The problem of portraying the spatial ordering on the Internet is the ephemeral nature of the object. A broken router or network, for example, makes paths invalid and provokes changes that can affect large parts of the routing topology. Topology in cyberspace consists of a flexible, permanently changing order. Thus, a fugitive phenomenon such as the topology of cyberspace could not be depicted by something like a road map. Routing tables inform routers about their neighbors, for example.
Neighbors are nodes with a direct connection to the router in question.
Remarkably, it is not the physical distance that determines whether or not an object is regarded to be a neighbor. In cyberspace, it is the number of so-called hops that define neighborhood, nearness and distance.1 Hops are the basic unit of measurement and evaluation in cyberspace. Every network address known to a router and stored in its routing table has attached to it the paths through which it can be reached and the number of hops it takes to get there. If several paths are known, it is the number of hops that tell which path is the best. However, the number of hops is no objective figure.