The AMPRNet (AMateur Packet Radio Network) or Network 44 is used in
amateur radio
Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communic ...
for
packet radio
In digital radio, packet radio is the application of packet switching techniques to digital radio communications. Packet radio uses a packet switching protocol as opposed to circuit switching or message switching protocols to transmit digital dat ...
and digital communications between
computer network
A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...
s managed by
amateur radio operator
An amateur radio operator is someone who uses equipment at an amateur radio station to engage in two-way personal communications with other amateur operators on radio frequencies assigned to the amateur radio service. Amateur radio operators hav ...
s. Like other
amateur radio frequency allocations
Amateur radio frequency allocation is done by national telecommunication authorities. Globally, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) oversees how much radio spectrum is set aside for amateur radio transmissions. Individual amateur sta ...
, an
IP range
A subnetwork or subnet is a logical subdivision of an IP network. Updated by RFC 6918. The practice of dividing a network into two or more networks is called subnetting.
Computers that belong to the same subnet are addressed with an identical ...
of was provided in 1981 for Amateur Radio Digital Communications (a generic term) and self-administered by radio amateurs. In 2001,
undocumented and
dual-use
In politics, diplomacy and export control, dual-use items refers to goods, software and technology that can be used for both civilian and military applications. of as an
internet telescope began,
recording the spread of the
Code Red II
Code Red II is a computer worm similar to the Code Red worm. Released two weeks after Code Red on August 4, 2001, it is similar in behavior to the original, but analysis showed it to be a new worm instead of a variant. Unlike the first, the seco ...
worm in July 2001. In mid-2019, part of IPv4 range was sold off for conventional use, due to
IPv4 address exhaustion
IPv4 address exhaustion is the depletion of the pool of unallocated IPv4 addresses. Because the original Internet architecture had fewer than 4.3 billion addresses available, depletion has been anticipated since the late 1980s, when the Interne ...
.
Amateur Radio Digital Communications (mode)
Beginning on 1 May 1978, the Canadian authorities allowed radio amateurs on the
1.25-meter band (220 MHz) to use
packet radio
In digital radio, packet radio is the application of packet switching techniques to digital radio communications. Packet radio uses a packet switching protocol as opposed to circuit switching or message switching protocols to transmit digital dat ...
, and later in 1978 announced the "Amateur Digital Radio Operator's Certificate".
Discussion on
digital communication
Data transmission and data reception or, more broadly, data communication or digital communications is the transfer and reception of data in the form of a digital bitstream or a digitized analog signal transmitted over a point-to-point or ...
amateur radio modes, using the
internet protocol suite
The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...
and
IPv4
Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the fourth version of the Internet Protocol (IP). It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. IPv4 was the first version de ...
addresses followed subsequently.
By 1988, one thousand assignments of address space had been made.
approximately 1% of inbound traffic volume to the network was legitimate
radio amateur
An amateur radio operator is someone who uses equipment at an amateur radio station to engage in two-way personal communications with other amateur operators on radio frequencies assigned to the amateur radio service. Amateur radio operators h ...
traffic that could be routed onwards, with the remaining 2‒100
gigabyte
The gigabyte () is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix ''giga'' means 109 in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one gigabyte is one billion bytes. The unit symbol for the gigabyte is GB.
This defini ...
per day of
Internet background noise Internet background noise (IBN, also known as Internet background radiation) consists of data packets on the Internet which are addressed to IP addresses or ports where there is no network device set up to receive them.
These packets often contain ...
being diverted and logged by the
University of California San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...
(UCSD)
internet telescope for research purposes.
By 2016, the European-based High-speed Amateur-radio Multimedia NETwork (HAMNET) offered a multi-megabit Internet protocol network with 4,000 nodes, covering central Europe.
History and design
The use of
TCP/IP
The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...
on amateur radio, using
packet radio
In digital radio, packet radio is the application of packet switching techniques to digital radio communications. Packet radio uses a packet switching protocol as opposed to circuit switching or message switching protocols to transmit digital dat ...
networks, occurred early on in the
history of the Internet
The history of the Internet has its origin in information theory and the efforts of scientists and engineers to build and interconnect computer networks. The Internet Protocol Suite, the set of rules used to communicate between networks and de ...
and preceded the appearance of the public Internet. The
class A netblock of 16.7 million IP addresses was set aside for amateur radio users worldwide, having been secured in 1981 by
Hank Magnuski
Henry "Hank" Stanley Magnuski is an American engineer and was the co-founder and CEO of GammaLink, an early pioneer in PC-to-fax technology. He also founded Internet Video Services, a video service provider; MediaMart, an electronic commerce site ...
;
when
computer networking
A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ma ...
was in its infancy and prior to
Internet flag day when the
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...
Network Control Protocol (NCP) was replaced by the
Transmission Control Protocol
The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the main protocols of the Internet protocol suite. It originated in the initial network implementation in which it complemented the Internet Protocol (IP). Therefore, the entire suite is commonly ...
(TCP) on 1 January 1983.
The initial name used by
Jon Postel in was the "Amateur Radio Experiment Net".
Originally packet radio was used as a low level protocol for many competing higher level protocols, and TCP/IP users were essentially a minority due to the complexity of the configuration. The low baud rates also inflamed packet
node
In general, a node is a localized swelling (a "knot") or a point of intersection (a vertex).
Node may refer to:
In mathematics
*Vertex (graph theory), a vertex in a mathematical graph
*Vertex (geometry), a point where two or more curves, lines, ...
site owners, as they saw the IP protocol as having too high of a
protocol overhead
In computer science, overhead is any combination of excess or indirect computation time, memory, bandwidth, or other resources that are required to perform a specific task. It is a special case of engineering overhead. Overhead can be a decidi ...
. Very few systems operated over
HF for this reason. The best solution on 1,200/9,600-baud VHF networks emerged as TCP/IP over ROSE (Radio Amateur Telecommunications Society "RATS" Open Systems Environment, based on
X.25
X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for packet-switched data communication in wide area networks (WAN). It was originally defined by the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (CCITT, now ITU-T) in a series of drafts ...
CCITT standard). Within just a few years the
public Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
made these solutions obsolete. The ROSE system today is maintained by the Open Source FPAC Linux project.
The AMPRNet is connected by wireless links and
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
tunnels. Due to the
bandwidth
Bandwidth commonly refers to:
* Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range
* Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...
limitations of the
radio spectrum
The radio spectrum is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum with frequencies from 0 Hz to 3,000 GHz (3 THz). Electromagnetic waves in this frequency range, called radio waves, are widely used in modern technology, particula ...
, VHF and UHF links are commonly 1,200-
baud
In telecommunication and electronics, baud (; symbol: Bd) is a common unit of measurement of symbol rate, which is one of the components that determine the speed of communication over a data channel.
It is the unit for symbol rate or modulatio ...
, and usually restricted to a maximum of 9,600 baud. Although with the advent of mass-produced
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...
equipment on and this technology is now being used to provide much faster links on nearby amateur frequencies. 300 baud is normally used on HF.
Microwave link
Microwave transmission is the transmission of information by electromagnetic waves with wavelengths in the microwave frequency range of 300MHz to 300GHz(1 m - 1 mm wavelength) of the electromagnetic spectrum. Microwave signals are normally lim ...
s generally do not use packet radio, and instead use the commercial
Wi-Fi access points (as
high-speed multimedia radio
High-speed multimedia radio (HSMM) is the implementation of high-speed wireless TCP/IP data networks over amateur radio frequency allocations using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware such as 802.11 Wi-Fi access points. This is possible beca ...
(HSMM) or ''hinternet''). The AMPRNet fully supports TCP/IP allowing for support of all
network protocol
A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any kind of variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics and synchroniza ...
s.
The AMPRNet is composed of a series of
subnets
A subnetwork or subnet is a logical subdivision of an IP network. Updated by RFC 6918. The practice of dividing a network into two or more networks is called subnetting.
Computers that belong to the same subnet are addressed with an identica ...
throughout the world. Portions of the network have
point-to-point radio links to adjacent nodes, while others are completely isolated.
Geographically dispersed radio subnets can be connected using an IP tunnel between sites with Internet connectivity. Many of these sites also have a tunnel to a central router, which routes between the and the rest of the Internet using
static routing Static routing is a form of routing that occurs when a router uses a manually-configured routing entry, rather than information from dynamic routing traffic. In many cases, static routes are manually configured by a network administrator by adding i ...
tables updated by volunteers.
experimentation had moved beyond these centrally controlled static solutions, to dynamic configurations provided by Peer to Peer VPN systems such as
n2n, and
ZeroTier.
Address administration
The allocation plan agreed in late-1986 mandated (~8 million addresses) for use within the United States, under
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
(FCC) regulations;
and mandated (~8 million addresses) for the Rest-of-World deployment, outside of FCC regulations.
Remaining
Internet protocol
The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet.
IP h ...
''(IP)'' addresses in this block are in the and networks, and theoretically available to any licensed amateur radio operator.
The
IP address management and assigning of addresses is done by
volunteer
Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...
coordinators with the proviso "we do not provide the same level of response as a commercial organisation." These addresses can possibly be made routable over the Internet if fully coordinated with the volunteer administrators. Radio amateurs wanting to request IP addresses within the AMPRNet should visit the AMPRNet Portal.
mirrorshades router
![San Diego Supercomputer Center East1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/San_Diego_Supercomputer_Center_East1.JPG)
Since the 1990s most packets within the range were arranged to transit via an
IP tunnel
An IP tunnel is an Internet Protocol (IP) network communications channel between two networks. It is used to transport another network protocol by encapsulation of its packets.
IP tunnels are often used for connecting two disjoint IP networks ...
using
IP in IP IP in IP is an IP tunneling protocol that encapsulates one IP packet in another IP packet. To encapsulate an IP packet in another IP packet, an outer header is added with Source IP, the entry point of the tunnel, and Destination IP, the exit point ...
encapsulation to/from a
router hosted at the
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
.
This forwarding router was originally named
mirrorshades.ucsd.edu
and later
gw.ampr.org
or "".
By 1996 higher-speed
56k modems briefly had greater
throughput
Network throughput (or just throughput, when in context) refers to the rate of message delivery over a communication channel, such as Ethernet or packet radio, in a communication network. The data that these messages contain may be delivered ov ...
than was possible to forward via the "mirrorshades" central
reflector router
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connec ...
and back again.
Only IP addresses with an active
Domain Name System
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...
(DNS) entry under
ampr.org
are passed by the
packet filter
In computing, a firewall is a network security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules. A firewall typically establishes a barrier between a trusted network and an untrusted ne ...
for forwarding.
By 19 August 1999 daily encapsulated
IP in IP IP in IP is an IP tunneling protocol that encapsulates one IP packet in another IP packet. To encapsulate an IP packet in another IP packet, an outer header is added with Source IP, the entry point of the tunnel, and Destination IP, the exit point ...
traffic was ~100
kilobits per second
In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...
, peaking to 0.14
megabits per second
In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...
.
During mid-2000, the majority of unique IP addresses seen on the
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
connection from
CERFnet The California Education and Research Federation Network (CERFnet) is a mid-level network service provider based in California. CERFnet was one of the NSFNET regional networks and a co-founder of the Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX). The CERFnet n ...
began with the prefix, except for 17% of IP addresses which did not.
In mid-2009 the
mirrorshades
server was upgraded and replaced after about ~1,100 days
uptime
Uptime is a measure of system reliability, expressed as the percentage of time a machine, typically a computer, has been working and available. Uptime is the opposite of downtime.
It is often used as a measure of computer operating system reliab ...
.
A funding proposal in 2010 raised the possibility that "The legitimate traffic is also a potential research resource".
UCSD Network Telescope
Beginning in February 2001,
as part of backscatter research and the CAIDA/UCSD
network telescope A network telescope (also known as a packet telescope, darknet, Internet motion sensor or black hole) is an Internet system that allows one to observe different large-scale events taking place on the Internet. The basic idea is to observe traffic ta ...
project, the whole of the address block
:'' 2012 – 2017 ... Grant number: FA8750-12-2-0326 ... engaged in collecting packet-level data from the UCSD Network Telescope
The AMPRNet (AMateur Packet Radio Network) or Network 44 is used in amateur radio for packet radio and digital communications between computer networks managed by amateur radio operators. Like other amateur radio frequency allocations, an IP ...
(which monitors a IPv4
Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the fourth version of the Internet Protocol (IP). It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. IPv4 was the first version de ...
darknet) ... To help further advance cybersecurity
Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, the ...
research, we provided access to this sensitive data – real-time traffic destined for blackhole address space ... The UCSD Network Telescope
The AMPRNet (AMateur Packet Radio Network) or Network 44 is used in amateur radio for packet radio and digital communications between computer networks managed by amateur radio operators. Like other amateur radio frequency allocations, an IP ...
consists of a large piece of globally announced IPv4 address space ( segment). This address space contains almost no legitimate hosts, so inbound traffic to non-existent machines is unsolicited, and anomalous in some way. ... We collected pcap
In the field of computer network administration, pcap is an application programming interface (API) for capturing network traffic. While the name is an abbreviation of ''packet capture'', that is not the API's proper name. Unix-like systems ...
files (header and content) from the UCSD Network Telescope
The AMPRNet (AMateur Packet Radio Network) or Network 44 is used in amateur radio for packet radio and digital communications between computer networks managed by amateur radio operators. Like other amateur radio frequency allocations, an IP ...
, instrumentation that monitors, strips the payload, and retains a sliding most recent two-month window of data on our machines, while archiving older data to an outside facility (NERSC
The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), is a high-performance computing (supercomputer) National User Facility operated by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for the United States Department of Energy Office of Scien ...
). ... For UCSD Telescope data processing and visualization, we had access to 15 dedicated compute nodes and one I/O node on the SDSC SDSC may refer to:
* San Diego Supercomputer Center
* Satish Dhawan Space Centre
* Strategic and Defence Studies Centre
The Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC) is a university-based institute that is situated in the Coral Bell School of ...
Gordon supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructions ...
platform that stored and processed the indexed time-series data
In mathematics, a time series is a series of data points indexed (or listed or graphed) in time order. Most commonly, a time series is a sequence taken at successive equally spaced points in time. Thus it is a sequence of discrete-time data. Exa ...
. ... after stripping the payload
Payload is the object or the entity which is being carried by an aircraft or launch vehicle. Sometimes payload also refers to the carrying capacity of an aircraft or launch vehicle, usually measured in terms of weight. Depending on the nature of ...
, stored them in one-hour long files in PCAP
In the field of computer network administration, pcap is an application programming interface (API) for capturing network traffic. While the name is an abbreviation of ''packet capture'', that is not the API's proper name. Unix-like systems ...
format. We made these files available in near-real-time (with 1-hour delay). ... dedicated system administrator with experience in managing data processing pipelines administered these facilities ... number of files and the total volume of data collected ... (from 012-10-01until 017-12-31 as well as cumulative size ... Telescope
A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observe ...
: number of files: 129552; Size: 2.85 PB; On-disk size (compressed), t 2017-12-31 1.30 PB; Uncompressed size, t 2017-12-31 3.25 PB''
was being advertised via the
border gateway protocol
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a standardized exterior gateway protocol designed to exchange routing and reachability information among autonomous systems (AS) on the Internet. BGP is classified as a path-vector routing protocol, and it makes ...
(BGP) as a passive
honeypot for
Internet background noise Internet background noise (IBN, also known as Internet background radiation) consists of data packets on the Internet which are addressed to IP addresses or ports where there is no network device set up to receive them.
These packets often contain ...
and backscatter collection,
based in the
Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis
The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) is an organized research unit of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). SDSC is located at the UCSD campus' Eleanor Roosevelt College east end, immediately north the Hopkins Parking Structure. ...
at the
San Diego Supercomputer Center
The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) is an organized research unit of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). SDSC is located at the UCSD campus' Eleanor Roosevelt College east end, immediately north the Hopkins Parking Structure. ...
.
On 15 July 2001 the
network monitor
Network monitoring is the use of a system that constantly monitors a computer network for slow or failing components and that notifies the network administrator (via email, SMS or other alarms) in case of outages or other trouble. Network monitorin ...
ing of traffic recorded the spread of the
Code Red II
Code Red II is a computer worm similar to the Code Red worm. Released two weeks after Code Red on August 4, 2001, it is similar in behavior to the original, but analysis showed it to be a new worm instead of a variant. Unlike the first, the seco ...
worm.
Prior to July 2001, the project had been logging unsolicited
TCP SYN
The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the main protocols of the Internet protocol suite. It originated in the initial network implementation in which it complemented the Internet Protocol (IP). Therefore, the entire suite is commonl ...
packets destined for IP addresses within ; and after 19 July 2001 full incoming
IP header
An IP header is header information at the beginning of an Internet Protocol (IP) packet. An IP packet is the smallest message entity exchanged via the Internet Protocol across an IP network. IP packets consist of a header for addressing and routi ...
logging took place.
The IP address block was stated to have "high value to research".
Capture data for August 2001, using
data compression
In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compression ...
and retaining only
IP header
An IP header is header information at the beginning of an Internet Protocol (IP) packet. An IP packet is the smallest message entity exchanged via the Internet Protocol across an IP network. IP packets consist of a header for addressing and routi ...
s was 0.5
gigabyte
The gigabyte () is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix ''giga'' means 109 in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one gigabyte is one billion bytes. The unit symbol for the gigabyte is GB.
This defini ...
per hour.
In 2002 the block was 0.4% of all internet IPv4 address space.
By September 2003, traffic was 0.75
terabyte
The byte is a units of information, unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character (computing), character of text in a computer and for this ...
s per month and costing $2,500 per month for bandwidth.
In October 2004
Limelight Networks
Edgio, Inc., formerly Limelight Networks, Inc., is an American company that provides a content delivery network (CDN) service, used for delivery of digital media content and software. As of January 2023, the company's network has more than 300 ...
began to sponsor the
internet transit
Internet transit is the service of allowing network traffic to cross or "transit" a computer network, usually used to connect a smaller Internet service provider (ISP) to the larger Internet. Technically, it consists of two bundled services:
* The ...
costs of the CAIDA network telescope.
In April 2009 the upstream
rate limiting
In computer networks, rate limiting is used to control the rate of requests sent or received by a network interface controller. It can be used to prevent DoS attacks and limit web scraping.
Research indicates flooding rates for one zombie machin ...
was removed, increasing the number of packets reaching the network telescope.
At the end of 2012,
seaport.caida.org
was the network telescope data capture server with
thor.caida.org
used for near
real-time data Real-time data (RTD) is information that is delivered immediately after collection. There is no delay in the timeliness of the information provided. Real-time data is often used for navigation or tracking. Such data is usually processed using real- ...
access.
, the network was receiving backscatter from
Denial-of-Service attack
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connect ...
s (DoS) each measuring ~226 packets per second (
mean
There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value (magnitude and sign) of a given data set.
For a data set, the ''arithme ...
peak average).
Totalling 37
terabyte
The byte is a units of information, unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character (computing), character of text in a computer and for this ...
s per month.
Support was supplied by
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develo ...
under a University Research Board (UBR) grant.
The project was funded by an Advanced Networking Infrastructure and Research (ANIR) award,
and Computer and Network Systems (CNS) award
from the
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...
(NSF); the
United States Department of Homeland Security
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the Federal government of the United States, U.S. United States federal executive departments, federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the I ...
(DHS);
and Network Modeling & Simulation (NMS) /
Next Generation Internet Program The Next Generation Internet Program (also ''NGI'', ''NGI Initiative'') was a United States Government project intended to drastically increase the speed of the Internet. President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore announced their commitment t ...
(NGI) of the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Adv ...
(DARPA).
=Feed
=
In May 2017, the
Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis
The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) is an organized research unit of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). SDSC is located at the UCSD campus' Eleanor Roosevelt College east end, immediately north the Hopkins Parking Structure. ...
provided a new server for the AMPRNet gateway, in a different building.
As of mid-2017 a
passive monitoring configuration was in use, involving a
network switch
A network switch (also called switching hub, bridging hub, and, by the IEEE, MAC bridge) is networking hardware that connects devices on a computer network by using packet switching to receive and forward data to the destination device.
A netw ...
with
port mirroring
Port mirroring is used on a network switch to send a copy of network packets seen on one switch port (or an entire VLAN) to a network monitoring connection on another switch port. This is commonly used for network appliances that require monitor ...
set to duplicate the incoming packets being seen by the AMPRNet gateway to the UCSD network telescope capture server.
The project funding proposal for "Sustainable Tools for Analysis and Research on Darknet Unsolicited Traffic" (STARDUST) specified a planned upgrading to
10 Gigabit Ethernet with a passive
optical tap
A network tap is a system that monitors events on a local network. A tap is typically a dedicated hardware device, which provides a way to access the data flowing across a computer network.
The network tap has (at least) three ports: an ''A port ...
, in order to provide finer
timestamping and avoid
packet loss
Packet loss occurs when one or more packets of data travelling across a computer network fail to reach their destination. Packet loss is either caused by errors in data transmission, typically across wireless networks, or network congestion.Kur ...
.
By July 2018, the replacement 10 Gigabit Ethernet infrastructure, using an optical splitter and
Endace capture card, was operational.
=Archives
=
The archived intermittent captures for 2001‒2008 were
The archived
pcap
In the field of computer network administration, pcap is an application programming interface (API) for capturing network traffic. While the name is an abbreviation of ''packet capture'', that is not the API's proper name. Unix-like systems ...
captures from 2008‒2012 were of data uncompressed.
In January 2012, five weeks of recent data were uncompressed.
Beginning on 22 March 2012, the raw hourly compressed
pcap
In the field of computer network administration, pcap is an application programming interface (API) for capturing network traffic. While the name is an abbreviation of ''packet capture'', that is not the API's proper name. Unix-like systems ...
traces from 2003‒2012 were transferred to the
National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center
The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), is a high-performance computing (supercomputer) National User Facility operated by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for the United States Department of Energy Office of Scien ...
(NERSC) for long-term storage and
research data archiving.
This
data migration
Data migration is the process of selecting, preparing, extracting, and transforming data and permanently transferring it from one computer storage system to another. Additionally, the validation of migrated data for completeness and the decommis ...
of 104.66
Tebibyte
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
took one week at a sustained rate of 1.5
gigabits per second
In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...
via the
Energy Sciences Network
The Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) is a high-speed computer network serving United States Department of Energy (DOE) scientists and their collaborators worldwide. It is managed by staff at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
More than ...
(ESnet).
For the 2012‒2017 period, 2.85
petabyte
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
s of data was collected (1.3
petabyte
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
compressed).
, the overall total collected by the
UCSD Network Telescope
The AMPRNet (AMateur Packet Radio Network) or Network 44 is used in amateur radio for packet radio and digital communications between computer networks managed by amateur radio operators. Like other amateur radio frequency allocations, an IP ...
stood at 3.25
petabyte
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
s (uncompressed), stored across 129,552 hourly files.
Users of the collected data up to 2012 are requested to
acknowledge that "Support for Backscatter Datasets and the
UCSD Network Telescope
The AMPRNet (AMateur Packet Radio Network) or Network 44 is used in amateur radio for packet radio and digital communications between computer networks managed by amateur radio operators. Like other amateur radio frequency allocations, an IP ...
is provided by
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develo ...
,
Limelight Networks
Edgio, Inc., formerly Limelight Networks, Inc., is an American company that provides a content delivery network (CDN) service, used for delivery of digital media content and software. As of January 2023, the company's network has more than 300 ...
, the
US Department of Homeland Security
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...
, the
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...
,
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Adv ...
,
Digital Envoy, and CAIDA Members."
Block size
The original
Class A network allocation for amateur radio was made in the 1970s, and recorded in September 1981,
which consisted of ~16 million IP addresses. As of 18 July 2019, the lower 75% of the block (~12 million addresses) remained for amateur radio usage, with the upper 25% (, ~4 million IP address) having been sold.
Owing to
IPv4 address exhaustion
IPv4 address exhaustion is the depletion of the pool of unallocated IPv4 addresses. Because the original Internet architecture had fewer than 4.3 billion addresses available, depletion has been anticipated since the late 1980s, when the Interne ...
, by 2016 the block was worth over .
The
routing prefix aggregation stopped being advertised on 4 June 2019.
John Curran, CEO of the
American Registry for Internet Numbers
The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is the regional Internet registry for Canada, the United States, and many Caribbean and North Atlantic islands. ARIN manages the distribution of Internet number resources, including IPv4 and IP ...
registry stated that a request for the transfer of IP addresses had been received and reviewed in accordance with ARIN policy.
On 18 July 2019, the designation recorded by
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Interne ...
was altered from "
Amateur Radio Digital Communications"
to " Administered by
ARIN".
On 18 July 2019, there was a sale of address space to Amazon Technologies Inc, which was the highest bidder,
for use by
Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Amazon that provides Software as a service, on-demand cloud computing computing platform, platforms and Application programming interface, APIs to individuals, companies, and gover ...
.
AMPRNet subsequently consisted of , and , with no plans to sell any more address space.
The aspiration expressed by those involved in the sale was that money be held by a non-profit
501(c)(3) organization
A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, Trust (business), trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of t ...
for the advancement of amateur radio.
The sale raised over $50 million.
Prior to sale, addresses in the block had been allocated to amateur radio areas for the
outer space
Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, pred ...
-
amateur radio satellite
An amateur radio satellite is an artificial satellite built and used by amateur radio operators. It forms part of the Amateur-satellite service. These satellites use amateur radio frequency allocations to facilitate communication between amate ...
service,
to
roaming
Roaming is a wireless telecommunication term typically used with mobile devices, such as mobile phones. It refers to a mobile phone being used outside the range of its native network and connecting to another available cell network.
Technical ...
,
Oceania
Oceania (, , ) is a region, geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern Hemisphere, Eastern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of ...
,
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...
,
the
Arctic
The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
for (CisarNet)
Germany for
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
/
Tübingen
Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thr ...
,
Eppstein
Eppstein is a town in the Main-Taunus-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. Eppstein lies west of Frankfurt am Main, around 12 km north east of the state capital Wiesbaden, and is at the edge of the Taunus mountains. The ruins of the Eppstein castle is ...
,
plus the Germany/pan-European (HAMNET).
Germany
/ref>
Responses
Paul Vixie
Paul Vixie is an American computer scientist whose technical contributions include Domain Name System (DNS) protocol design and procedure, mechanisms to achieve operational robustness of DNS implementations, and significant contributions to open ...
stated after the sale of IP address space that "ampr.org can make better use of money than IP space in fulfilling its nonprofit mission, at this stage of the game."
Doug Barton, a former manager of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Interne ...
, said the "reaction that we're seeing now is 100% predictable ... that doesn't change anything about my opinion that the sale itself was totally reasonable, done by reasonable people, and in keeping with the concept of being good stewards
Steward may refer to:
Positions or roles
* Steward (office), a representative of a monarch
* Steward (Methodism), a leader in a congregation and/or district
* Steward, a person responsible for supplies of food to a college, club, or other inst ...
of the space
Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider ...
.
Amateur Radio Digital Communications (committee)
An Amateur Radio Digital Communications committee was formed to offer advice on digital standards to the American Radio Relay League
The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is the largest membership association of amateur radio enthusiasts in the United States. ARRL is a non-profit organization, and was co-founded on April 6, 1914, by Hiram Percy Maxim and Clarence D. Tuska of ...
(ARRL) board of directors, following a meeting in 1981. The original working name was the "ARRL Ad Hoc Committee
A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
on Digital Communication", abbreviated to "digital committee".
During the mid-1980s, the committee had been meeting twice per year: during the middle of the year, and again at the annual Computer Networking conference.
In September 1987, the committee recommended the list of frequencies that would be used in North America for packet radio and digital communications.
In January 1988, the committee held a meeting to standardise AX.25
AX.25 (Amateur X.25) is a data link layer protocol originally derived from layer 2 of the X.25 protocol suite and designed for use by amateur radio operators. It is used extensively on amateur packet radio networks.
AX.25 v2.0 and later occupies t ...
version 3.
In March 1988, the "Packet Radio Frequency Recommendations" were published by the committee.
During early 1993 the committee and ARRL board of directors were working on guidelines for semi-automatic digital stations, with the proposals passed to the Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
.
Amateur Radio Digital Communications (non-profit)
On 6 October 2011 a Californian non-profit company was founded with the name of "Amateur Radio Digital Communications", and recorded by the State of California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
on 11 October 2011 with an address of "5663 Balboa Avenue, Suite 432, San Diego, California— a UPS store address.
On 22 June 2012, 29 September 2015, and 18 September 2017, filings were made listing the company officers as:
;Brian Kantor: President or Chief Executive Officer
;Erin Kenneally: Secretary
;Kimberly Claffy: Treasurer or Chief Financial Officer
In 2011, the American Registry for Internet Numbers
The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is the regional Internet registry for Canada, the United States, and many Caribbean and North Atlantic islands. ARIN manages the distribution of Internet number resources, including IPv4 and IP ...
approved a request to change the registration of the whole network block from an individual contact, to the "Amateur Radio Digital Communications" non-profit company.
Activities were to "conserve scarce AMPRNet Internet protocol resources, and to educate networks users on how to efficiently utilize these resources as a service to the entire Internet community" initiated "in the second half of 2012 by via communications with American Registry for Internet Numbers
The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is the regional Internet registry for Canada, the United States, and many Caribbean and North Atlantic islands. ARIN manages the distribution of Internet number resources, including IPv4 and IP ...
(ARIN)".
Plans included "the issuance of grant
Grant or Grants may refer to:
Places
*Grant County (disambiguation)
Australia
* Grant, Queensland, a locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia
United Kingdom
* Castle Grant
United States
* Grant, Alabama
* Grant, Inyo County, ...
s and other financial support
An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Type ...
to educational institution
An educational institution is a place where people of different ages gain an education, including preschools, childcare, primary-elementary schools, secondary-high schools, and universities. They provide a large variety of learning environments an ...
s, foundations and other organizations. expected to commence in 2013 via a joint effort of the three founding Directors ".
During December 2017 Kantor announced their retirement
Retirement is the withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from one's active working life. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours or workload.
Many people choose to retire when they are elderly or incapable of doing their j ...
from University of California San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...
.
Re-stated (changed) articles of incorporation
Article often refers to:
* Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness
* Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication
Article may also refer to:
G ...
for the "Amateur Radio Digital Communications" non-profit were signed on 13 December 2017, and filed on 17 December 2017.[Alt URL]
/ref>
In May 2019, Kantor signed an agreement extending UCSD/CAIDA's use of Amprnet addresses for data collection until 31 July 2023.
Brian Kantor died in November 2019. In February/March 2020, the Center for Networked Systems (CNS) of the University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
(UCSD) received $225,000, given by ARDC to allow financial endowment
A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to the will of its founders and donors. Endowments are o ...
of a student scholarship
A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need.
Scholarsh ...
in the name of Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical com ...
and honouring Brian Kantor.
Distributions
In May 2021, ARDC provided a one-off grant of to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
amateur radio club (W1MX) to save and rebuild the radome
A radome (a portmanteau of radar and dome) is a structural, weatherproof enclosure that protects a radar antenna. The radome is constructed of material transparent to radio waves. Radomes protect the antenna from weather and conceal antenna e ...
on top of the MIT Green Building .
In November 2021, ARDC awarded a five-year grant, for a total of , to support US-based activities around Amateur Radio on the International Space Station
Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS), operating in the Amateur-satellite service, is a project sponsored by various entities and carried out by astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station who also have an a ...
(ARISS-USA).
In January 2022, the Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
received a grant of for assembling a planned Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC).
See also
*AX.25
AX.25 (Amateur X.25) is a data link layer protocol originally derived from layer 2 of the X.25 protocol suite and designed for use by amateur radio operators. It is used extensively on amateur packet radio networks.
AX.25 v2.0 and later occupies t ...
*High-speed multimedia radio
High-speed multimedia radio (HSMM) is the implementation of high-speed wireless TCP/IP data networks over amateur radio frequency allocations using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware such as 802.11 Wi-Fi access points. This is possible beca ...
*Winlink
Winlink, or formally, Winlink Global Radio Email (registered US Service Mark), also known as the Winlink 2000 Network, is a worldwide radio messaging system that uses amateur-band radio frequencies and government frequencies to provide radio int ...
References
Financial
Further reading
1980s
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
1990s
*
*
*
2000s
*
*
*
*
*
2010s
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
2019
*
*
*
Alt URL
*
*
*
*
2020s
*
*
External links
*
* at CAIDA
AMPRNet Portal
Amateur Packet Radio Gateways
HamWAN
{{Packet radio
Amateur radio
Packet radio
Network architecture
Amateur radio organizations
1981 establishments
2001 establishments in California
University of California, San Diego
E-Science
Cyberinfrastructure
La Jolla, San Diego
2011 establishments in California
Non-profit organizations based in San Diego
Internet technology companies of the United States
Amateur radio companies
2017 establishments in California