When Submarine Cables Go Dark: Measuring the Resilience of Websites Used in Taiwan
- Time
- 2026-08-08 10:00 ~ 10:30
- Speaker
- Irvin Chen
- Room
- TR513
- Co-write
Abstract
At the end of last December, an undersea earthquake damaged more than half of Taiwan’s communication cables. Combined with ongoing cable incidents in the region, people have already experienced noticeable network slowdowns over the past few months.
What if things get even worse?
If Taiwan were to lose all international connectivity, which websites that we rely on every day would still function—and which ones would fail completely? How would undersea cable disruptions affect everyday Internet in Taiwan?
Since the first “g0v Digital Resilience Hackathon” from late 2023, Irvin has been exploring this central question. This work evolved into a full research project supported by the APNIC Foundation starting in October 2025, in collaboration with the Open Culture Foundation (OCF).
We collected and analyzed approximately 2,000 of the most popular websites used by people in Taiwan, performing request-level measurements on their homepage loading behavior. The results show that at least 47% of websites would fail to function properly, plus another 42% exhibit high-risk dependencies, under a complete international disconnection scenario.
Check https://resilience.ocf.tw/web for code, data, and results.
What do these findings mean for digital resilience—and what can be done about it? Join us to explore the hidden dependencies behind modern web services and discuss how Taiwan can better prepare for a “cables down” scenario.
Speaker
Irvin Chen
開放文化基金會海纜專案研究員，G0v 韌性松 / Mozilla 貢獻者，摩茲工寮社群空間 keyholder。近期，Irvin 的興趣在理解數位政策與法規，對於網路平台及民主發展的影響，以及試圖深掘「海纜斷光，到底會怎麼樣？」的答案。
Irvin 同時是前端工程師與開源社群參與者。自 2011 年起擔任 Mozilla 台灣社群聯絡人，負責跨國志工與專案協調，並共同管理摩茲工寮社群空間。他曾在女人迷 (womany.net) 負責網站前端架構規劃，並協助設計 DEI 企業評鑑等策略產品，推動臺灣職場平權與多元包容。Irvin 曾協助將國台語及多個族語納入 Common Voice 開源語音庫，建立釋出第一套免費且自由的台灣原住民多族語音資料集。
Irvin 關心數位政策與法規對網路及民主發展的影響，今年起亦協助舉辦每月定期「g0v 韌性松」，關注國際海纜斷線對社會帶來的挑戰。
Irvin Chen is a Submarine Cable Researcher at the Open Culture Foundation (OCF) and an active contributor to the g0v and Mozilla Community. He is also a keyholder of the MozTW Community Space, where he supports community collaboration and open technology initiatives.
Irvin is both a frontend engineer and an open source community builder. He has served as a Mozilla Taiwan Community Liaison since early '2000, coordinating international volunteers and projects as a member of the Mozilla Reps Council. He was previously responsible for frontend architecture at womany.net, where he contributed to the development of DEI-focused strategic products to promote workplace equality and inclusion.
He has contributed to Mozilla Common Voice by helping incorporate Taiwanese languages, including Taiwanese Hokkien and Formosan Indigenous languages, into open speech datasets, helping create the first freely available multi-Indigenous speech corpus of Taiwan.
In recent years, Irvin has focused on understanding how digital policies and regulations shape the Internet ecosystem and democratic development. Irvin helps organize the monthly g0v Digital Resilience Hackathon, and is currently focusing on a critical question: what actually happens when submarine cables go dark, the societal impact and broader digital resilience challenges.