Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGfNSA3QmWg&NR=1
http://xkcd.com/store/
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/image/earth_night.jpg
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
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.
The Chris Harrison project will prove to be no match for.... The Alan Parsons Project.
http://xkcd.com/195/
http://xkcd.com/256/
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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"
nooo! South America is sinking!
*glug glug glug...*
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
mirror, full article + pics: http://freedomsforums.com/viewtopic,p,1385.html
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
Every road leads to porn...
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