Presenter: Phillip Kriegel
Faculty Mentor: Reza Rejaie
Presentation Type: Poster 20
Primary Research Area: Science
Major: Computer Science, Mathematics
Funding Source: Research Experiences for Undergraduates (NSF), $1500 a month
The Internet is a network of networks. There are more than 40,000 networks that create what we understand as the Internet today. Understanding where and how these networks interconnect is important for the purpose of meaningfully investigating a wide range of critical Internet-related problems, such as the vulnerability of the Internet to physical damage, such as earthquakes or power surges. Published work on Internet topology and structure focus primarily on finding the existence of these interconnections, and characterize the structure of the Internet based solely on these connections. By using RIPE Atlas, a distributed traceroute software, in addition to other methods, it is possible to estimate which networks exchange traffic in which cities. The purpose of this thesis is to gain a better understanding of the geographic nature of the Internet by pinpointing exactly where these interconnections occur on a physical level. This project is able to provide a city level understanding of the autonomous systems present in each city, as well as which of those systems connect. This serves as a resource for further research.