Ten years of the Venezuelan crisis

This repository contains the code, data, and figures of the paper entitled Ten years of the Venezuelan crisis - An Internet perspective that appear at ACM SIGCOMM 2024. This paper is authored by Esteban Carisimo, Rashna Kumar, Caleb J. Wang, Santiago Klein and Fabián E. Bustamante. The paper is available here.

Setup Instructions

Before running the notebooks, we highly recommend creating a virtual environment to manage dependencies.

Using a Virtual Environment (non-Conda users)

1. Create a virtual environment:

   python3 -m venv .venezuela

2. Activate the virtual environment:

   source .venezuela/bin/activate

3. Install the IPython kernel for the virtual environment:

   ipython kernel install --user --name=.venezuela

All users

4. Install the required Python packages from requirements.txt:

   pip3 install -r requirements.txt

If the previous command encounters issues installing rootpath, please install it manually.

Repository structure

Data (./data/)

The ./data/ directory can be downloaded from this link to Google Drive.

Please note: Some datasets in this repository need to be retrieved using scripts. Carefully read the instructions provided in the sections below.

Description of files/directories:

Raw data

• ./data/raw/02-pfx2as: This directory contains CAIDA's prefix-to-as mapping files. To populate this directory, please execute the script python3 ./scripts/download-pfx2as.py.
• ./data/raw/03-10-15-peeringdb: This folder contains CAIDA's monthly snapshots of PeeringDB data. To populate this directory, please run the script python3 ./scripts/download-peeringdb.py.
• ./data/raw/05-facebook-ipv6: This directory Meta's report on IPv6 adoption across each country in the LACNIC region.
• ./data/raw/08-asrel: This folder provides CAIDA's AS relatioships files. Run python3 ./scripts/download-asrel.py to populate this directory.
• ./data/raw/08-delegated-lacnic: This directory contains LACNIC delegation files. To populate this directory, run python3 ./scripts/download-lacnic-delfiles.py.
• ./data/raw/10-apnic-eyeballs: Snapshot from APNIC's Eyeball Population Estimates as of March 22, 2022.
• ./data/raw/11-mlab: This directory holds monthly median download speeds measured by MLAB's NDT tests for all countries in the LACNIC region.
• ./data/raw/12-20-google-dns: This directory offers files for per-probe monthly RTT measurements to Google Public DNS resolvers from RIPE Atlas probes in the LACNIC region since 2014 (measurement ID: 1591146).

Processed data

• ./data/processed/02-addr-space/02-addr_space_ve.csv.gz: This file includes data on the address space allocated to Venezuela, detailing the space announced by each provider.
• ./data/processed/06-16-chaos-txt: Contains files with locations of Root DNS servers inferred from DNS CHAOS TXT measurements. These measurements were conducted using RIPE Atlas probes in Venezuela since 2016.
• ./data/processed/07-hgs: This directory holds data on off-nets inferred to be in Venezuela obtained from the artifacts offered by Gigis et al. ( SIGCOMM 2021).
• ./data/processed/12-google-dns: Stores the mean and median Round-Trip Time (RTT) latency values to Google Public DNS resolvers from RIPE Atlas probes in the LACNIC region since 2014 (measurement ID: 1591146).
• ./data/processed/12-stable-set: Similar to the previous dataset but includes only measurements from probes that participated in at least 90% of the measurements, providing a stable set of RTT latency data.
• ./data/processed/17-ripe-probes: Contains monthly data on the count of RIPE Atlas probes in each country within the LACNIC region.
• ./data/processed/19-third-party-providers: Offers an analysis of the adoption of third-party providers in topsites across Latin American countries.

External data

• ./data/external/01-a-crude_oil_production.csv: Contains crude oil production data as reported by the OECD.
• ./data/external/rir.csv: Provides a list of Regional Internet Registries (RIRs).

Submarine Cable Replicability

Our analysis used a snapshot of Telegeography's Submarine Cable Map from 2021, back when the data was publicly accessible. As this data is now restricted, users interested in replicating this analysis will need to provide their own dataset.

If any of the external links or information on this page are broken or out of date, please feel free to create an issue on this repository.

Notebooks (./notebooks)

The ./notebooks directory contains the Jupyter notebooks files used for all the analyses in the paper

• ./notebooks/01-econ-background.ipynb: Presents the socioeconomic context in Venezuela as described in Section 2.
• ./notebooks/02-14-addr-space.ipynb: Analyzes the role of CANTV in Venezuela's address space, detailed in Section 4.
• ./notebooks/03-peering-facilities.ipynb: Describes the growth of peering facilities in Venezuela and the rest of Latin America using PeeringDB information, as shown in Section 5.1.
• ./notebooks/04-submarine-cable-network.ipynb: (Telegeography Submarine Cable map access restricted) Compares the growth of submarine cable network (SCN) infrastructure in Venezuela with other LACNIC countries, as illustrated in Section 5.2.
• ./notebooks/05-facebook-ipv6-adoption-checkpoint.ipynb: Examines the growth of IPv6 adoption in the LACNIC region, highlighting Venezuela's lag, as shown in Section 5.3.
• ./notebooks/06-chaos-txt.ipynb: Utilizes RIPE Atlas DNS CHAOS TXT measurements to identify local mirrors of Root DNS servers deployed in Venezuela as analyzed in Section 5.4.
• ./notebooks/07-18-cdn-deployments.ipynb: Leverages artifacts from Gigis et al. (SIGCOMM 2021) to assess the deployment of off-nets across LACNIC operators which is presented in Section 5.5.
• ./notebooks/08-09-cantv-asrel.ipynb: Uses CAIDA's AS relationship files to track changes in CANTV's upstream connectivity displayed in Section 6.1.
• ./notebooks/10-21-ixps.ipynb: Uses PeeringDB data to compare Venezuela's presence at Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) with that of other Latin American countries, explained in Section 6.2.
• ./notebooks/11-bandwidth-mlab.ipynb: Analyzes the evolution of download speeds in Venezuela and the LACNIC region using MLAB data, which is discussed in Section 7.1.
• ./notebooks/12-google-dns.ipynb: Examines latency to Google Public DNS resolvers.
• ./notebooks/15-peering-facilities-ve.ipynb: Expands on the analysis of Venezuela's presence at peering facilities.
• ./notebooks/16-chaos-txt-ve.ipynb: Further investigates the presence of root DNS servers in Venezuela.
• ./notebooks/17-ripe-probe-count.ipynb: Investigates the footprint of RIPE Atlas probes in Latin America.
• ./notebooks/19-third-party-providers-adoption.ipynb: Analyzes the reliance on third-party providers by top sites across the LACNIC region.
• ./notebooks/20-google-dns-per-probe.ipynb: Studies the per-probe latency to Google Public DNS resolvers.
• ./notebooks/notebook_utils.py: Includes utility functions used across all notebooks.