>\n<li>14,141,644 pages (total clicks on the site)<\/li>\n<li>16,786,127 requests (additional files)<\/li>\n<li>8846.24 GB bandwidth (again, only text files)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I also used CloudFlare CDN (thanks for the tip <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timschwartz.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Tim Schwartz<\/a>!) to cache the site files <i>and<\/i> cat photos and serve the data from various locations around the world. This helped with the speed and to decrease my costs. Since all requests are routed through their DNS I believe their stats are likely the most reliable. According to CloudFlare, they served: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>20,631,228 total requests (3,089,020 of which were served through CloudFlare&#8217;s cache)<\/li>\n<li>10.2 TB bandwidth!! (437.3 GB of this data (site files <em>and<\/em> cat photos were served by CloudFlare)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-06-at-11.20.28-AM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-06-at-11.20.28-AM.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2014-08-06 at 11.20.28 AM\" width=\"494\" height=\"224\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2735\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h4>The Kickstarter has <3 days left!<\/h4>\n<p>And great news, thanks to 123 backers, including a big push from the awesome folks at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ghostery.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Ghostery\">Ghostery<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.domistation.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Domi Ventures\">Domi Ventures<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/1910822604\/i-know-where-your-cat-lives\" target=\"_blank\">Kickstarter<\/a> will be funded! There&#8217;s still time however, to help contribute to the number of years I can keep the site live while getting fun rewards from the project like I Know Where Your Cat Lives themed beer koozies and plush fish-shaped catnip-laced cat toys, as well as a limited edition signed I Know Where Your Cat Lives archival ink jet print. The kickstarter closes on Sat, Aug 9 2014 11:49 AM EDT.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/1910822604\/i-know-where-your-cat-lives\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/ksr\/assets\/002\/252\/631\/521d41dda9ef52cf0ed178a5ad6424de_large.png?1404920818\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Thanks again to everyone who supported the project. It&#8217;s been fun.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ghostery.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Ghostery\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/iknowwhereyourcatlives.com\/assets\/img\/logos\/Ghostery_Logo_380w.png\" class=\"img-responsive\" style=\"margin:20px auto\"><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.domistation.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Domi Ventures\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/iknowwhereyourcatlives.com\/assets\/img\/logos\/domiLogo_130h.png\" class=\"img-responsive\" style=\"margin:20px auto\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It has been an intense couple weeks since my last post. It turns out the internet loves cats even more than data, maps, and politics. So here is an update on many things &#8220;cat&#8221;&#8230; Update on the project I Know Where Your Cat Lives has received an overwhelmingly positive response from international press. Besides photos [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/owen-mundy-just-ruined-the-internet-and-the-last-days-for-the-kickstarter\/\">Read More&#8230;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> from &#8220;Owen Mundy just ruined the Internet&#8221; and the last days for the kickstarter<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[105,112,142],"tags":[3,159,165,73],"class_list":["post-2698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-launch","category-press","category-reviews","tag-art","tag-cats","tag-code","tag-data"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2ovQg-Hw","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2698"}],"version-history":[{"count":44,"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2763,"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2698\/revisions\/2763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}