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1:1 was a project created in 1999 which consisted of a database that would eventually contain the addresses of every Web site in the world and interfaces through which to view and use the database. Crawlers were sent out on the Web to determine whether there was a Web site at a specific numerical address. If a site existed, whether it was accessible to the public or not, the address was stored in the database. However, the Web was changing faster than the database was updated and in 2001 it was clear that the database was outdated. 1:1(2) is a continuation of the project including a second database of addresses generated in 2001 and 2002 and interfaces that show and compare the data from both databases. The IP address database: The numerical addresses used for all computers connected to the Internet are called IP (Internet Protocol) addresses. A URL, the name of a site that we usually use, for example cadre.sjsu.edu, is really just a cover for the IP address 130.65.200.15 that is the "real" address of a Web site. IP addresses range between 0.0.0.0 and 255.255.255.255. The crawlers don't start on the first address going to the end; instead they search selected samples of all the numbers, slowly zooming in on the numerical spectrum. Because of the interlaced nature of the search, the database could in itself at any given point be considered a snapshot or portrait of the Web, revealing not a slice but an image of the Web, with increasing resolution. When the project was first created in 1999, approximately two percent of the spectrum was searched and 186,100 sites were included in the database. In the fall of 2001, the search was started again. The initial idea was to continuously search the IP space to eventually have covered the whole spectrum. But since the Web has changed drastically since 1999, it seemed more interesting to search the same areas again to be able to make comparisons between the Web then and now. The second search yielded 185,281 websites. (A guess is that fewer sites where found because a lot of military sites disappeared, see the Every: Access interface.) The interfaces: Five interfaces (Migration, Hierarchical, Every, Random, Excursion) visualize the databases and provide means of using the databases to access and navigate the Web. The Migration interface reveals in one image how the Web has "moved" over the last few years. The other four interfaces show the two databases in parallel. When navigating the Web through the databases, via the five interfaces, one experiences a very different Web than when navigating it with the "road maps" provided by search engines and portals. Instead of advertisements, pornography, and pictures of people's pets, this Web is an abundance of inaccessible information, undeveloped sites and cryptic messages intended for someone else. Search-engines and portals deliver only a thin slice of the Web to us, not the high-resolution image we sometimes think they do. The interfaces/visualizations are not maps of the Web but are, in some sense, the Web. They are super-realistic and yet function in ways images could not function in any other environment or time. They are a new kind of image of the Web, and they are a new kind of image. |
~Archived version of interface: petri (one of the interfaces in the original version of 1:1, not used/updated in the current version.) |
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