Internet Topology Mapping

Heightened interest from nation states to perform content censorship make it evermore critical to identify the impact of censorship efforts on the Internet. We undertake a study of Internet architecture, capturing the state of Internet topology with greater completeness than existing state-of-the-art.

There are a small number of nation states that do not follow this trend, for which we provide an analysis and explanation, demonstrating a relationship between geographical factors in addition to geopolitics. In summary, our work provides a deeper understanding of how these censorship measures impact the overall functioning and dynamics of the Internet.

Objectives

• Develop a tool to collect routing table data and traceroute measurements, constructing a graph-based representation of Internet topology.
• Compare Internet topology measurements from different periods in time to identify emerging trends in Internet routing.
• Implement some of the collected data in emulation, replicating specific identified trends and measuring alternative scenarios.

Publications

• (Preprint) Unveiling Internet Censorship: Analysing the Impact of Nation States’ Content Control Efforts on Internet Architecture and Routing Patterns
• (Abstract) From Internet to Emulator: A Virtual Testbed for Internet Routing Protocols

Blog Posts

• A Geopolitical Internet: What do geopolitical characteristics have in common with the Internet?

Codebase

• LevettJ/internet-topology-mapping (GitHub): initial version using BGP data without Atlas traceroute probes.