Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. BBN is the random scatter of green in the middle (early ARPANET). Sprint is the organized star topology in purple near the top. AOL is a gray disconnected island in the lower center. There is little correlation between this network connectivity graph and physical geography, except for a clustering of Pac Rim connectivity.
Here is a gallery of Internet maps by Ches of Lumeta, and Ben below provides a link to a huge map with labels.
This technique can also see the network “lights go out” during wartime bombing raids.
In a nutshell, they use a modified hacker trick of sending a storm of IP packets out randomly across the network. Each packet is programmed to self-destruct after a delay, and when this happens, the packet failure notice reports back the path the packet took before it died. To visualize this sea of data, Ches applied place & route software from the semiconductor CAD industry to untangle the hairball of data and spread it out in a 2D map that humans can easily absorb. In these maps, one can see security gaps and unknown network connections. (disclosure: we invested them when they spun out of Bell Labs)
Ross Mayfield, Lukr, txkimmers, and 109 other people added this photo to their favorites.
jurvetson 106 months ago | reply
Krate is the fastest comment in the West... I was still adding text to this one....
TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ 106 months ago | reply
TouchGraph
jurvetson 106 months ago | reply
cool. Or an XML feed to Grokker.
carignan 106 months ago | reply
That is a very cool picture.
*ivo* 105 months ago | reply
yeah and this comment "AOL is a gray disconnected island in the lower center" is poetic in it's own right.
heh.
Drew__ 103 months ago | reply
Oh this is what i have been looking for....
.. hehe you should put a "You are here" bubble...
lysdexia [deleted] 100 months ago | reply
Is there a legend?
Ben Worthen 88 months ago | reply
Some one asked for a legend. At the beginning of March, Ches and I collaborated on a map of just the North American backbone. We color coded it by the telecommunications company that owns each particular router (that's what this is a map of, routers). You can see the map and read the analysis here:
blogs.cio.com/node/209
jurvetson 88 months ago | reply
Ben: thanks for the cool link and update.
PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE 62 months ago | reply
I was looking for a particular "Map of the internet" i saw at a conference last night, and remembered the photo of one that you have at the office. And here it is with details etc. How great =)
papetarie 40 months ago | reply
this map ir for U.S. ? or for all the world ?
jurvetson 40 months ago | reply
world (back then).
Here's a newer one of the Middle East:
theTribster 39 months ago | reply
Here is a post that represents some very cool maps of the internet, science and complexity. These are more than maps, they are works of art.
rupertcheek 28 months ago | reply
This image can now be seen at
www.waktm.com/waktm/waktmgallery.htm
emilyrotella 22 months ago | reply
Hi Steve,
Thanks for putting this image on Flickr, it is really cool! I just wanted to let you know that I used it for my most recent blog post, I hope you like it!
Freshly posted! What are your passions? I want to connect with you over it! bit.ly/pbu8Og
Thanks again,
Emily