Information moving through cyberspace travels in tiny packets
that hopscotch around the world. Using data from a two-week
stretch in April 2005, the Cooperative Association for Internet
Data Analysis (CAIDA) traced these packets' paths from hub to
hub and country to country to capture a snapshot of the
worldwide network topology. Image courtesy of the Cooperative
Association for Internet Data Analysis. Click to view a larger
version. 1 FLAT EARTH SOCIETY CAIDA's map represents a flattened
Earth, with cities positioned around the circle. Tracing the
circumference clockwise corresponds to moving from east to west.
Each square represents a data hub, which lines up on a spoke
with the city in which it is registered. The closer to the
center it lies, the more data it traffics. The United States
owns 74 percent of the 4 billion available Internet protocol
(IP) addresses. China's stake amounts to little more than that
of an American university. Not surprisingly, China is
championing the next wave of the Internet, wh