Researchers at the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute (ISI) have visually mapped the Web’s near three billion assigned IP addresses, in what could prove a crucial step in the ongoing fight against the proliferation of online security threats.

It is hoped the census, believed to be the first of its kind, will allow researchers to better understand the behaviour of global virus and worm epidemics. Researchers also hope to gain a clearer understanding of how to expand the Internet’s capacity, which could become constrained by 2010, reports ABC news.

The researchers sent an Internet probe to the 2.8 billion IP addresses currently in use which, when contacted, automatically send a response signal back to the origin of the probe. The ISI recorded the results and mapped them according to their numerical location on a grid.

The census, which was part-funded by the Department of Homeland Security, took just over two months.

It should help computer scientists to better understand and interpret network traffic, and to gain a better view on how worms, which probe IP addresses randomly, might be prevented from spreading and infecting computer users.

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