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A coordinated view of the temporal evolution of large-scale Internet events

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Abstract

We present a method to visualize large-scale Internet events, such as a large region losing connectivity, or a stealth probe of the entire IPv4 address space. We apply a well-known technique in information visualization—multiple coordinated views—to Internet-specific data. We animate these coordinated views to study the temporal evolution of an event along different dimensions, including geographic spread, topological (address space) coverage, and traffic impact. We explain the techniques we used to create the visualization, and using two recent case studies we describe how this capability to simultaneously view multiple dimensions of events enabled greater insight into their properties.

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Notes

  1. We use “Conficker-like” to refer to TCP packets destined to port 445, publicized during the Conficker episode but a target of scanning activity for many years.

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Acknowledgments

Support for the UCSD network telescope operations and data collection, curation, analysis, and sharing is provided by DHS S&T NBCHC070133, NSF CNS-1059439. The author’s efforts on this project were supported by DHS S&T NBCHCO70133 (KC), NSF CNS-1059439 and NSF CNS-1228994.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAIDA, University of California, San Diego, USA

    Alistair King, Bradley Huffaker, Alberto Dainotti & k. c. Claffy

Authors
  1. Alistair King
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  2. Bradley Huffaker
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  3. Alberto Dainotti
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  4. k. c. Claffy
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alberto Dainotti.

Additional information

First IMC Workshop on Internet Visualization (WIV 2012), November 13, 2012, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

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King, A., Huffaker, B., Dainotti, A. et al. A coordinated view of the temporal evolution of large-scale Internet events. Computing 96, 53–65 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00607-013-0288-2

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