Summary

  • In August 2016, Robert Kisteleki announced that RIPE Atlas probe and anchor hosts would earn one additional credit for each measurement result their equipment delivered. Today's Atlas manual retains that rule alongside 15 credits per connected probe-minute.
  • The same manual charges three credits for a default periodic ping result and 30 for a default periodic traceroute result. A one-time 50,000-credit starter grant and transfers give newcomers a way to measure before hosting a probe.

An Internet probe has no expense account. Someone gives it power and a network port, keeps it alive, and lets other people ask it questions. In 2016, Robert Kisteleki sent those hosts a short message: RIPE Atlas would give them one extra credit for every result their probes or anchors produced. The connected-time reward already existed. Now the machines would also get a score for answering the door.

The figures in that announcement are gloriously nerdy. Kisteleki estimated most probe hosts could add up to 10,000 credits a day; anchors about 200,000; DNSMON anchors roughly a million. Those were 2016 estimates, when the new bonus began. The durable point is the unit: one delivered result, one credit. The current Atlas credit manual still states that rate.

The other side of the counter has a price list. A connected probe earns 15 credits per minute, about 21,600 over a full day. A standard periodic ping costs three credits per delivered result; a standard periodic traceroute costs 30. An on-demand, one-off result costs twice the periodic rate because scheduling and storing its metadata impose extra work. These are internal units for requesting measurements, not money that changes hands. The pricing tells a user that “one more trace” consumes more of the shared machine than “one more ping.”

The manual even prints a receipt. Five probes running two traceroutes an hour for two days yield 480 results and a 14,400-credit charge. That is a manageable experiment for a regular host with a connected probe; it is also an easy way for an overeager script to burn through a balance. Atlas charges in batches every four to six hours. When an account falls into debt, the system can stop its most expensive running measurement. The results already collected stay available.

Kisteleki is RIPE NCC's RIPE Atlas product owner and technical lead, one of the people who made a volunteer network usable as a public measuring instrument. In his ten-year account of the project, he says the team watched the system's credit “GDP”: how many credits it created and consumed. That is the useful image here. The meter is part of the infrastructure, not decorative gamification. A probe that stays connected adds a viewpoint; a probe that delivers results adds work; a user who schedules measurements draws on both.

There is a door for people who have no probe. The current rules offer eligible new accounts a one-time 50,000-credit grant. Users can transfer credits, arrange standing orders, or share account access for measurements. Public Atlas results are open to anyone. The little economy governs custom requests, where a private curiosity can become thousands of jobs for other people's boxes.

Kisteleki's one-credit bonus did a quiet thing: it counted a volunteer's actual contribution without pretending that a probe and a full traceroute have the same cost. Atlas still asks its oldest civic question in arithmetic: who keeps the lights on, who gets to ask, and how many questions can the network afford?