Despite the Internet's status as critical infrastructure, there is little scientific instrumentation dedicated to monitoring global Internet behavior. In particular, we have no rigorous framework for measuring, analyzing, or quantifying the impact of network outages, filtering, or other abnormal connectivity dynamics on a global scale.
This project applies successful research results in analyzing recent macroscopic Internet connectivity disruptions to the development, testing, and experimental deployment of an operational capability to detect, monitor, and characterize such large-scale infrastructure outages. The investigators are seeking to validate and extend a methodology for identifying not only which networks have been affected by an outage, but also which mechanisms have been used to effect a deliberate disruption. The two intellectual themes of the research are: (1) extracting signal from malware-induced background radiation in Internet traffic (IBR); and (2) combining multiple types of data (active probing, passive IBR, routing data, geolocation, and registry databases) to delineate the scope and progression of the outage. The project will also develop quantitative indicators to gauge the impact of geophysical disasters on Internet infrastructure, including the dynamics of loss and restoration of service. A transition of these research outcomes into practice will yield a system specification, implementation, and experimental operational deployment to detect and monitor global connectivity failures on a planetary scale. In addition to improving our understanding of how measurements yield insights into network behavior, and strengthening our ability to model large scale complex networks, such a system will illuminate infrastructure vulnerabilities that derive from architectural, topological, or economic constraints, suggesting how to mitigate or eliminate these weaknesses in future Internet architecture and measurement research.
