Chapter 17. Topology of the Network
On how the knowledge of the world around us may help track down friends and foes
What is the shape of the Internet? No committee oversees it or decides where, how, and why it should expand or how new and existing systems should be organized or managed. The Internet grows in all directions in ways that are equally driven by demand, economics, politics, technology, and blind luck.
Yet the Internet is not a shapeless blob: there are planned, locally governed hierarchies of autonomous systems, with core routers surrounded by lesser nodes, with links configured by automatic mechanisms or carefully designed by humans. The Internet is a spectacular mesh, a complex and fragile cobweb covering the entire industrialized ...
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