Understanding geolocation accuracy using network geometry

The ability to estimate the geographic position of a network host has a vast array of uses, and many measurement-based geolocation methods have been proposed. Unfortunately, comparing results across multiple studies is difficult. A key contributor to that difficulty is network geometry - the spatial arrangement of hosts and links. In this paper, we study the relationship between network geometry and geolocation accuracy. We define the notion of scaling dimension to characterize the geometry of a wide array of different networks. We show that the scaling dimension correlates with a number of aspects of geolocation accuracy. In networks with low scaling dimension, geolocation accuracy improves more rapidly with the addition of landmarks. Further, we show that the scaling dimension of operator networks varies considerably across different regions of the world. Our results point to the complexity of, and suggest standards for, the meaningful evaluation of geolocation algorithms.