Learning to extract geographic information from internet router hostnames
Matthew Luckie, Bradley Huffaker, Alexander Marder, Zachary S. Bischof, Marianne Fletcher, kc claffy
Abstract
Geolocating Internet routers is a long-standing and notoriously difficult challenge, and current solutions lack the accuracy and adaptability to yield reliable results. We revisit this problem, designing a solution capable of accurately and comprehensively extracting geographic information that network operators embed into router interface hostnames. We train our system using dictionaries that map geographic codes to known locations, and constrain inferences with delay measurements conducted from a distributed set of vantage points. While most operators use known geographic codes, some devise their own mnemonic codes for locations, which our system also extracts and interprets.