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A New Map of the Internet

Posted by Zonk on from the can-see-my-work-from-here dept.

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."

43 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. Shocking by kmac06 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Shocking by corsec67 · · Score: 2, Funny

      The tubes must be clogged.

      *Paging plumber to tube 23562 by 43566 by 23466*

      --
      If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
  2. Why such a map doesn't mean much by ajs · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much by Trogre · · Score: 2

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

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    2. Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much by Alomex · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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).

    3. Re:Why such a map doesn't mean much by spectrokid · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

      --

      10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then

  3. prior art by arbitraryaardvark · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  4. Kinda looks like this by lecithin · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

    --
    It could be worse, it could be Monday.
    1. Re:Kinda looks like this by PaintyThePirate · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      eclecti.cc
    2. Re:Kinda looks like this by mr_mischief · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

    3. Re:Kinda looks like this by Hognoxious · · Score: 2, Funny

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

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re:Kinda looks like this by tverbeek · · Score: 2, Funny

      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.

      --
      http://alternatives.rzero.com/
    5. Re:Kinda looks like this by rs79 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Need Mercedes parts ?
  5. Map of Tubes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  6. no match by albeit+unknown · · Score: 3, Funny

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

  7. Obligatory by evanbd · · Score: 5, Funny

    http://xkcd.com/195/

    http://xkcd.com/256/

    1. Re:Obligatory by witte · · Score: 2, Informative

      It even has Qwghlm on it. /geekgasm

  8. map visual appeal by siddesu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:map visual appeal by Plutonite · · Score: 2, Funny

      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

  9. What can we call this "New Map"? by ScrewMaster · · Score: 3, Funny

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

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  10. not 100% right. by hjf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:not 100% right. by jd · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  11. i thought that was here? by deander2 · · Score: 2, Funny

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

    --
    http://kered.org
  12. I just ask the locals.. by brxndxn · · Score: 2, Funny

    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!

    --
    --- We need more Ron Paul!
    1. Re:I just ask the locals.. by Aehgts · · Score: 2, Funny

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

      --
      "If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?" - Albert Einstein
  13. It is already out of date... by Ironix · · Score: 2, Funny

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

    --
    Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
    1. Re:It is already out of date... by mastershake_phd · · Score: 4, Informative

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

      --
      Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
  14. How about for Google Earth? by Lord_Breetai · · Score: 2, Interesting

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

    --
    "You are only young once, but you can be immature forever." -www.animemusicvideos.org
  15. Mirror link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  16. Not so shocking... by NerveGas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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".

    --
    Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
  17. Re:North-South Divide, nothing new. by iminplaya · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...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.

    --
    What?
  18. Is it classified like Sean Gorman map yet? by AHuxley · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    1. Re:Is it classified like Sean Gorman map yet? by MK_CSGuy · · Score: 2, Informative

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

  19. Re:North-South Divide, nothing new. by miro+f · · Score: 3, Funny

    nooo! South America is sinking!

    *glug glug glug...*

    --
    being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
  20. Penguins by flyingfsck · · Score: 2, Funny

    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...

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  21. Oddly enough by j3w · · Score: 3, Funny

    Every road leads to porn...

  22. Mirrors for High Resolution PNGs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    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

  23. useless map by marafa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

    --
    _ In Egypt Networks: Network Solutions with a Twist
  24. Re:Other things that will happen "in a few years" by 8ball629 · · Score: 2, Funny

    How can one forget Duke Nukem Forever?

  25. Re:North-South Divide, nothing new. by potnis · · Score: 2, Informative

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

    Unless i didnt get the memo!

  26. Re:North-South Divide, nothing new. by tverbeek · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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?

    --
    http://alternatives.rzero.com/
  27. Poor vs Rich by sapgau · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  28. Re:TransAtlantic by Chuq · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    --
    - Chuq