A New Map of the Internet

An anonymous reader writes "The Chris Harrison project has created a series of maps that show the geographical structure and distribution of the Internet. At the site you can view a global, geo-spatial map of the global internet. The visualizations were put together using data from the Dimes project. One visualization shows the density of Internet connections worldwide while the other displays how international cities are connected. Detailed Maps of Europe and North America are included as well. It's amazing how skewed the distribution is — beyond Australia, New Zealand, and parts of South-East Asia, the southern hemisphere has only a peppering of connectivity."

Comments

Shocking

[kmac06]

So the parts of the world that are developed and wealthy have a larger internet presence than the third world countries? I am shocked, shocked I say.

Re:Shocking

[Bluesy21]

Shocking that its Slashdotted already!

Re:Shocking

[corsec67]

The tubes must be clogged.

*Paging plumber to tube 23562 by 43566 by 23466*

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

My other monitor just happened to have the composite satellite image of the earth at night displayed (http://tinyurl.com/ys2xu9). Funny but I couldn't tell the difference between the two :)

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

I am shocked, shocked I say.

Are you equally shocked by the statement at the end that, "Although the Copyright Act does permit certain unauthorized reuse as fair use under 17 U.S.C. Section 107 ....", he thinks that you don't get to exercise this permission without _his_ permission?

What a horse's ass.

Re:Shocking

[tehcyder]

There seem to be black areas where the oceans are, too. Guess those whales and dolphins aren't quite as smart as people think.

North-South Divide, nothing new.

[Shag]

Beyond Australia, New Zealand, and parts of South-East Asia, the southern hemisphere is largely less developed in all kinds of ways than the north. This plays out in lots of areas international organizations like the UN deal with. It's nifty that the 'net reflects it, but not particularly surprising.

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[cindysthongs]

Maybe internet maps would be good feedback to the UN if progress is being made

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[iminplaya]

...the southern hemisphere is largely less developed in all kinds of ways than the north.

Well, beyond those and Antarctica (Imagine... a whole continent without a Walmart!), much of the southern hemisphere is still under water.

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[miro f]

nooo! South America is sinking!

*glug glug glug...*

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[z3d4r]

Australia doesnt have a walmart store anywhere either

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[digitig]

I suspect the internet maps will tend to lag behind the indicators that matter at the moment. A lot of developing countries are held back by the poor transportation infrastructures. Although data movement can be important for an economy, it's probably always going to lag movement of physical goods -- you can't eat bits.

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[Anonymous Coward]

Beyond Australia, New Zealand, and parts of South-East Asia, The southern hemisphere also only has a peppering of the Earth's landmass and population as well.

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[Anonymous Coward]

UN peeps look at internet maps: Hmmmmm, looks like progress is being made, when will we be able to start taking bribes or injecting corruption???

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[potnis]

Just for the record, South East Asia is NOT in the Southern hemisphere.

Unless i didnt get the memo!

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[tverbeek]

I find the exceptions to the general patterns interesting. For example, on the map of connections, there's a cluster going to somewhere around the Gulf of Guinea... are those lines there to transport all the scam-spam from deposed Nigerian millionaires? And what's with the links to... northern Manitoba?

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[novakreo]

...the southern hemisphere is largely less developed in all kinds of ways than the north.

Well, beyond those and Antarctica (Imagine... a whole continent without a Walmart!), much of the southern hemisphere is still under water. Australia and Africa don't have Walmarts either.

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[CastrTroy]

Do Europe, Asia or Wouth America, have Walmarts (someone else already mentioned Australia)? I thought it was a purely North American thing.

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[ijakings]

"You sunk my rabble ship."

"This game makes no sense."

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[rainer_d]

They're pulling out of Germany. I don't know about the rest of Europe.
After burning through the (estimated) loss of 800 millions Euro in ten years, they pulled the plug in July 2006 and sold the German business to the Metro Group.
I just read in the German wikipedia-article that there was indeed no other Walmart-franchise in the rest of Europe.
In Germany, nobody needed them - there were already lots of established players who want to drive prices down and each other out of business to be able to move the prices up again (ALDI, LIDL, said Metro Group etc.)
I hate them all.

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[phantomcircuit]

Maybe just maybe the high distribution is due to the project being entirely in English?

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[jorgevillalobos]

Walmart is about to build at least one store in Costa Rica.

That's Central America, in case you were wondering.

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[CastrTroy]

Central America is not a continent, in case you were wondering. Costa Rica is part of North America.

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[frank_adrian314159]

And what's with the links to... northern Manitoba?

Online poker servers run on Aboriginal territory.

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[jorgevillalobos]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_rica

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_America

Central America (Spanish: Centroamérica or América Central) is a central geographic region of the Americas. It is variably defined either as the southern portion of North America, which connects with South America on the southeast, or a region of the Americas in its own right.

FWIW, most people I've ever known (from various parts of the world) consider Central America a continent on its own. I can clearly see the case for the opposite, but I disagree with it.

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[axlrosen]

The Gulf of Guinea happens to be at latitude zero, longitude zero, so I'd say that's due to data issues. Also 90 degrees longitude (or is it latitude? I forget) goes through Manitoba, so that might also be a similar problem.

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[CastrTroy]

Southeast Asia is considered it's own region of Asia, but that doesn't make it a continent.

Re:North-South Divide, nothing new.

[ed.mps]

In Brazil we do have 34 of them (including SAM's CLUBs)

Why such a map doesn't mean much

[ajs]

I've worked on trying to identify geographical locations based on IP, reverse mapping, and a number of other measures. Trust me when I say that it's near impossible to get even a passable degree of accuracy. DIMES does the best they can with what they have, but I would not put too much stock in it.

Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much

[Anonymous Coward]

So what? You're the man.

Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much

[Trogre]

I know what you mean. Xtraceroute hasn't worked properly for years now.

Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much

[Alomex]

Trust me when I say that it's near impossible to get even a passable degree of accuracy.

This is assuming you try to ID the location from a single place. If you probe the IP from ten different geographic locations you can get within 100 miles of the actual destination and quite often a lot closer than that. Quite often the address we guessed was within 10 miles of that listed in the DNS records (which is not always the right one due to corporations collocating their servers at a different address than the DNS record).

Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much

[Broken scope]

Offtopic, mod me so quickly.

So what your signature is telling me is that I'm going to have a job when I graduate? Fuck yes.

Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much

[spectrokid]

Well somebody is getting it right... I am living in a shitty little village in Denmark and and the "Meet interesting girls in..." adverts from Adult Friend Finder have zeroed in. A year ago they gave towns 60 km away from here, now they are always within 10 km.

Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much

[boarsai]

You have to start worrying (or counting your blessings) when the adverts are accurate enough to start informing you that the hot girls are actually next door! Hang on... you'd probably already know that. Get away from the window.

Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much

[CastrTroy]

What the sig is saying is what has always been true. People who are really interested in IT and have real skills will have no problem finding a job. There's a huge shortage of good IT workers. The fact that CS enrollment has dropped 70% just goes to show how many people were just in it for the money. Once the lucrative jobs went away, so did the people with no interest in the subject.

Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's more like corporations suddenly realized that most CS majors don't know crap about anything modern and are poor IT workers. Colleges need to start teaching better IT skills using modern equipment. Last CS grad we interviewed kept talking about how good he was at programming bubble sorts in C. He didn't know how to install an operating system. He didn't know anything about system security. You know important things in the IT world?

Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much

[Alomex]

Yup, people who graduate in 2008-2010 are going to command large starting salaries, signing bonuses and will have a choice of where to work. One thing though, businesses today have no patience to train anyone, so you better specialize before you finish your degree (learn networks or CG or oracle or whatever, but you ought to be able to hit the ground running).

Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much

[GC]

It doesnt mean much, I help manage a couple of protected international circuits in Europe and can categorically say that they do not appear on this map.

Also this map shows interconnectivity which I presume is at a Layer 3 level, does not account for tunnelled interfaces, or physical interconnectivity such as SDH/Sonet networks of ADMs.

Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much

[5of0]

This CS major was probably one of the ones that was in it just for the money. If he was in it because he liked it, or actually wanted to do it, he would have already installed an operating system many, many times over in his life (for himself, his next of kin, his friends...) and would know a lot more than they teach you in college, just because that's what he does on the side. I'm a CS/EE double major, and know a lot more than I have learned (granted, I'm only a Sophomore), because I love CS/EE and that's what I've been doing in my spare time for the past four years. I've learned a lot more in fiddling with stuff in my spare time, and working as the IT guy at two jobs, than I ever have in classes. And yes, I've installed several distros of Linux, Windows 98,2000,XP, and Mac 9 and OS X. In case you were wondering. Oh, and I'd have to guess to tell you what a bubble sort was. I learned that in class, it's not like I actually remember it.

Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much

[ajs]

Trust me when I say that it's near impossible to get even a passable degree of accuracy.

This is assuming you try to ID the location from a single place. If you probe the IP from ten different geographic locations you can get within 100 miles of the actual destination and quite often a lot closer than that. Just two data-points for you to consider:

1) Many multinational corporations have points of presence for their Internet access in one or a small number of countries, shunting users to those countries from their satellite offices. That means that that hit from Thailand could easily be originating in Australia.

2) Many dialup users in the EU, South America and Africa cross national boundaries between the dialup POP that they use and the point of presence that they appear to originate from.

That's just two examples off the top of my head, but pretty much blows any attempt to map the net out of the water. Multinationals account for a huge fraction of the business users out there. Similarly, countries in which users might use an ISP that's not POPed in their country are all over the globe.

Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much

[Alomex]

When I say it works is because we've done it. In fact you can buy this as a commercial service from any number of companies e.g. http://www.maxmind.com/>, http://ip2location.com/>.

Btw. we could do way better than those two companies above, since we did it using more sophisticated techniques than a simple reverse IP lookup.

Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much

[ajs]

When I say it works is because we've done it. In fact you can buy this as a commercial service Oh, there are plenty of commercial services that do this. They're all wrong, however. The benefit that they have is that they tend to come up with results that, for the most part, agree with each other, so the incorrectness of their results have become accepted degrees of inaccuracy.

That doesn't make them true, however, and the two examples that I gave pretty concretely prove that.

prior art

[arbitraryaardvark]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGfNSA3QmWg&NR=1
http://xkcd.com/store/

Re:prior art

[mjrosenb]

There used to be an amazing site called peacock maps that had posters of the net back in 2002. The posters were amazing, but they still stopped making them

Re:prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

>(xkcd map of the internet)

Not short on IPv4 addresses at all.

While we're at it, xtraceroute already seems to know about Japans's secret future plans.

Kinda looks like this

[lecithin]

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/image/earth_night.jpg

Re:Kinda looks like this

[diegocn]

Wow I thought China's density would be a lot more than Indea's. Also it's shocking how North Korea compares to South Korea.

Re:Kinda looks like this

[Climate Shill]

Now that is odd. Do they really not have artificial lighting in Canada ?

And why the horizontal line across asia ?

Re:Kinda looks like this

[PaintyThePirate]

I wondered the same about the line when I first saw that map. I could be mistaken, but I think its the result of towns springing up around the Trans-Siberian Railway. It had the same type of effect on Russia that the Transcontinental Railroad did for the US.

Re:Kinda looks like this

[mr_mischief]

They have lots of artificial lighting in Canada. It's plain on the picture. The farthest north reaches just don't have that many inhabitants. Much of Canada's population lives just north of the US border.

As for the horizontal line across Asia, I'm going to guess that's Russia's Trans-Siberian Railroad and all the settlements along it. Even in the more heavily lit region around the Caucasus, one can pick out a line. It appears to run directly from the Baltic near St. Petersburg to the east then south a bit around th Chinese border to Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan. That's about the route of the TSR.

Re:Kinda looks like this

[belmolis]

Indeed, more than "much". 90% of our population lives within 160km (100 miles) of the US border. That's 3.5% of the greatest north-south extent of the country. We've got electric lights, computers, cellphones, even broadband here in the north, but it doesn't light up like the far south.

Re:Kinda looks like this

[Anonymous Coward]

lucky bastards ... you have clear skies and aurora ;)
my only consolation is that it is prolly freezing.

Re:Kinda looks like this

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that is odd. Do they really not have artificial lighting in Canada ? Not where nobody lives. I'd think of it as: each faintest point of light represents the candela-power of about 500 people. Saskatchewan alone has just under a million people in more area than California. And you can clearly see the dark patches in California. They're called mountains and deserts.

And why the horizontal line across asia ? See answer above. Also, you found

And you're welcome for the Grade 10 geography lesson. And here I was going to post something funny about NASA waiting for just the right moment when the sun was dark to take the picture... :-p

Re:Kinda looks like this

[Hognoxious]

That's the great firewall of China. It's like a filter, in the tubes.

Re:Kinda looks like this

[Anonymous Coward]

P R O B A B L Y you ignorant fuck.

Re:Kinda looks like this

[tverbeek]

As any paranoid US nationalist knows, nearly the entire Canadian population is massed on the US/Canada border, in preparation for an invasion. They've turned off all the lights in the rest of the country to protect it from retaliatory air raids.

Re:Kinda looks like this

[rs79]

I had no idea my grade 12 geography project would EVER come in handy but...

Cities tend to grow up around train (now highway) lines. For reasons I'd think would be obvious.

Toronto in the 50s was a perfect example. One line north south (Yonge) and east west (Bloor).

Thank you Mr. Cioran.

Re:Kinda looks like this

[Oktober Sunset]

Well, they burned the white house last time...

Re:Kinda looks like this

[zenwarrior]

True, especially given all the spam and counterfeit software supposedly coming from China now. At least within China, it appears the counterfeit software is being distributed via sneakerware, and not the internet. Then again, that makes sense. After all, a billion sneakers easily trumps even a T3 line for the amount of data that can be moved.

Re:Kinda looks like this

[Anonymous Coward]

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/image/earth_night.jpg [nasa.gov]

OMG -- there's less light in the Great Lakes than in most of South America!

We gotta help them people!!!

Re:Kinda looks like this

[mr_mischief]

I'd heard the 90% within 100 miles statistic before, but I wasn't sure how recent it was (nor, truthfully, if it was entirely accurate or some hyperbole).

Map of Tubes

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: Map of Tubes

Hello, Ted Stevens here.
I find this map of tubes very intriguing. As you may know, I have been a proponent of protecting the Internet's tubes from clogging up. I think this new geo-spatial map will show how the tubes are distributed. It shows that I was right all along! The Internet is like a truck! You can't just throw stuff on it or it slows it down. As a matter of fact, my secretary is sending an Internet right now and NO CARRIER

Very Truly Yours,
Ted Stevens
U.S. Senator
--
Write in the man! George W. Bush in 2008.

Re:Map of Tubes

[eneville]

in soviet russia, siberia connects you!

Re:Map of Tubes

[trib4lmaniac]

The internet is not a big truck. It's a series of tubes.

Re:Map of Tubes

[sh3l1]

don't send that internet to him he may not get it for a few days, and by then the internet will be so clogged up with all these things going on commercially that he won't even be able to access the internet-portal.

no match

[albeit unknown]

The Chris Harrison project will prove to be no match for.... The Alan Parsons Project.

Re:no match

[ScrewMaster]

More likely he'll run afoul of the previous generation of global computing: The Forbin Project.

Re:no match

[haakondahl]

No doubt they used the Eye in the Sky.

Obligatory

[evanbd]

http://xkcd.com/195/

http://xkcd.com/256/

Re:Obligatory

[witte]

It even has Qwghlm on it. /geekgasm

Let there be dots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now at Chris Harrision's hosting site, the light is brighter than it ever has been. /.'ed

Obligatory..?

[PhasmatisApparatus]

Because everyone knows that the internet is, as the post says, a "series of maps".

Re:Obligatory..?

[Anonymous Coward]

What I thought it was a series of tubes!

Re:Obligatory..?

[saskboy]

If the Internet is a series of maps, does that make spammers the people who put push-pins into random places that make no sense?

Re:Obligatory..?

[rs79]

"Because everyone knows that the internet is, as the post says, a "series of maps". "

Until 1996 when the TCP/IP connected internet finally became larger than the UUCP network this was very very true.

No maps, no UUCP, no network.

map visual appeal

[siddesu]

well, in a few years, when the one laptop per child project succeeds, and the world has successfully moved to ipv6 and most computers have real IP addresses, there may be some really interesting pictures in the developing world as well. in fact, since by that time the West will probably be saturated with networked devices, the only maps that are interesting visually may be those in the poorer countries.

Re:map visual appeal

[Anonymous Coward]

...and at what point to monkeys fly out of your orifices?

Re:map visual appeal

[Plutonite]

I hate to tell you this, but there are these huge stretches of land in the US called the "fly-over" states..perhaps you've heard of them. I doubt they will be ever saturated with anything, much less IPv6 networks. Maybe cows, I dunno. Whenever you get the impulse to imagine a technologically saturated western world where everything is so advanced that it doesn't matter to look anymore, always remember

IDAHO: FAMOUS POTATOES!

For further info:
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=idaho_blows

Re:map visual appeal

[Dogtanian]

I doubt [the "fly-over" states] will be ever saturated with anything, much less IPv6 networks. It's unlikely that they'll ever have fibre/wire connectivity to any massive extent, but what about WiMax and other wireless Internet technologies?

You may think that Idaho will still never approach urban areas in terms of relative connectivity. However, if wireless technology gets closer to wired/fibre in terms of performance, it may be decided that it's simply easier to connect even urban areas with wireless (makes the infrastructure easier to build). In which case, unwired Idaho is at much less of a disadvantage, and may even benefit from the development of wireless technologies for rich urban areas.

I suspect that long-range wireless technologies will also be given a boost by its use in developing countries; it's already the case that some are going straight from having little or no telecoms infrastructure to mobile phone technology, bypassing the construction of wired networks.

And why not? Sure, wired may be faster just now, but it's probably not practical for such countries. I can't see them spending vast amounts of money wiring large areas of poor countries, but long-range wireless Internet *is* plausible. Developments there may encourage its use in more isolated parts of first world countries like the US.

What can we call this "New Map"?

[ScrewMaster]

Let's see, it's a new way to map the network, a new map ... I've got it! We'll call it "NMAP"!

not 100% right.

[hjf]

this map needs a lot of interpretation: the southern hemisphere looks dark compared to the north, but that's because of the way population is distributed. In the US, there's town after town, and that's why mid-to-north US looks so bright, and we know that in the left, it isn't so. Europe is the same. Lots of people crammed in relatively small territories. But then you see Brazil and Argentina, and we look dim. Too dim. Well, that's because we have vast extensions of nothing. Wild rainforest, the wonderful pampas... sure, these places are "disconnected". But then again, nobody lives there (keep in mind, for example, Argentina is 2/3 the size of the US and 1/10 the population). But look closely: central america is bright. Why? Easy: small countries, many cities together. They look brighter in the map. I mean, south america isn't "disconnected", it's just not so densely connected, and I guess there's an important factor too:

This map was, I guess, made with some sort of "geolocation" database. I happen to be a customer of a large ISP, they don't assign a whole netblock to my city, so it's registered as part of Buenos Aires . So the data may lie a little (I know that hundreds, if not thousands of Latin American small towns have -paid- wi-fi. Some of them through satellite links, others, the luckier, through leased lines. I happen to be in the industry and have set up 4 wi-fi ISPs, and I know of at least another 10 in my province alone). I think the "world at night" ( http://www.atimes.com/atimes/images/earth_night.jpg ) map represents what I'm trying to mean. I bet that if the data was completely precise, it would look a lot like this map.

Re:not 100% right.

[flyingsquid]

,i>this map needs a lot of interpretation: the southern hemisphere looks dark compared to the north, but that's because of the way population is distributed.

I don't think so. If you ignore brightness, and compare the number of connections coming out of a large American city like Seattle, San Franciso, or LA to any South American city, it simply has more connections.

Re:not 100% right.

[Strange Ranger]

That map of the night is crazy.
I mean most of it looks spot on to me.
Except for the part where most of Canada is using night goggles instead of lamps.

Re:not 100% right.

[jd]

If you scaled each region by population, scaled the thickness of each line by bandwidth scaled the brightness of each line by reliability, and used the three primary colours to indicate whether the line supported IPv6, MPLS or multicasting in addition to the mainstream Internet protocols, you would produce a more representative map that would better reflect actual Internet service and coverage but would also be totally unreadable and would also likely destroy the credibility of most of the major Internet-enabled nations.

Re:not 100% right.

[jonadab]

There may be more going on than that. Nigeria is more densely populated than Ohio, but Nigeria is mostly black, with little grey dots at Lagos, Port Harcourt, and a couple of other places (cities, presumably). Ohio is pure white, even in rural areas like Morrow County. One could just about believe that's accurate.

On the other hand, clearly there ARE some problems with the data. For instance, there are a significant number of dots are in the Pacific Ocean, a hundred miles off the coast of Chili, which is clearly not right, and Canada is almost totally black, which strikes me as very unlikely.

Re:not 100% right.

[hjf]

I was talking about geographical distribution of connections, not the number of connections. Also, in the US there are more far more datacenters than anywhere in the world, and those represent many connections. Considering that few sites are locally-hosted (because leased-line, infrastructure, and energy costs make it prohibitive to build a large datacenter here, many (most?) local websites are hosted in the US).

Re:not 100% right.

[Artifakt]

Ok, but there's got to be a downside.

Re:not 100% right.

[akasch]

great I have a map - now all I need is a winning BetonMarkets system, a crystal ball, a lucky horseshoe, the ability to see into the future, a new pair of running shoes, and my ass handed to me in a hat

Re:not 100% right.

[jd]

The downside is that people will think it's Prince's new name.

Re:not 100% right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn straight. Unfortunately, those glowing dots down in Tasmania (the island south of mainland Australia) are just glowworms and aren't really be representative of the locals innate backwardness. One day they'll eventually come down out of their trees. ;-)

Thanks!

[nacredata]

The general message is a good one to be reminded of. The precision is not too high I suppose as noted. But damn, that looks way cool as a visual.

i thought that was here?

[deander2]

http://xkcd.com/256/ =p

I just ask the locals..

[brxndxn]

okay.. so ya take a right at ol' Goog's,
then, veer left and avoid goats.ex,
take a pitt stop at fark.com - but don't chat with the locals unless ya' wanna get made fun of,
drive straight past slashdot, it's just a tourist trap
take a right at myspace.com.. and be sure to leave them alone. they don't tolerate much
and there ya are.. PORN!

Re:I just ask the locals..

[Aehgts]

There's something wrong with your tubes if you have to sail that far to reach the ocean of pr0n... :P

It is already out of date...

[Ironix]

Already he needs to remove his own burning ruin of a server from the list.

Re:It is already out of date...

[mastershake_phd]

mirror, full article + pics: http://freedomsforums.com/viewtopic,p,1385.html

Hmmm...

[Psychor]

I guess the maps would show that the density of Internet connections near Chris Harrison's server was very low, if I could load them.

This part of the map is black...

[Z80xxc!]

The part of the map for the server for the page linked to appears to be black. Yep, slashdotted.

How about for Google Earth?

[Lord_Breetai]

It would be nice if this could be viewed via Google Earth. And if it has been done, sorry, the article is slashdotted.

Re:How about for Google Earth?

[mastershake_phd]

...slashdotted

See it here: http://freedomsforums.com/viewtopic,p,1385.html

Mirror link

[Anonymous Coward]

I have mirrored the maps temporarily at http://www.clearchaos.com/worldBlack.jpg and http://www.clearchaos.com/worlddotblack.jpg at least until my server turns into a smoking ruin.

Re:Mirror link

[mastershake_phd]

Yet another mirror, full article + pics: http://freedomsforums.com/viewtopic,p,1385.html

Re:Mirror link

[antdude]

Here too: http://www.networkmirror.com/giEZfw_My0Wv7jzm/chrisharrison.net/projects/InternetMap/index.html

Coral Caches:
http://www.netdimes.org.nyud.net:8090/new/

Re:Mirror link

[leenks]

I'm quite surprised this is considered news - this work was published months ago, and has been on http://visualcomplexity.com/ for months aswell.

Another Mirror link

[corsec67]

Allow me to add my server into the fray, since that is just such a cool map. At 500K each, no wonder his server is down...
http://phot.ogra.ph/worldBlack.jpg (connectivity map)
http://phot.ogra.ph/worlddotblack.jpg (hosts map)

Not so shocking...

[NerveGas]

"beyond Australia, New Zealand, and parts of South-East Asia, the southern hemisphere has only a peppering of connectivity."

That's because beyond those countries, the Southern hemisphere only has a peppering of prosperity. If you want to know why, read "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations".

another temporary mirror

[boredandblogging]

http://boredandblogging.com/worlddotblack.jpg/
http://boredandblogging.com/worldBlack.jpg/

This is obvious

[bl8n8r]

Look at all the US botnets slamming russia.

Re:This is obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

In free market Russia, botnets slam US.

hmmm

[thatskinnyguy]

Server is down. It seems they caved to the Slashdot Effect.

Other things that will happen "in a few years"

[Anonymous Coward]

well, in a few years ...
we will have flying cars, and robot house servants, and pills instead of food. ... in a few years

Re:Other things that will happen "in a few years"

[Anonymous Coward]

i have a robot house servant already, and i am building a flying car.
as for the pills, thanks, but no thanks. you keep em ;)

Re:Other things that will happen "in a few years"

[8ball629]

How can one forget Duke Nukem Forever?

The mighty slashdot

[Monkeyknifightz]

Another website a victim of slash dotting.

Looks like the Internet.......

[LoneGNUman]

Looks like the Internet.......It's down!!!!

Is it classified like Sean Gorman map yet?

[AHuxley]

Sean Gorman mapped out the US fiber-optic telco fiefdoms.
Parts of his dissertation where "removed".
He showed the choke points and critical links.

Re:Is it classified like Sean Gorman map yet?

[MK_CSGuy]

More on Gorman's dissertation here for those interested in the story.

Maps reminds me of...

[antdude]

Wargames movie and DEFCON game.

Penguins

[flyingfsck]

Well, most of the southern hemisphere is water and although there are penguins in Antarctica they are not really all that into this internet thing...

Re:Penguins

[jd]

But... but... but... Linux was written by penguins, right?

Re:Penguins

[NerveGas]

But, the Internet doesn't follow population, it follows prosperity. There are still a lot of people in the lower half, but for the most part, they're poor. Poor people (truly poor, not what we call "poor" in the US) care less about the Internet than about survival.

Interestingly enough, while I think that the Internet in general doesn't benefit poor (or uneducated) as much as a lot of people do, there are specific ways in which it (and cell phones) have allowed people in remote areas to conduct their business (usually farming) much more profitably, and I'm all for anything that helps people out of poverty.

Oddly enough

[j3w]

Every road leads to porn...

Mirrors for High Resolution PNGs

[Anonymous Coward]

Medium Resolution JPGs:

http://slinging.org/InternetMap/medium/worldBlack.jpg
http://slinging.org/InternetMap/medium/NorthAmericaBlack.jpg
http://slinging.org/InternetMap/medium/worlddotblack.jpg
http://slinging.org/InternetMap/medium/worldBlack.jpg

High Resolution PNGs:

http://slinging.org/InternetMap/high/NorthAmericaBlack.png
http://slinging.org/InternetMap/high/euroblack.png
http://slinging.org/InternetMap/high/worldBlack.png
http://slinging.org/InternetMap/high/worlddotblack.png

Re:Mirrors for High Resolution PNGs

[argent]

Your mirrors seem to be 404 compliant.

useless map

[marafa]

in my opinion, this map is useless UNLESS it is overlaying a map of the world. i for one, cannot find the capital city, cairo, of my country, egypt in these maps, only vaguely, but then again, it could also be tel aviv

Re:useless map

[Anonymous Coward]

i for one, cannot find the capital city, cairo, of my country, egypt in these maps, only vaguely, but then again, it could also be tel aviv Allah forbid anyone from confusing cairo and and tel aviv! That's a beheading offense.

Allah Akbar.

Oops, broke my tubes...

[Anonymous Coward]

And why the horizontal line across asia ? Also, you found Siberia's Railway.

rendering problem?

[andr0meda]

Is it just me or do the city-2-city connections look a little bit grid-like? I suppose it's a drawing artifact, but it certainly makes the graph look more wrong then right, as compared to small arched lines.

What city is way up north?

[Anonymous Coward]

What city/place is way up north on the north america map, it clearly stands out, but I'm not sure where it is

Perhaps it's this town: Whale Cove.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=62.172394,-92.575607&spn=0.024281,0.080338&z=14&om=1

TransAtlantic

[Adeptus_Luminati]

Man, that is a hella lot of trans Atlantic fiber... makes me wonder how much of it is just really different OC192+ Wavelengths down the same fiber/conduit.

Re:TransAtlantic

[Chuq]

I would guess a lot of it - looking at Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, on the high res version you can clearly see at least 15-20 lines coming out of it. In reality, there are only two fibre cables connecting the state to the rest of the country, and these are both owned by the same company.

Pretty pointless

[Goaway]

These maps are neither very useful, nor very pretty. The data visualization methods are a total joke.

Now, this is a map of the internet:

http://www.telegeography.com/products/map_internet/index.php

Too bad it costs an arm and a leg.

Re:Pretty pointless

[Goaway]

Oh, and even better: http://www.telegeography.com/products/map_internet/wallpaper/

Poor vs Rich

[sapgau]

Proves again how incredibly privileged we are.
This is a definition of third world countries. We are so used to being connected that we take it for granted. Rich countries are perfectly delineated by the amounts of connections they have (USA, Europe, Japan, Southern Australia) and clearly showing that South America, Africa, the Caucasus, India and South Asia are clearly the areas needed to develop.

Yes some points are visible like Sao Paulo, Johannesburg, Mumbai, etc. But it should be the same for the rest of the world. Similar of the map of the world when illuminated at night by city lights. Connectivity should be as common as electrical power.

Re:Poor vs Rich

[argent]

I just lined that map up with NASA's city lights map, and the correspondence is awfully close, allowing for the low resolution of the internet map: connectivity does seem to be "as common as electric power".

High Resolution Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.networkmirror.com/giEZfw_My0Wv7jzm/chrisharrison.net/projects/InternetMap/high/worlddotblack.png

http://www.networkmirror.com/giEZfw_My0Wv7jzm/chrisharrison.net/projects/InternetMap/high/worldBlack.png

http://www.networkmirror.com/giEZfw_My0Wv7jzm/chrisharrison.net/projects/InternetMap/high/euroblack.png

http://www.networkmirror.com/giEZfw_My0Wv7jzm/chrisharrison.net/projects/InternetMap/high/NorthAmericaBlack.png

Re:High Resolution Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

The website above is down, but this mirror is up:

http://www.flapdoodle.org/chrish/worlddotblack.png
http://www.flapdoodle.org/chrish/worldBlack.png
http://www.flapdoodle.org/chrish/euroblack.png
http://www.flapdoodle.org/chrish/NorthAmericaBlack.png

XKCD

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a real map of the internet:
http://www.xkcd.com/256/

Re:XKCD

[Destoo]

"Hi. I'm from the internet."
"Oh, what part?

Is myspace really that big?

Re:XKCD

[Bryan K. Feir]

I don't know, I prefer this one: http://xkcd.com/195/.

Vermont

[pubwvj]

Hmm... I see Vermont looks just like a 3rd world country. Good although not surprising. Hyper-connectivity and population density (cities) are both highly over rated. -Walter in Vermont and loving it