

Ask HN: Explain the Internet Back-Bone - jason_slack

My son is 12 and a Boy Scout. He is earning his computer merit badge.<p>One of his requirements is to explain how the internet is structured. Obviously topics like Web-servers, switches, routers, fiber, cat 5, e-mail servers, etc, etc<p>But I wanted to explain the back-bone to him and I dont quite know how. How does one get to be on the back-bone? How does the Back-bone exist?
Isn't there a group of DNS Servers that are like the core DNS on the back-bone?<p>Can anyone provide some advice or thoughts?
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anigbrowl
There isn't one, because the internet has grown too big.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default-free_zone> and follow the CAIDA link -
their routing maps and other visualizations will put any objections to rest.

Incidentally, it's rather disturbing how far behind the US appears to be in
terms of IPv6 deployment.

See also: <http://www.caida.org/research/visualization/>

Cuttlefish is probably most appropriate for inclusion in your son's project.

However, Walrus is IMHO the coolest thing ever that nobody talks about,
despite having been open source for several years. I'm unaware of continued
development, but this may be helpful if you have a dataset you'd like to view:
[http://www.soa-world.de/echelon/2008/10/convertig-csv-
files-...](http://www.soa-world.de/echelon/2008/10/convertig-csv-files-to-
libsea-graph-files-for-caidas-walrus.html)

