Systems for characterizing Internet routing

2018 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.Today the Internet plays a critical role in our lives; we rely on it for communication, business, and more recently, smart home operations. Users expect high performance and availability of the Internet. To meet such high demands, all Internet components including routing must operate at peak efficiency. However, events that hamper the routing system over the Internet are very common, causing millions of dollars of financial loss, traffic exposed to attacks, or even loss of national connectivity. Moreover, there is sparse real-time detection and reporting of such events for the public. A key challenge in addressing such issues is lack of methodology to study, evaluate and characterize Internet connectivity. While many networks operating autonomously have made the Internet robust, the complexity in understanding how users interconnect, interact and retrieve content has also increased. Characterizing how data is routed, measuring dependency on external networks, and fast outage detection has become very necessary using public measurement infrastructures and data sources. From a regulatory standpoint, there is an immediate need for systems to detect and report routing events where a content provider's routing policies may run afoul of state policies. In this dissertation, we design, build and evaluate systems that leverage existing infrastructure and report routing events in near-real time. In particular, we focus on geographic routing anomalies i.e., detours, routing failure i.e., outages, and measuring structural changes in routing policies

Spatial and Temporal Modalities of Everyday Integration

Abstract in Undetermined A presentation of theory, method and eight instructive case-studies regarding the premises for everyday integration within and across the urban centers of the Oresund Region

Trafficking in Illicit Firearms: a global and European overview

This theoretical paper is published by the EUCPN Secretariat in connection with the theme of the Dutch Presidency, which is trafficking in illicit firearms. With the terrorist attacks that shook Europe the past months in hindsight, the subject is more relevant than ever. Trafficking in illicit firearms is a dangerous and deadly business, which should not be taken lightly. Because of the cross-border aspect of trafficking in illicit firearms, it is important to have a global overview. Where do the weapons come from, how do they enter the illicit market and what are the modus operandi of the traffickers? This paper should function as a base for a more prevention-orientated manual in which we will look at the difficulties and attempts to prevent trafficking in illicit firearms. Furthermore we will focus at the main international weapons and what the international agencies already do against the phenomenon. Through these actions, we hope to raise awareness concerning trafficking in illicit firearms, to exchange good practices and hopefully to propose general guidelines for a trafficking in illicit firearms policy

IMAGINING, PRACTICING AND CONTESTING ROAD DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHERN WEST VIRGINIA, 1920S TO 1970S

Roads are ubiquitous yet few understand the historical and political geographies of their development. Politics, scale, and geographical imagination interweave in processes of promoting and building highways. This dissertation explores geographical imaginations of road development in West Virginia during the 1920s to 1970s with a focus on efforts to link the Great Lakes and Florida through southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia. Due to its steep and uneven terrain the region is often viewed as remote and isolated, but it was considered an essential link between the Great Lakes and Florida. This research explores three phases of the region's highway development: the transition between named historic-scenic trails and the numbered U.S. Highway System in the 1920s and 1930s; the development of the highly contested West Virginia Turnpike in the 1950s; and the incorporation of the turnpike into the interstate highway system during the 1960s and 1970s. This research enlivens road development by examining demands for better highways and its contestation. West Virginians have a long history of vying for improved road space. To explore the complexities of road development I utilize a simple framework of materiality, meaning, and practice. The advantage of this trifold approach is that it uncovers imaginations of road development and its contestation at multiple scales ranging from national imaginaries to local road uses. I draw heavily on the concepts of kinaesthetics and rhythm to consider how envisioning and contesting road space were intertwined with popular understandings of driving and riding roads in historically and geographically contingent circumstances. Kinaesthetics, the awareness of one's body in motion, helps us uncover how driving deplorable roads was used as a political tool to encourage improvement. Rhythm is useful for exploring how roads were commodified and practiced

The Development of the German Railroad System

Dieser Aufsatz beschreibt die historische Entwicklung des deutschen Eisenbahnsystems. Das Ergebnis besteht in einem dynamischen Durchsetzungsmechanismus von Verkehrsinnovationen. Er erweist sich als verblüffend stabiles Muster der Verkehrsevolution. Unabdingbare Voraussetzung sind Grenzen der bestehenden Angebotsstruktur. Diese Grenzen werden in einer ersten Stufe durch Angebotsausweitungen der traditionellen Techniken weiter hinausgeschoben, ohne den Nachfragedruck allerdings stoppen zu können. Das Innovative (Produktinnovationen) setzt sich erst in der Krise durch. Innovative Technologien, die in Nischen vorhanden sind und auf die das System zurückgreifen kann, werden dann entscheidend. Vor dem Hintergrund stark ausgeweiteter traditioneller Technik setzt sich dann ein neues System durch und ermöglicht dabei weiteres Verkehrswachstum. In diesen Hauptprozess ist ein Nebenprozess flankierender Strukturwandlungen eingebettet.The paper describes the historical development of the German railway system. The result is a dynamic mechanism of success for transport innovations. This simplified model proves to be an astonishing stable pattern of transport evolution. The indispensable preconditions are limits of the existing system, which is unable to meet rising demand. Although at first those limits can be extended by improvements to traditional technology, these ultimately cannot cope with the demand pressures. Product innovations will only succeed in crises. It is in this crisis that innovations are able to break through. Innovative technologies that already exist in niches can be accessed by the system and become crucial. Against the background of expanded traditional technologies the new system makes the breakthrough enabling additional traffic growth. A secondary process of accompanying structural adjustments is embedded in this main process

Making Southeast Asian Migrant Workers Visible in Taiwanese Cinema: "Pinoy Sunday" and "Ye-Zai"

In Taiwan, the term for “migrant workers” (waiji yigong) refers to non-Han immigrant populations—including those from Thailand and the Philippines—whose numbers have been increasing since the 2000s. As these populations have grown, they have become part of the public conversation, and cinematic representations of migrant workers have increased as well. Immigrant films function as a form of recognition and thereby challenge the homogeneous Taiwanese national identity. Two questions arise: Is it possible to change existing stereotypes and cultural conflicts? And, how can we avoid a crisis of oversimplified presentations of immigrants? In order to address these questions, this article examines two films: Ho Wi Ding’s Pinoy Sunday (Taibei Xingqitian 台北星期天 2009), a comedy that focuses on two Filipino immigrant workers’ lives in Taipei, and Tseng Ying-ting’s Ye-Zai 椰仔 (2012), a crime film with a plot that involves tracking down “runaway migrant workers” (taopao wailao).The author employs three different lenses or paradigms to consider the establishment of migrant-worker subjects in these films in order to fully understand the power dynamics at play in the workers’ interactions with Taiwan’s broader society. Because of state and social attempts to control these migrant workers, the first important paradigm is the act of “running away,” which makes border restrictions in Taiwan clear and creates a space to explore strategies of escape from routine lives. Second, by considering how different powers intersect, the author explores the relationship between the viewer and the viewed, and how migrant workers can become the subjects, not just the objects, in this paradigm. By employing two techniques of visualization—the gaze and symbolism—these films present migrant workers’ emotions and desires, which are rarely shown in mainstream cinemas, and encourage viewers to recognize the perspectives of migrant workers. Finally, the author suggests the use of the language act as a means of resistance to show different affiliations and identities in both films; the visibility of these migrant workers challenges their discrimination. Keywords: Taiwan, Taiwanese film, waiji yigong, migrant workers, immigrant labor, Pinoy Sunday, Taibei Xingqitian, Ye-Zai, ethnoscapes, non-Han-Taiwanese identitie