Smartphone-based geolocation of Internet hosts

The location of Internet hosts is frequently used in distributed applications and networking services. Examples include customized advertising, distribution of content, and position-based security. Unfortunately the relationship between an IP address and its position is in general very weak. This motivates the study of measurement-based IP geolocation techniques, where the position of the target host is actively estimated using the delays between a number of landmarks and the target itself. This paper discusses an IP geolocation method based on crowdsourcing where the smartphones of users operate as landmarks. Since smartphones rely on wireless connections, a specific delay-distance model was derived to capture the characteristics of this novel operating scenario

Smartphone-based crowdsourcing for estimating the bottleneck capacity in wireless networks

Crowdsourcing enables the fine-grained characterization and performance evaluation of today׳s large-scale networks using the power of the masses and distributed intelligence. This paper presents SmartProbe, a system that assesses the bottleneck capacity of Internet paths using smartphones, from a mobile crowdsourcing perspective. With SmartProbe measurement activities are more bandwidth efficient compared to similar systems, and a larger number of users can be supported. An application based on SmartProbe is also presented: georeferenced measurements are mapped and used to compare the performance of mobile broadband operators in wide areas. Results from one year of operation are included

using ripe atlas for geolocating ip infrastructure

The vast majority of studies on IP geolocation focuses on localizing the end-users, and little attention has been devoted to localizing the elements of the Internet infrastructure, i.e., the routers and servers that make the Internet work. In this paper, we study the maximum theoretical accuracy that can be achieved by a geolocation approach aimed at geolocating the Internet infrastructure. In particular, we study the effects on localization accuracy produced by the position of landmarks and by the strategy followed for their enrollment. We compare two main approaches: the first is more centralized and controlled, and uses well-connected machines belonging to the infrastructure as landmarks; the second is more distributed and scalable and is based on landmarks positioned at the edge of the network. The study is based on an extensive set of measurements collected using the RIPE Atlas platform. The results show that the uniform and widespread diffusion of landmarks can be as important as their measurement accuracy. The study is carried out at both the worldwide and regional scale, including regions that were scarcely observed in the past. The results highlight that the geographical characteristics of the Internet paths are dependent on the considered region, thus suggesting the use of specifically calibrated models. Finally, the study shows that geolocating IP infrastructure with active measurements is feasible in terms of precision and scalability of the overall system

On Measuring the Internet with a Mobile Crowdsourcing System

Given the commercial nature of the Internet, knowledge on its properties and structure is not publicly available, and can be obtained only through measurements. However, measuring such a tangled system is a huge task that can be overwhelming for a single organization. In this PhD thesis we tackled the problem with a crowdsourcing approach. We present Portolan, a crowdsourcing system based on mobile devices, able to measure multiple properties of the Internet. This work focuses on the server infrastructure of Portolan. The architecture of the system has been designed to be modular and scalable. New measurement subsystems can be added with small effort and the system is able to handle a large number of measuring clients. As case studies, we focus on two measurement subsystems. The first is aimed at discovering the Internet topology at the Autonomous System (AS) level of abstraction. For the first time, to perform such task, devices with scarce resources enrolled via crowdsourcing have been used. Taking into account the devices' limitations, we designed a measurement methodology focused on keeping a low measurement load on the system. We analysed one year of measurements to show that the designed methodology is able to discover hidden parts of the Internet without consuming the scarce resources of the measuring agents. The second measurement subsystem is aimed at geolocalizing Internet hosts with delay measurements. We present an IP geolocation method designed to cope with measurements that, differently from existing literature, are run in a wireless scenario. We show that crowdsourcing allows to attenuate the noise of measurements and significantly reduce the geolocation error. These positive experimental results obtained with Portolan in both cases confirm the soundness of the crowdsourcing approach based on mobile devices

The Control Plane of the PORTOLAN Internet Topology Measurement System, Based on Smartphone Crowdsourcing: Architecture, Protocols and Implementation

The Internet actually connects around two billion users through a global communication infrastructure, emerged from an early nucleus of academic and government networks and constantly evolving. An accurate description of its structure, at multiple levels of abstraction, is important for several purposes, such as designing routing protocols, detecting network failures, or planning Internet Service Providers (ISPs) business relationships. As ISPs operate as commercial entities, they are reluctant to publicly reveal their network structure. As a consequence, in the last 10-15 years a number of measurement systems aiming to discover the Internet structure and properties have been deployed. However, despite significant efforts, the Internet structure has not yet been fully discovered, as measurements were carried out following a top-down approach, from the core of the Internet down to its edges, not being able of detecting its peripheral structure. The PORTOLAN Internet Topology Measurement System suggests a new approach in measuring the Internet, based on smartphone crowdsourcing, which will allow the discovery of the Internet peripheral structure, still in large part invisible to current measurement systems: a new bottom-up and bottom-to-bottom measurement paradigm. This thesis contributions are the design and the implementation of a scalable and efficient control plane architecture for the PORTOLAN Internet Topology Measurement System. The proposed architecture provides an interface for specifying measurement tasks and coordinates the smartphones and the tasks execution performed by the smartphones themselves. Moreover, a measurement campaign to validate and evaluate the implemented framework has been conducted, and led to the discovery of previously unknown links at the AS-level of abstraction

Studying forwarding differences in european mobile broadband with a net neutrality perspective

Availability of deep packet inspection methods and systems allows network operators to classify traffic on the base of the application type. Once classified, traffic may be subject to artificial bandwidth limitations (e.g. in case of resourcedemanding applications) or to class-dependent forwarding policies (e.g. to divert the traffic generated by specific applications on low-priority links). In this paper we describe a method that can be useful to detect the presence of class-dependent forwarding policies. The method is based on traceroute-like mechanisms embedded within the normal communication flow of an application. The method is contextualized in a study about the neutrality of mobile network operators, to understand if a correlation can be found between the presence of class-dependent forwarding strategies and limitations of bandwidth

TCP-based traceroute: An evaluation of different probing methods

Traceroute is the most commonly used tool, not only for network diagnostics, but also for discovering the topology of the Internet. We evaluated the discovery capability of three variations of TCP-based traceroute: the first uses SYN segments as probes, the other two operate on an existing connection and use DATA and ACK segments as probes. Experimental results show that using different types of probes is useful to obtain a richer view of the Internet, both in terms of IP interfaces and autonomous systems

NeutMon: Studying neutrality in European mobile networks

Net neutrality is the principle that all data on the Internet should be treated in the same way, without discrimination by content, application, or service. Research about net neutrality mostly focused on the wired Internet, and little effort has been devoted to wireless scenarios. However, mobile devices are now the main access medium to the Internet for a large fraction of users and this trend is expected to continue in the next years. In this paper, we study net neutrality in a European mobile broadband scenario using NeutMon, a tool specifically designed for being executed in the MONROE testbed. MONROE's nodes are connected to 13 mobile broadband providers spread in four European countries. Preliminary results show that in this set of operators differentiation is enforced, in terms of bandwidth, for a commonly used peer-to-peer application, in contrast with recent EU regulations

Net neutrality in mobile broadband: A European study based on a large scale testbed

In Europe, net neutrality is guaranteed by the Body of European Regulators for ElectronicCommunications guidelines, which state that the user's traffic should never be differentiated.However, ensuring that these rules are actually followed is not easy, due to the scale of theproblem (the number of operators/providers is large) and to the inherent variability of net-work conditions. In this paper, we analyze a number of European mobile broadband operatorsin terms of neutrality. The study is based on measurements collected using the NeutMontool in Measuring Mobile Broadband Networks in Europe, a large-scale testbed spanningfour European countries. By following an infrastructural approach, important benefits canbe obtained with respect to methods based on volunteer-contributed data: testbed nodes arealways available, users' resources are not depleted, and the increased uniformity of devicesreduces possible sources of bias. Results show that, despite EU regulations, some operatorsare not neutral, thus, highlighting the need for a monitoring system