2016/06/01 by Philipp Richter, Georgios Smaragdakis, David Plonka +1 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Computer Science · Social Sciences · #Data Visualization and Analytics #Human Mobility and Location-Based Analysis
paper · pdf · doi:10.1145/2987443.2987473
In this study, we report on techniques and analyses that enable us to capture Internet-wide activity at individual IP address-level granularity by relying on server logs of a large commercial content delivery network (CDN) that serves close to 3 trillion HTTP requests on a daily basis. Across the whole of 2015, these logs recorded client activity involving 1.2 billion unique IPv4 addresses, the highest ever measured, in agreement with recent estimates. Monthly client IPv4 address counts showed constant growth for years prior, but since 2014, the IPv4 count has stagnated while IPv6 counts have grown. Thus, it seems we have entered an era marked by increased complexity, one in which the sole enumeration of active IPv4 addresses is of little use to characterize recent growth of the Internet as a whole.