This remarkable work of information design was produced from code created by Barrett Lyon for The Opte Project. The image is based on code that can map every C class network on the internet from a single computer in around twelve hours. The resulting image is a snapshot of the internet drawn from that half-day period. Active North American IP addresses are blue; European, Middle Eastern, Central Asian and African IP addresses are green, Latin American and Caribbean IP addresses are yellow, the remainder are unused or unknown IP addresses.
The ability to create representations of the evolving internet so quickly allows us to see the effect of war or natural disasters on regional networks, or the changing rate of internet use in developing areas of the world. The Opte Project is continuing to map the internet in increasingly sophisticated ways and shares its intellectual property via a Creative Commons license.
