This thesis proposes a novel approach to reliably estimate properties of the Internet topology. Unlike historical approaches, based on declarative, hardly reliable data, or on readings from maps measured with diagnostic tools, our approach is to develop very reliable measure primitives, of which the operation, the hypotheses, and the results are well defined. Our first case study is the degree distribution of the logical topology, or L3. We use the traceroute tool, of which we study the operation, to derive a measurement primitive. This measurement primitive, which relies on using a distribution set of monitors over the network, allows us to get an estimation of the number of neighbors in L3 of a target core router. We use this primitive ag...