The level of penetration of internet usage in Africa is still growing as clearly depicted in this heat map showing Africa as a ‘dark continent’ as far as internet usage is concerned. This map shows the location of every single device connected to the Internet as created by John Matherly, founder of Shodan, a search engine for connected devices.
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Pinged all devices on the Internet, here’s a map of where they’re located 🙂 pic.twitter.com/G3fiNcKCul
— John Matherly (@achillean) August 28, 2014
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According to John Matherly in a tweet “Pinged all devices on the Internet, here’s a map of where they’re located”. The colors show how many devices are in a specific area. The redder the dot, the more the devices. The bluer, the fewer. Some areas have no dots, and you’ll notice a few dots in most parts of Africa. Basically it can be used to answer questions like “Where is the Internet”
He further added
[signoff predefined=”Movie Review Signoff” icon=”icon-username”]”My ping request would only reach whatever is directly connected to the Internet (i.e. your modem), which for a lot of people is their router, Note that it does also reach phones sometimes, I’ve seen iPhone/Android devices pop up on Shodan before.It took about five hours to get the data, and another 12 hours to create the map.”[/signoff]
Speaking about Africa John said
[signoff predefined=”Movie Review Signoff” icon=”icon-username”]I would expect certain areas (especially in Africa) to become brighter, but the only way to know for sure is to gather empirical data and keep track of it that way,[/signoff]
His tweet and data collected has sparked a lot of reaction from on social media.You can read some below
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@achillean So what you’re saying is that if I want to escape the Internet, I need to go to the Democratic Republic of Congo?
— loather (@ultimateloather) August 28, 2014
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@ashk4n @shodanhq @achillean Nice map, but now, let’s work on lighting up Northern Africa.
— Jamie (@jamietomasello) August 28, 2014
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@achillean how do you account for devices that are connected to the internet via satellite links? (Much of Africa for example)
— Joël Franusic (@jf) August 28, 2014
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