1.3 Datagrams on the move
This section is part of the amber and green pathways.
We have seen how, in theory, datagrams of information move around the internet. It’s actually possible to see this in action, often with surprising results.
On most computer systems you can run software that will follow the route from your computer to a destination IP address, and it will return a list of the nodes that it passes through. These are usually known as ‘Traceroute’ apps. You will now try this yourself.
Activity 1 Datagrams
Use an online traceroute tool and trace the route the datagrams take on the internet to reach the destination. Note that interconnection points on the internet are not obliged to respond, in which case you will notice a * in the traceroute listing.
Trace the route to the following list of CERTs (Computer Emergency Response Teams) in different countries.
- Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre - www.publicsafety.gc.ca [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]
- Danish Computer Emergency Response Team - www.cert.dk
- Japan Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center - www.jpcert.or.jp
- Thai Computer Emergency Response Team - www.thaicert.or.th
You could use one of the following sites to run traceroute. Please allow up to two minutes before you can see any outputs.
- https://traceroute-online.com/
- http://www.ip-1.com/ visualtracert/
- https://network-tools.webwiz.net/ traceroute.htm
Note: there are a number of free ‘Visual traceroute’ tools online. You can experiment with others at your leisure.
Be warned! You might be surprised at what you find – information is not necessarily coming from where you might expect it to. Also, bear in mind that things change frequently when it comes to the internet; not only might the route be different if you look at the same destination at different times, but even the location where the information comes from might be different.
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