Mapping the Net: Some views and ideas

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Mapping Cyberspace Visualising the infrastructure
and information spaces of the Internet
Martin Dodge www.cybergeography.org Centre for
Advanced Spatial Analysis University College
London
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Is this your idea of cyberspace?
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What Does Cyberspace Look Like?

• there are many ways to describe and understand
  cyberspace (economics, legal, mathematics, art,
  )
• Im a geographer, so I believe maps enjoy a
  privileged position
• maps have been powerful visual tools for
  understanding the world for 1000s of years
• maps have been key in framing our understanding
  places, their size, shape and the relations
  between them
• maps have been vital for navigation

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Who is Martin Dodge ?

• social geography, computing, Geographic
  Information Systems (GIS)
• work as a computer technician and researcher in
  Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA)
• part-time phd in cybergeography in UCL Geog.
• geography of the Net, cybergeography
• net measurement and mapping
• cataloguing of diverse range of other maps
• critical appraisal of maps and visualisation
• I am a member of ISOC

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Cybergeography - an oxymoron??
Bits, not atoms
Cyberspace is everywhere and nowhere
anything, anytime, anywhere
friction-free economy
End of geography
Weightless World
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Plug for my work - www.cybergeography.org
www.MappingCyberspace.com
Out this summer
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What am I going to talk about?

• themes
• mapping the infrastructure,pipes and computers
• mapping the Web, information interfaces
  navigation tools
• mapping email, news, chat to show social
  interaction virtual communities

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Mapping cyberspace

• this project can be summed up by the question
  what does cyberspace look like?
• from feedback received so far, it seems like a
  question many people asking
• need in education and training
• revealing what is hidden. Making the invisible
  visible. Enhancing our understanding
• no grand theories eclectic research, drawing
  together disparate examples
• interesting in themselves. Maps as art?

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Thinking about the maps

• following from a long honourable cartographic
  tradition
• critical appraisal about what they show, do they
  work, why where they made
• all maps distort, all deceive - some are
  deliberate and some are unintentional
• privacy issues. Maps to monitor, track control
• many maps funded by military and marketing
• I take a very broad view of the term map
• no one true map of cyberspace

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Distortion and Deceptionhow to lie with maps

• Most obvious being through
• projections and data
• selection/omission
• Mark Monmonier, How to lie with map
• (Chicago University Press, 1996)
• how are maps of cyberspace
• deceiving
• many ways to project cyberspace
• onto a map

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Mapping Internet infrastructure

• the wires, the servers, the domain names, the
  traffic flows, (the people?)
• for engineering and network management
• many maps never for public consumption
• census taking, market analysis, public policy
• geographic versus abstract topological
• (airline style maps versus wiring diagrams)
• are maps getting harder to make?
• interactive maps ---gt dynamic maps

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Maps of the ancient networks
Source Peter Salus, Casting the Net
(Addison-Wesley, 1995)
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Larry Landweber ISOC national level network
connectivity
Source ftp//ftp.cs.wisc.edu/connectivity_table/
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Is the whole world now wired??
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Matrix.Net map of internet connected computers
Source http//www.Matrix.net
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Tamara Munzners 3D models of the MBone (1996)
Source http//graphics.stanford.edu/papers/mbone/
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ISP Inter-connectivity in South Korea
Maps series by KR-NIC Source http//stat.nic.or.k
r/
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Graph of the Whole Internet - Bill Cheswick and
Hal Burchs
Source http//www.cs.bell-labs.com/who/ches/map/
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Lumeta - Internet Mapping Project
http//www.lumeta.com/mapping.html
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Walrus - hyperbolic visualisation of Internet
topology
Young Hyun, CAIDA http//www.caida.org/tools/visua
lization/walrus/
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Matt Zooks geography of domains names in the US
Source Matt Zook, City Regional Planning, UC
Berkeley http//socrates.berkeley.edu/zook/domain
_names/index.html
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Marketing Cyberspace

• ISP Backbone maps
• geographic framework
• promote reach and capacity of the network
• tradition of marketing maps - railways, roads,
  airlines
• promotion differs from engineering maps
• how up to date? Lack local detail
• sometime real-time performance, latency
  information

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UUNET networks the world
Source http//www.uu.net
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PSINets backbone map
Source http//www.psi.net/network/connectivitymap
s.html
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No one knows maps Internet traffic flows?
Source http//www.telegeography.com
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Real-time mapping

• exploring Internet routing and performance
• performance of individual routers links
• Net weather maps
• traceroute
• geographic traceroutes (Neotrace, VisualRoute)

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Ten-155 European research network weather map
Source http//sigma.dante.org.uk/mystere/mesh-map
/
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NORDUnet performance map
Source http//www.nordu.net/stats/
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Matrix.Nets Internet Weather Report (IWR) -
animated maps
Source http//www.matrix.net
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VisualRoute - geographic traceroute
http//www.visualware.com/
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Mapping the Web Information interfaces
navigation tools

• wide variety of experiments
• visual metaphors
• dimension (2D, 2.5D, 3D)
• static - dynamic
• levels of user interactivity
• scales of maps
• individual site maps
• dynamic surf maps
• web directory maps

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Interactive website maps
SiteBrain http//www.thebrain.com
Tree Studio by Inxight http//www.inxight.com/prod
ucts/web/sls.html
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MAPA site map by Dynamic Diagrams
http//www.dynamicdiagrams.com/
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HyperSpace University of Birmingham
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WebPath Emmanuel Frécon Gareth
Smith http//www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/
gbs/webpath/
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Harmony 3D information landscape by Keith Andrews
Source ftp//ftp.iicm.edu/pub/papers/ivis95.pdf
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Web site directory using geography as index
key UK Academic clickable map http//www.scit.wlv
.ac.uk/ukinfo/uk.map.html
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Map.net
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WebMap
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UBUBU - Planet Earth as Web interface!!
(http//www.ububu.com/)
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Mapping Virtual Communities

• understanding the formation of virtual groups
  formed via conversation and social interaction
• asynchronous - email groups, listserv, news
• synchronous - messaging, chat, muds, avatar
  worlds, games
• what structures do the communities build
• can mapping the social life help the community
• many important privacy issues

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VisualWho by Judith Donath, MIT Media Lab
Source http//smg.www.media.mit.edu/projects/Visu
alWho/
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Conversation Map - mapping Usenet by Warren Sack
http//www.sims.berkeley.edu/sack/CM/
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Netscan project by Marc Smith, Microsoft Research
http//netscan.research.microsoft.com/
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Mapping chat Chat Circles, Sociable Media
Group MIT Media Lab http//chatcircles.media.mit.
edu/
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Virtual Worlds - AlphaWorld
http//www.activeworlds.com/
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AlphaWorld Mapping System
Location 1635N 2397W
Location 202S 105W
Source http//awmap.vevo.com/
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Virtual Worlds - urban growth
http//www.activeworlds.com/satellite.html
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Conclusions

• how helpful are the maps in answering that basic
  question - what does it look like?
• are the maps just eye candy?
• major usability issues, need evaluation
• effectiveness. Misleading more than informing
• killer map is yet to be drawn
• I want the Tube map for the Web
• potential developments
• surf maps integrated into the browser
• search engine result maps

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• pushing boundaries of cartography
• interactivity
• real-time, dynamic
• future of maps and information interfaces ?
  immersive VR and shared virtual worlds?
• who needs the maps and what sort of map do they
  need
• maps reveal much about the cartographer
• privacy issues. Maps are tools for monitoring
• control

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• Questions ?? I would welcome feedback to
  m.dodge_at_ucl.ac.uk
• The slides of this presentation are available at
  http//www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/martin/isocnl/
• keep in touch, join the cybergeography news
  bulletin http//www.cybergeography.org/register.ht
  ml