What Is The Internet? (Considering Partial Connectivity)

What Is The Internet? (Considering Partial Connectivity). Baltra, G. & Heidemann, J. Technical Report arXiv:2107.11439v2, USC/Information Sciences Institute, May, 2021.

Paper doi abstract bibtex

The Internet was originally defined as ``a collection of interconnected networks''. While this definition helps us understand what the Internet is, it is silent on when the Internet \emphis not. We provide a \emphtestable definition of the Internet to clarify where the Internet ``ends'': disconnection when a country or an ISP secedes; persistent partial connectivity when major ISPs refuse to exchange traffic, isolating their customers; clarifying corner cases around carrier-grade NAT, unrouted public IP addresses, and interpreting conflicting observations from systems that detect Internet outages. Our definition identifies \emphpeninsulas of persistent, partial connectivity, and clarifies that outages are \emphislands, with internal connectivity that is partitioned from the main Internet. Our definition is conceptual, defining an ideal asymptote of connectivity, but it enables new algorithms that provide an operational estimate of the number of size of peninsulas and islands. We use these algorithms reinterpret data from two existing measurement systems, one covering 5 million /24 IPv4 networks and the other with 10k observers. A key result is that peninsulas are about as common as outages, newly clarifying the importance of this long-observed problem. We examine root causes, showing that most peninsula events (45%) are transient routing problems, but a few long-lived peninsulas events (7%) account for 90% of all peninsula time, suggesting country- or AS-level policy choices that last weeks or more. Finally, our definition confirms the international nature of internet: no single country can unilaterally claim to be ``the Internet'', but countries can chose to leave. With islands and peninsulas, our definition helps clarify the spectrum from partial reachability to outages in prior work.

@techreport{Baltra21a,
	author = 	"Guillermo Baltra and John Heidemann",
	title = 	"What Is The Internet? (Considering Partial Connectivity)",
	institution = 	"USC/Information Sciences Institute",
	year = 		2021,
	sortdate = 		"2021-07-23", 
	project = "ant, eieio, minceq",
	jsubject = "routing",
	notes = "released 2021-07-23, updated 2022-05-24",
	number =	"arXiv:2107.11439v2",
	month =		may,
	jlocation =	"johnh: pafile",
        keywords =   "trinocular, outages, partial outages",
	url =		"https://ant.isi.edu/%7ejohnh/PAPERS/Baltra21a.html",
	pdfurl =	"https://ant.isi.edu/%7ejohnh/PAPERS/Baltra21a.pdf",
	doi = "https://doi.org/10.48550/2107.11439v2",
	myorganization =	"USC/Information Sciences Institute",
	copyrightholder = "authors",
	abstract = "
The Internet was originally defined as ``a collection of
interconnected networks''.  While this definition helps us understand
what the Internet is, it is silent on when the Internet \emph{is not}.
We provide a \emph{testable} definition of the Internet to clarify
where the Internet ``ends'':  disconnection when a country or an ISP
secedes; persistent partial connectivity when major ISPs refuse to
exchange traffic, isolating their customers; clarifying corner cases
around carrier-grade NAT, unrouted public IP addresses, and
interpreting conflicting observations from systems that detect
Internet outages.  Our definition identifies \emph{peninsulas} of
persistent, partial connectivity, and clarifies that outages are
\emph{islands}, with internal connectivity that is partitioned from
the main Internet.  Our definition is conceptual, defining an ideal
asymptote of connectivity, but it enables new algorithms that provide
an operational estimate of the number of size of peninsulas and
islands.  We use these algorithms reinterpret data from two existing
measurement systems, one covering 5 million /24 IPv4 networks and the
other with 10k observers.  A key result is that peninsulas are about
as common as outages, newly clarifying the importance of this
long-observed problem.  We examine root causes, showing that most
peninsula events (45\%) are transient routing problems, but a few
long-lived peninsulas events (7\%) account for 90\% of all peninsula
time, suggesting country- or AS-level policy choices that last weeks
or more.  Finally, our definition confirms the international nature of
internet:  no single country can unilaterally claim to be ``the
Internet'', but countries can chose to leave.  With islands and
peninsulas, our definition helps clarify the spectrum from partial
reachability to outages in prior work.
",
}

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We provide a \\emphtestable definition of the Internet to clarify where the Internet ``ends'': disconnection when a country or an ISP secedes; persistent partial connectivity when major ISPs refuse to exchange traffic, isolating their customers; clarifying corner cases around carrier-grade NAT, unrouted public IP addresses, and interpreting conflicting observations from systems that detect Internet outages. Our definition identifies \\emphpeninsulas of persistent, partial connectivity, and clarifies that outages are \\emphislands, with internal connectivity that is partitioned from the main Internet. Our definition is conceptual, defining an ideal asymptote of connectivity, but it enables new algorithms that provide an operational estimate of the number of size of peninsulas and islands. We use these algorithms reinterpret data from two existing measurement systems, one covering 5 million /24 IPv4 networks and the other with 10k observers. A key result is that peninsulas are about as common as outages, newly clarifying the importance of this long-observed problem. We examine root causes, showing that most peninsula events (45%) are transient routing problems, but a few long-lived peninsulas events (7%) account for 90% of all peninsula time, suggesting country- or AS-level policy choices that last weeks or more. Finally, our definition confirms the international nature of internet: no single country can unilaterally claim to be ``the Internet'', but countries can chose to leave. With islands and peninsulas, our definition helps clarify the spectrum from partial reachability to outages in prior work. ","bibtex":"@techreport{Baltra21a,\n\tauthor = \t\"Guillermo Baltra and John Heidemann\",\n\ttitle = \t\"What Is The Internet? 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While this definition helps us understand\nwhat the Internet is, it is silent on when the Internet \\emph{is not}.\nWe provide a \\emph{testable} definition of the Internet to clarify\nwhere the Internet ``ends'': disconnection when a country or an ISP\nsecedes; persistent partial connectivity when major ISPs refuse to\nexchange traffic, isolating their customers; clarifying corner cases\naround carrier-grade NAT, unrouted public IP addresses, and\ninterpreting conflicting observations from systems that detect\nInternet outages. Our definition identifies \\emph{peninsulas} of\npersistent, partial connectivity, and clarifies that outages are\n\\emph{islands}, with internal connectivity that is partitioned from\nthe main Internet. Our definition is conceptual, defining an ideal\nasymptote of connectivity, but it enables new algorithms that provide\nan operational estimate of the number of size of peninsulas and\nislands. We use these algorithms reinterpret data from two existing\nmeasurement systems, one covering 5 million /24 IPv4 networks and the\nother with 10k observers. A key result is that peninsulas are about\nas common as outages, newly clarifying the importance of this\nlong-observed problem. We examine root causes, showing that most\npeninsula events (45\\%) are transient routing problems, but a few\nlong-lived peninsulas events (7\\%) account for 90\\% of all peninsula\ntime, suggesting country- or AS-level policy choices that last weeks\nor more. Finally, our definition confirms the international nature of\ninternet: no single country can unilaterally claim to be ``the\nInternet'', but countries can chose to leave. 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