A map helps to visualize things, to create a precise relational understanding of data and to assign spatial correspondences. The Internet is its own space.

Before Lumeta was mapping some of the most secure and complex intranets in the world, we began a long-term research project to collect routing data on the Internet.

The project consists of frequent path probes, one to each registered Internet entity. From this, trees are built mapping the paths to most of the networks on the Internet. The specific endpoints or network services on those endpoints are not the goal of this map but rather the subject being mapped here is the topology of the "center" of the Internet.

These paths change over time, as routes reconfigure and as the Internet grows. As Lumeta saves the topological data over a time, these scans show how the Internet is growing and can be used to study a variety of problems and changes on the Internet.

The same technology used to map the Internet is employed by Lumeta to enable the world's most security conscious organizations to:

• baseline their global intranets
• prioritize areas of vulnerability
• verify policy enforcement
• use a fact-based audit to best keep pace with change.