Anchoring measurements from 7106 appear to be affected by a local proxy
Hi, all. I am a computer networks PhD student analyzing RIPE anchoring measurements for research purposes. While I was looking at traceroutes originating from specific anchors, I noticed that all traceroutes from Anchor #7106 only contained one hop, with no silent hops present. Upon further inspection, these singleton hops were actually the destination IP addresses themselves, and they had extremely short (<1ms) RTTs from 7106 even when they were supposed to be located on the other side of the globe. On the other hand, ping and traceroute measurements directed *toward* 7106 all seemed normal, with regular hop counts and RTTs that seemed to agree with reported geographical distance. I strongly suspect that 7106 is connected to a local proxy that is responding to outgoing ping and traceroute traffic on behalf of its intended destinations. As such, I wanted to bring some attention to this anchor so that other researchers might be aware of its status before trying to use it to conduct measurements. Regards, William Kanieski
Hi William, adding to this, there are also three probes (63018, 1000963, 1011609) with the same problem. See this [0] measurement, which targets an IP that is not announced on BGP on purpose [1]. All probes with replies have some issue. Best, Malte [0] https://atlas.ripe.net/measurements/40072013/results [1] https://github.com/RIPE-Atlas-Community/ripe-atlas-tips-and-tricks/wiki/nonD...
Hi, Malte. Thank you for your quick response and for bringing these measurements to my attention. Conducting traceroutes to an unannounced public IP address is a very clever way to filter out proxies that may respond on its behalf, and seems much more effective than just checking the first hops. I will periodically check the traceroute measurement for evidence of other anomalous probes, and will make note of the probes you mentioned as well when conducting my experiments. Regards, William Kanieski On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 9:12 PM Malte Tashiro via ripe-atlas < ripe-atlas@ripe.net> wrote:
Hi William,
adding to this, there are also three probes (63018, 1000963, 1011609) with the same problem. See this [0] measurement, which targets an IP that is not announced on BGP on purpose [1]. All probes with replies have some issue.
Best, Malte
[0] https://atlas.ripe.net/measurements/40072013/results [1] https://github.com/RIPE-Atlas-Community/ripe-atlas-tips-and-tricks/wiki/nonD... ----- To unsubscribe from this mailing list or change your subscription options, please visit: https://mailman.ripe.net/mailman3/lists/ripe-atlas.ripe.net/ As we have migrated to Mailman 3, you will need to create an account with the email matching your subscription before you can change your settings. More details at: https://www.ripe.net/membership/mail/mailman-3-migration/
Than you both - we'll check if such a measurement can be used as an indication that the probe's network is "strange" and see if we can apply a tag to mark them. Regards, Robert On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 12:41 AM William Kanieski via ripe-atlas < ripe-atlas@ripe.net> wrote:
Hi, Malte.
Thank you for your quick response and for bringing these measurements to my attention. Conducting traceroutes to an unannounced public IP address is a very clever way to filter out proxies that may respond on its behalf, and seems much more effective than just checking the first hops. I will periodically check the traceroute measurement for evidence of other anomalous probes, and will make note of the probes you mentioned as well when conducting my experiments.
Regards,
William Kanieski
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 9:12 PM Malte Tashiro via ripe-atlas < ripe-atlas@ripe.net> wrote:
Hi William,
adding to this, there are also three probes (63018, 1000963, 1011609) with the same problem. See this [0] measurement, which targets an IP that is not announced on BGP on purpose [1]. All probes with replies have some issue.
Best, Malte
[0] https://atlas.ripe.net/measurements/40072013/results [1] https://github.com/RIPE-Atlas-Community/ripe-atlas-tips-and-tricks/wiki/nonD... ----- To unsubscribe from this mailing list or change your subscription options, please visit: https://mailman.ripe.net/mailman3/lists/ripe-atlas.ripe.net/ As we have migrated to Mailman 3, you will need to create an account with the email matching your subscription before you can change your settings. More details at: https://www.ripe.net/membership/mail/mailman-3-migration/
----- To unsubscribe from this mailing list or change your subscription options, please visit: https://mailman.ripe.net/mailman3/lists/ripe-atlas.ripe.net/ As we have migrated to Mailman 3, you will need to create an account with the email matching your subscription before you can change your settings. More details at: https://www.ripe.net/membership/mail/mailman-3-migration/
participants (3)
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Malte Tashiro -
Robert Kisteleki -
William Kanieski