This article focuses on DNS and AS numbers. Which are very much related to actual data plane. (i believe OP only looks at AS of authoritative dns servers, but i

This article focuses on DNS and AS numbers. Which are very much related to actual data plane. (i believe OP only looks at AS of authoritative dns servers, but it's most likely a good first approximation of the actual size and behavior of ASs) > address allocation and infrastructure operators are where the real control is. Most of them are also dns operators (at least for themselves), which is why it's a good proxy to study the state of the internet. Also: in theory dns isn't that much needed (as you say, just use tcp/ip directly), but you'd be surprised what breaks when you blackhole dns packets on a network.