Northwestern University network researchers want you to help increase the speed of the internet.
Through the use of information from 18,768 BitTorrent users (as of the last update) the NEWS (Network Early Warning System) analyzes bottlenecks, determines if they are local, regional or global and sends the feedback to ISPs that can fix their problems.
According to Slashdot.org, Fabian Bustamante, computer science professor at Northwestern, calls this "crowd sourcing network monitoring".
In lieu of any actual global monitor of the global network known as the internet the crowd appears to be a reliable detector of problem areas.
And the more users the better, Bustamante wants 100,000 worldwide users to diagnose slowdowns most effectively.