At a glance, the Internet can feel simple: you click on a website, and it loads immediately. However, behind those familiar website names lies a more complex system of labels called “server hostnames,” which include long, messy strings of letters and numbers that contain hidden clues about where a server is located. Colgate University senior Yabesi Witinya has dedicated his time to developing a system that can decode these hostnames and identify the location from which a server originated.
Witinya became invested in computer science early on in his Colgate career, starting from his first semester COSC101 Introduction for Computing class. He was especially interested in the programming side of computer science, eventually leading to his involvement in research beginning the summer after his sophomore year.
Witinya commented on the impact of this experience.
“I have been doing research with a Colgate professor since my sophomore summer, and I think that was a great resource because it gave me a different angle of thinking about computer science,” Witinya said.
Witinya’s early experience in research influenced his senior thesis project.
“I think my thesis was mostly influenced by the things I worked on because in the prior summer, I was working on geolocation with programming,” Witinya said. “My first approach from my independent research didn’t work as planned, which is why I wanted to focus my thesis around the same topic to make something that does work.”
Currently, other methods to organize and understand server names are tedious and occasionally inaccurate. Through manual effort, researchers in the past had to essentially guess how different companies encoded the location of the server into the server name. However, through his research, Witinya is programming a system that can divide a server name string into layers and have the system recognize patterns within this structure to make an educated guess about the location. Having a uniform system that compares patterns found in server names across platforms, it allows for more consistent results with less manual labor involved.
Witinya spoke about the larger implications his research can have in the future.
“I think on a broader level, this can be commercialized because it can be useful for organizations in strengthening their cybersecurity or to understand the whole internet landscape,” Witinya said.
By being able to detect the location of a server, it allows security systems to flag suspicious location users, understand the layout of the internet and identify inefficiencies within internet mapping.
As Witinya’s senior year is wrapping up, he highlighted the importance of utilizing Colgate’s resources in research and seeking out help from the professors to gain a better understanding of a field.
“One thing Colgate has is lots of great research opportunities, such as the independent research option that I did,” Witinya said. “It’s great because you give yourself your own tasks. I also recommend students to find a professor and talk to them about their research and field because it can be so helpful for finding opportunities on and off campus.”
Overall, Witinya completed an impressive in-depth research experience involving computer science, beginning as an independent research study and finishing as his senior thesis. His study tells a story of the hidden world behind our internet system and how there is still much to uncover and develop to help this system run efficiently.
