I am proud to announce that we are partnering with the RIPE Atlas team, which is part of the RIPE Network Coordination Centre, to sponsor a first-ever hackathon for the RIPE Atlas Internet measurement network. While the RIPE Atlas Internet measurement project grew out of Europe and the Middle East’s Regional Internet Registry (RIR), it is now truly global in scope, with over 7,400 measurement devices (probes) connected to the Internet in 163 different countries.
RIPE Atlas measurement probes globally:
Today, the RIPE Atlas team has announced their first-ever hackathon. The goals are to make new visualizations based on RIPE Atlas open Internet measurement data. Participants will work to create working prototypes which can then be used by the Internet community, and are encouraged to have varied international and interdisciplinary backgrounds. All of the details are available here.
The goal of RIPE Atlas is to build the largest open Internet measurement network ever made. Its global network of probes measures Internet connectivity and reachability, providing an unprecedented understanding of the state of the Internet in real time. In contrast to other measurement platforms, they use a uniform and inexpensive measurement device, which means tests can run 24x7 rather than when a user is at their computer, and that local factors like WiFi do not unduly influence measurement results. Another unique factor is that they have built a global cooperative platform on which any participant can run measurements, for which the data is openly accessible, and which does not bring a political or ideological viewpoint that may subtly influence the measurement system or analysis of the data.
We have been supporters of the RIPE Atlas program for some time. Comcast has sponsored the distribution of hundreds of measurement probes in North America, in a wide range of networks. Our network has more measurement probes installed than any other (292), and there are more probes connected in the United States (883) than any other country. Comcast also hosts two of the fifteen U.S.-based RIPE Atlas "anchor" servers, which are capable of running many more measurements than regular probes and provide regional targets for the rest of the probes in the RIPE Atlas network.
We look forward to working with the RIPE Atlas team in 2015 to make this hackathon a great success!