There's always a siren singing you to shipwreck
Radiohead
As the title suggests, this (pretty
verbose) post is for anyone interested in what my work will roughly consist of. For those who do not master things like
graph theory and
routing protocols, it may still be interesting to read
the example below, or to look at the
bottom of this post for a
colorful example.
The first step of my thesis concerns the enhancement of
BGPlay, an application developed by the
CompuNet Research Group at Roma Tre University and currently hosted by
Oregon Route Views. It shows animated graphs with edges (peerings) connecting nodes (Autonomous Systems), therefore allowing an
intuitive analysis of interdomain routing events related to a specified prefix, within a time interval. My contribution will be to adapt BGPlay's interface to the
INRDB, a prototypical database realized by the Science Group at the RIPE NCC, containing historical data gathered from many authoritative sources. The aim is to provide an instrument for a long-term,
coarse-grained analysis of major trends and events affecting the Internet throughout its (relatively) long history.
In plain words? Alice
wastes hours on Facebook playing
FarmVille. Her CowComputer unwillingly converts every passionate click into a
Mooossage, sending it to some FarmerComputer somewhere. Before reaching the FarmerComputer, every message goes through many welcoming TransitFarms. If a
FlockOfDumbSheep proudly blocks the path, the
Mooossage is incredibly smart enough to find another way visiting different TransitFarms, without letting Alice notice any difference. If however a MadFarmer puts some misleading road signs on the way to the FarmerComputer, or if some NastyChickens tear down all the bridges to cross over the unfailing river, the
Mooossage is only able to commit a
honorific suicide. Well, in both cases BGPlay acts as the
black box secretly hidden under the
Mooossage's skin, allowing Alice to understand what led it to such an
extreme action.
If you are still
awake, here's a video showing a real case study: the Youtube prefix hijacking by Pakistan Telecom in February 2008. It was realized using the previous version of BGPlay, already hosted by the RIPE NCC for some time. Enjoy!
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