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WhatRoute is a network diagnostic utility designed for Apple Macintosh computers. Primarily it provides a Traceroute function, but can also perform Ping, Domain Name Service queries, Whois queries and monitor the traffic to and from your computer. The software also uses a Geo-Location service to provide a geographical view of the paths that packets from your computer take as they traverse the Internet.

After the initial development of WhatRoute, I became interested in trying to understand something of the geographical locations of the various routers that lay between my computer and the eventual destination of my IP packets. I soon found the CAIDA organisation at San Diego, CA, made contact with them and was given access to their NetGeo IP address to physical address database. Kim Claffy (kc) and David Moore were very helpful and supportive in these efforts although I dont think they had quite understood the load that would be placed on their servers when they agreed to giving WhatRoute access.