Estimation of Internet Node Location by Latency Measurements - The Underestimation Problem

Authors

  • Dan Komosny Brno University of Technology
  • Miroslav Voznak Technical University of Ostrava
  • Kathiravelu Ganeshan Unitec Institute of Technology
  • Hira Sathu Unitec Institute of Technology

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5755/j01.itc.44.3.8353

Keywords:

geographical, location, geolocation, IP address, Internet, latency, measurement, multilateration, triangulation, PlanetLab

Abstract

In this paper we deal with discovering a geographic location of a node in the Internet. Knowledge of location is a fundamental element for many location based applications and web services. We focus on location finding without any assistance of the node being located - client-independent estimation. We estimate a location usingĀ  communication latency measurements between nodes in the Internet. The latency measured is converted into a geographic distance which is used to derive a location by the multilateration (triangulation) principle. We analyse the latency-to-distance conversion with a consideration of location underestimation which is a product of multilateration failure. We demonstrate that location underestimations do not appear in experimental conditions. However with a real-world scenario, a number of devices cannot be located due to underestimations. Finally, we propose a modification to reduce the number of underestimations in real-world scenarios.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.itc.44.3.8353

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Published

2015-09-24

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Section

Articles