Top Destination Locations Heatmap in Africa

[Meg]

Hello: I am pretty new to using Opnsense and Zenarmor. I am on Opnsense 23.7.10_1 and Zenarmor 1.15.2. I am running unbound dns and Adgaurd as well with no external dns servers. I have noticed that my Top Destination Locations Heatmap keeps showing the largest red dot just off the west cost of Africa most of the time. I am in Canada and sometimes it shows North America ( Canada and United States) and then switching back to Africa with very little to none showing in North America. Packet and Volume Always show this red dot near Africa but ass more traffic flows through North America the dot near Africa Fades and gets stronger in North America I saw an old post from 2022 where someone from the EU was seeing a red dot in Wichita US. Does anyone have an explanation for this behavior? I did notice on OpenSreetmap contrubuters (https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright) that one of the contributers is from South Africa. Not sure if this would have anything to do with it.
Thanks:

[almodovaris]

That lake in Wichita is easily explained: there is traffic to the US, not otherwise defined. And that lake is considered the geographical center of the US, so it is a formal placeholder for traffic to unknown locations in the US.

[sy]

Hi,

What is the Top Remote Hosts report item at the same time?

[Meg]

I have checked all top remote hosts several times and nothing I can find trace back to Africa. They all trace back to either Canada or United States.

[vasawar]

I have noticed that my Top Destination Locations Heatmap keeps showing the largest red dot just off the west cost of Africa most of the time. I am in Canada and sometimes it shows North America ( Canada and United States) and then switching back to Africa with very little to none showing in North America. Packet and Volume Always show this red dot near Africa but ass more traffic flows through North America the dot near Africa Fades and gets stronger in North America I saw an old post from 2022 where someone from the EU was seeing a red dot in Wichita US. Does anyone have an explanation for this behavior?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_Island

I did notice on OpenSreetmap contrubuters (https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright) that one of the contributers is from South Africa. Not sure if this would have anything to do with it.
Thanks:

There are more than ten million registered OpenStreetMap contributors

[Meg]

Update: Out of curiosity I reset Zenarmor and changed from SQlite database to Elastisearch local database. Now my reporting looks better and my Top destinations Heat Map looks as it should without the red dot in Africa. I again switched back to SQlite database and had the same problem with the red dot near Africa. After going again back to Elastisearch data base my problems are gone. Is there potentially a problem in with the Sqlite database?

[Meg]

Thanks for the information. Very interesting about Null_Island, The exact point I was showing on my Top destinations location heat map. That is most likely what was causing that, but still curious why it doesn't show when I switch to Elastisearch database from SQlite database.

[sy]

Hi,

There is no known issue on SQLite. We will check it and fix if there is a bug on SQLite for the next maintenance release.

[Meg]

I now also don't think there is any problem with the SQlite database after Vasawar's reply. I seems that one of the contributors to OpenStreetMap gets its database from Null Isalnd as described in detail in this article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_Island) and uses it as a place holder. Upon switching to Elastisearch I now have a hotspot near Wichita united states as was reported by User "Atlantic" in 2021. This was answered by user "almodovarious", that this is also a placeholder for traffic to unknown locations in the US. The data from this point is also used by OpenStreetMaps also. Based on this information I agree that there is no problems in any of the databases.
Thanks sy