Your input needed: How many hops to the internet?

[Ole Tange]

= Background =

I have implemented --net in niceload. It suspends your program when
your internet connection is overloaded. Specifically I have made it
with the purpose of running TOR on my surplus bandwidth, so that when
I need the bandwidth TOR will be suspended, and when I am done, TOR
can be resumed.

The magic is done by pinging a router. When the latency is 150% of the
median latency, it is assumed the line is congested and thus the
program is suspended. When the latency falls below the 150% the
program resumes.

This of course assumes that your connection is congested at most 49%
of the time, which in practice it is not.

The router is found by tracerouting to 8.8.8.8 (Google's public DNS)
and selecting a router a few hops out. But most of us will have fast
LANs and a much slower internet connection. So I need to find a router
that is on the internet side of the connection - preferably the first,
so your traffic is not mixed with others.

= The question =

Which hop is the first router at your ISP?

Here is how you tell:

$ traceroute -n 8.8.8.8
traceroute to 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 1  192.168.1.1  0.612 ms  1.126 ms  1.136 ms -- This is my access point
 2  87.72.85.193  3.597 ms  3.608 ms  3.605 ms -- This is rented
router from my ISP
 3  87.72.99.225  3.884 ms  3.895 ms  4.150 ms -- THIS IS THE FIRST
ROUTER AT MY ISP
 4  80.249.208.247  17.383 ms  17.422 ms  17.577 ms
 5  209.85.143.183  18.542 ms 209.85.143.181  18.117 ms 209.85.143.183
 18.946 ms
 6  209.85.241.31  19.457 ms 209.85.241.127  18.920 ms 209.85.248.247  17.877 ms
 7  64.233.174.135  20.863 ms 216.239.49.35  20.210 ms 72.14.233.199  20.501 ms
 8  216.239.56.163  19.395 ms 209.85.255.51  20.199 ms 216.239.49.30  19.748 ms
 9  * * *
10  8.8.8.8  20.367 ms  19.805 ms  19.808 ms

$ traceroute -n -m 10 41.2.3.4
traceroute to 41.2.3.4 (41.2.3.4), 10 hops max, 60 byte packets
 1  192.168.1.1  0.584 ms  0.569 ms  1.352 ms -- This is my access point
 2  87.72.85.193  3.208 ms  3.212 ms  3.610 ms -- This is rented
router from my ISP
 3  87.72.99.225  3.967 ms  3.968 ms  3.964 ms -- THIS IS THE FIRST
ROUTER AT MY ISP
 4  87.54.8.197  57.987 ms 195.215.109.5  50.346 ms 87.54.8.197  58.385 ms
 5  4.68.71.9  3.903 ms  3.894 ms  4.267 ms
 6  * * *
 7  * * *
 8  212.187.173.34  23.185 ms  26.791 ms  26.972 ms
 9  * * *
10  41.21.235.17  168.536 ms  167.755 ms  169.134 ms

So mine is hop 3.


/Ole