Worldwide Internet Use Gif Shows Global Traffic In A Strikingly Beautiful Visual

This Is What The Internet Looks Like

Sat in front of your computer it's easy to neglect the myriad of global connections that bring all that information to you almost instantaneously.

One researcher has tried to address this by creating this rather beautiful illustration of computer use around the world.

Before they could do this though they had one little task to perform - hack into 420,00 computers.

The (unsurprisingly) unnamed creator of the gif created the 'Carna Botnet' that allowed them to trace when and where all of those devices were logging onto the internet.

The image does have some limitations - only insecure computers with a weak or no password could be targeted.

Fortunately, such devices are "located basically everywhere on the internet".

The researcher was also careful not to interfere with systems or use any that may have been part of any critical infrastructure.

They also...

...uploaded a readme file containing a short explanation of the project as well as a contact email address to provide feedback for security researchers, ISPs and law enforcement who may notice the project.

So why did they do this?

We would also like to mention that building and running a gigantic botnet and then watching it as it scans nothing less than the whole Internet at rates of billions of IPs per hour over and over again is really as much fun as it sounds like.

So, there you go...

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