Complete Internet census taken -- perhaps the first since 1982
October 9, 2007
Each square on the map represents all the Internet addresses wth the same number in dotted-decimal notation. Each pixel represents the average result from 65,536 (2 to the 16th) addresses. Credit: USC Information Sciences Institute
Researchers at the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute, one of the birthplaces of the Internet decades ago, have just completed and plotted a comprehensive census of all of the more 2.8 million allocated addresses on the Internet -- the first complete effort of its kind in more than two decades, they say.
"An Internet Census," explains John Heidemannn, an ISI project leader who also has an appointment in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering computer science department, "is just that: every single assigned address in the entire Internet was sent a probe."
The technical name for an Internet probe, more commonly called a "ping" is an "Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) echo request packet." It took some 62 days to send almost 3 billion of these from three machines, an effort carried out by Heidmann's ISI collaborator Yuri Pradkin.
A detailed account of the research is at http://www.isi.edu … s/index.html
Many (61 percent) of the pings received no response at all. Many others got a "do not disturb" or "no information available" response that many network adminstrators program into their routers and firewalls. Some of the non- replies were probably also due to firewalls intentionally blocking the pings. Still, as the census went on, millions of sites did respond, positively and negatively, and a unique internet atlas took shape.
The atlas is not geographic, though geographic areas (North American, Europe, etc) show up on it. Instead, it is numerical, building on the mathematical structure of the Internet address system.
Each internet address is a number between 0 and 2 to the 32nd power (4,294,967,295), usually written in "dotted-decimal notation" as four base-10 numbers separated by periods; for example 128.150.4.107. Each number represents one 8-bit part of the whole address.
These addresses appear in the chart as a grid of squares, each square representing all the addresses beginning with the same first number ("128," in the preceding example). The map is arranged in ascending numerical order, but instead in a looping pattern called a Hilbert curve, which keeps adjacent addresses physically near each other, on chart," but also makes it possible to zoom seamlessly in to show greater detail. "The idea of using a Hilbert curve actually came from a web comic, xkcd," Heidemann said.
The smallest feature the map shows is a singe pixel, which is records averaged responses from some 65,536 (2 to the 16th) addresses. The averaging is conveyed by color coding, with all positive responses showing up as brilliant green, all negative as brilliant red, equal numbers as brilliant yellow, with brilliance decreasing down to dim shades in areas where fewer addresses respond.
But the map presents a census view of the visible Internet. "To our knowledge," said Heidemann," the only other census of the Internet was in 1982," when the Intenet consisted of 315 allocated addresses.
Heidemannn and Pradkin have also plotted a second rendering where each pixel represents a single address. When printed out at laser-printer resolution, this map that literally shows every address in the Internet takes up a 9x9 foot space on a corridor wall in ISI's Marina del Rey campus.
The project is continuing. Heidemann hopes to continue censuses to create not just a snapshot -which is what the current map is - but a dynamic movie of Internet evolution, which can aid in detecting and monitoring trends. He and his collaborators are intensively studying the census results working toward this goal.
While the new census is the first they have visualized. ISI has been taking censuses since 2003, when Praydkin and Joseph Bannister (of ISI) and Ramesh Govindan (of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, started collecting data. Their hopes were to study the growth of the Internet, and their group is still processing this data to look for trends.
“Internet census data is useful for several reasons”, Heidemannn says. “As the Internet use becomes widespread, we are running out of Internet addresses—good predictions by Geoff Huston suggest all addresses may be allocated as soon as early 2010. The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force, the technical body that manages the Internet) has anticipated this since the 1990s and designed a new protocol, IPv6, to solve this problem, but deployment has been slow. Our data can help illustrate the need to move forward.”
The census also can improve Internet security. In fact, says Heidemann, the Department of Homeland Security "supported our work with the goal of improving network security," As one example, ISI research Jelena Mirkovicis using the new census data to study how worms spread in the Internet. Other researchers have plotted maps of where cyber-attacks originate.
"There’s also a sense of discovery in these maps," Heidemannn says. "We’ve built a huge Internet and use it every day. Like the far side of the moon, wouldn’t you like to know what it looks like"'
More details about the census project and the full-scale map are at http://www.isi.edu … le_internet/
Source: University of Southern California
-
Internet addresses: An inevitable shortage, but an uneven one
Feb 01, 2011 |
2.3 / 5 (3) |
6
-
EU prizewinning researchers decongest the internet
Feb 02, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Article addresses the e-patient phenomenon
Feb 01, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Matching fans to music tops record industry agenda
Feb 01, 2012 |
3 / 5 (1) |
0
-
The ethics of brain boosting
Jan 26, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (34) |
43
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (30) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
-
Synergistic relations between computer science and technology.
Feb 06, 2012
-
how do iphone gloves work?
Feb 05, 2012
-
iPhone battery over time
Jan 30, 2012
-
Best alternate Tablet to an iPad for writing math or physics equations?
Jan 26, 2012
-
Sending SMS to a website
Jan 20, 2012
-
Need help with my technical fest!
Jan 19, 2012
- More from Physics Forums - Computing & Technology
More news stories
Zynga partners with toy maker Hasbro
Old school toy maker Hasbro and online social game star Zynga on Thursday announced a partnership to mesh the Internet firm's hits with real-world products.
1 hour ago |
not rated yet |
0
US video game sales fall 34 percent in January
(AP) -- U.S. retail sales of video game hardware, software and accessories fell 34 percent in January from a year earlier to $751 million due to the lack of new game titles, according to market researcher NPD Group.
1 hour ago |
not rated yet |
0
Samsung can continue selling Galaxy tabs in Germany: court
South Korea's Samsung Electronics can continue to sell its Galaxy Tab 10.1N tablet computer in Germany, a German court ruled Thursday, rejecting a bid by arch-rival Apple to have them banned.
23 hours ago |
4 / 5 (4) |
3
Digital photos could put kids at risk
A study published in the International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics this month suggests that parents and carers could be putting children at risk if they upload digital photos that are automatically "geota ...
19 hours ago |
5 / 5 (1) |
3
Google launches Chrome browser for Android smartphones
With more and more people connecting to the Internet through a phone or a tablet instead of a PC, Google Inc. is bringing its fast-growing browser, Chrome, to the newest Android-powered mobile devices.
21 hours ago |
5 / 5 (5) |
0
Protein libraries in a snap
(PhysOrg.com) -- A Rice University undergraduate will depart with not only a degree but also a possible patent for his invention of an efficient way to create protein libraries, an important component of biomolecular ...
Sleep breathing machine shows clear benefits in children with sleep apnea
Children and adolescents with obstructive sleep apnea had substantial improvements in attention, anxiety and quality of life after treatment with positive airway pressure (PAP)a nighttime therapy in which a machine ...
Neurologic improvement detected in rats receiving stem cell transplant
In a study to be presented today at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting, in Dallas, Texas, researchers will report that early transplantation of human placenta-derived mesenchymal ...
NASA budget will axe Mars deal with Europe: scientists
US President Barack Obama's budget proposal to be submitted next week for 2013 will cut NASA's budget by 20 percent and eliminate a major partnership with Europe on Mars exploration, scientists said Thursday.
Breastfeeding protects against asthma up to six years of age
(Medical Xpress) -- Research by the University of Otago in Christchurch and Wellington has shown that breastfeeding of infants has a clear protective effect against children developing asthma or wheezing up to six years of ...
Study finds stress hormones fluctuate with mood during pregnancy
(Medical Xpress) -- While pregnant, women pay particular attention to factors such as diet and exercise to ensure their babies are born healthy and develop normally. New research from the University of Calgarys Faculty ...