Frequently Asked Questions about Alpha 3.8 Translocation

How are the countries that a trace passes through determined?

In order to determine the countries that a trace passes through, we use a lookup in a table of IP addresses. This table is obtained from the four Regional IP Registrars and lists the IP address, its block length and the country. In addition, we also hardcode the following blocks: 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, 192.168.0.0/16 as private/internal use blocks. When you submit the trace, each IP address is looked up in the table so we can identify the countries that your trace passes through.

How do you obtain and process the IP address registration database?

The IP address registration database files are published on the first of each month via FTP by the four Regional IP Registrars. This information is downloaded and concatenated before it is imported into a MySQL table.

Why is DNS lookup not used for more accurate location information?

DNS lookups are generally slow, and often contain data in a barely human readable form. This makes processing far more complex than would be should a IP address database lookup be used. Also, due to the fact that encoding location information in DNS entries is a purely optional measure that may not be taken by smaller service providers, there will not be a consistent level of accuracy.

DNS records are not always present, as opposed to IP address block records.

Why is the DNS GPOS record not used to locate servers?

The DNS GPOS field is an experimental extension to the DNS service that is not widely implemented. As such, information that can be obtained by querying the GPOS field is very limited, and often not available.

My location is reported wrongly! Why?

There is more than one cause to this problem, of which could be one or more of the following:

• You are accessing the internet through IDD lines
  This will cause your location to be reported incorrectly as our trace is only as effective up to the point of your ISP which has a registered IP address block.
• Your IP address was recently (re)assigned to you
  Your IP address may have been formerly assigned to a different country or not previously assigned at all and only recently (re)assigned to you. As updates to the database are published on a monthly basis, it is possible that the updates were made and we have not updated our copy of the database. Check back in about a month to see the update.
• A firewall may be blocking the trace
  An ISP along the way may have placed a firewall that blocks traceroute replies. As such, we can only determine the location of the last system that responds to a trace probe. Often such an ISP will be close to you but in some cases the trace may be blocked halfway along the route.

My trace goes halfway around the world to get to a neighbouring country! why?

This problem is a fairly common occurence that happens when direct links to a neighbouring country are congested. By routing the data through an alternative route across the world, less congested lines will be used. While such measures will make your connection slower, it will however ensure that your data is delivered rather than be lost in a congested router.

Is the information I submit logged? How will it be used?

The information that you submit when you click "Submit Trace" is logged so that we can display the map. This trace information will be stored so that users can see the traces in the last hour/10 visitors. The trace information, along with the date and time the trace was logged will also be used for statistical purposes. No personal information will be logged.

What do I need if I want to sponsor a server?

Our teams are actively looking for sponsors in countries that the Tsunamii.Net website intends to visit. We are also willing to consider sponsorships of webservers outside our intended route. All webhosting servers need to meet these basic requirements :

For all servers -

• DNS parking
• At least 5MB of webspace
• DNS and Webservers must be situated in the same country hosting the website.

• Permissions to run an EXE file as a CGI program

OR

For a UNIX server -

• Permissions to run a shell script as a CGI program
• The bash shell interpreter
• Permissions to run the traceroute command as a normal user

An alternative would be the sponsorship of a dedicated server, but this is not compulsory should the above requirements be met.

Tsunamii.Net will need to gain hosting for a period of about 1 month for each country. This includes 2 weeks prior to the moving of the Tsunamii.Net website into the webserver for setup and testing purposes and 2 weeks for Tsunamii.Net to reside and then to move to the next server. Due to the nature of this project, we seek your understanding in accomodating our request, which goes against certain security norms adopted by Webhosts to safeguard their servers.

The main purpose of the installed script/program is to retrieve traceroute information and deliver it to the visitor. Through his/her web browser, the visitor would submit this traceroute information to the Fragnetics server hosted in Singapore for processing. Hence the script/program is non-intrusive and does not compromise security on the webserver although it requires certain access privileges not normally granted.

You may contact us here if you are interested in sponsoring a webserver.

Related Links

• An Overview of Alpha 3.8 Translocation