The Scenic Route

This abstract explosion of lines is a picture of the "tin cans and string of the Internet," explains Bill Cheswick. Every morning, the Bell Labs senior researcher runs a route tracer that charts the pathways among 61,000 routers around the world. Then, from their server in New Jersey, Cheswick and Carnegie Mellon grad Hal Burch crunch the data and plot it, creating a nongeographical map of the Net. In this image, the colors denote related IP addresses: The centrally located pinkish mass is MCI - "the magnetic north of the Internet," in Cheswick's words. Overall, the map shows data relationships that are lost in numeric expressions, providing early warnings about congested areas, market opportunities, and Net growth. "Besides," says Cheswick, "the big color plotter wasn't getting used enough." Get another eyeful at www.cs.bell-labs.com/~ches/map/.