This is just depressing. Sure, sell us out to big corporations by not implementing proper features in protocols like HTTP/2 so we can get tracked for decades to come. Yet, represent freedom by yet another cool way to "fool" governments. When historians look back at what happened to the Internet, or even society, they are going to find that organizations like the IETF was to busy with romantic dreams of their own greatness to serve the public. It's like people leaned nothing from Snowden.
Internet protocols are changing
11–20 of 138 posts
Re: Internet protocols are changing
#12It seems that widely deploying TLS 1.3 and DOH can provide an effective technical end-around the dismantling of net neutrality. So we should be promoting and trying to deploy them as widely as possible. Of course, they can still block or throttle by IP, so the next step is to increase deployment of content-centric networking systems.
It seems to me that all of the changes described in this story will contribute to thwarting intermediaries and their agendas. HTTP/2 and its "effective" encryption requirement are proof against things like Comcast's nasty JavaScript injection[1]. QUIC has mandatory encryption all the way down; even ACKs are encrypted, obviating some of the traditional throttling techniques. And as you say TLS 1.3 and DOH further protect traffic from analysis and manipulation by middlemen.
Perhaps our best weapon against Internet rent seekers and spooks is technical innovation.
It is astonishing to me that Google can invent QUIC, deploy it on their network+Chrome and boom! 7% of all Internet traffic is QUIC.
Traditional HTTP over TCP and traditional DNS are becoming a ghetto protocol stack; analysis of such traffic is sold to who knows whom, the content is subject to manipulation by your ISP, throttling is trivial and likely to become commonplace with Ajit Pai et al. Time to pull the plug on these grifters and protect all the traffic.
Re: Internet protocols are changing
#13Another interesting protocol, perhaps underused, is SCTP. It fixes many issues with TCP, in particular it has reliable datagrams with multiplexing and avoiding head-of-line blocking. I believe QUIC is supposed to be faster at connection (re)estabishment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_Control_Transmission_Pr...
SCTP is a superior protocol, but it isn't implemented in many routers or firewalls. As long as Comcast / Verizon routers don't support it, no one will use it. It may be built on top of IP, but TCP / UDP levels are important for NAT and such. Too few people use DMZ and other features of routers / firewalls. Its way easier to just put up with TCP / UDP issues to stay compatible with most home setups.
To your point, IPv6 has been around 20 years, the whole time we know we're running out of IPv4 addresses and adoption is still around 20%.
However, the high turnover for mobile phones has allowed more aggressive changes to the networking stack. Perhaps this, in addition to IPv6, would make something like SCTP easier to adopt widely?
Re: Internet protocols are changing
#14> For example, if Google was to deploy its public DNS service over DOH on www.google.com and a user configures their browser to use it, a network that wants (or is required) to stop it would have to effectively block all of Google (thanks to how they host their services).
Which will result in all of Google being blocked by schools, businesses, and entire nations. Which, as Google is relied upon more and more, means less access to things like mail, documents, news, messaging, video content, the Android platform, etc.
Thanks.
Re: Internet protocols are changing
#15> When a protocol can’t evolve because deployments ‘freeze’ its extensibility points, we say it has ossified. TCP itself is a severe example of ossification; so many middleboxes do so many things to TCP — whether it’s blocking packets with TCP options that aren’t recognized, or ‘optimizing’ congestion control. > It’s necessary to prevent ossification, to ensure that protocols can evolve to meet the needs of the Inter…
> It seems like everybody assumes you're on a big fat broadband pipe now and nobody else matters. This is intentional. The powers that be have an interest in moving everyone to faster networks, and they effectively control all new web standards, and so build their protocols to force the apps to require faster, bigger pipes. This way they are never to blame for the new requirements, yet they get the intended benefits…
Not sure who "The powers that be" are, but anyone can propose and contribute to IETF standards. They are called "Request for Comment" for a reason.
Re: Internet protocols are changing
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
SCTP is a superior protocol, but it isn't implemented in many routers or firewalls. As long as Comcast / Verizon routers don't support it, no one will use it. It may be built on top of IP, but TCP / UDP levels are important for NAT and such. Too few people use DMZ and other features of routers / firewalls. Its way easier to just put up with TCP / UDP issues to stay compatible with most home setups.
To your point, IPv6 has been around 20 years, the whole time we know we're running out of IPv4 addresses and adoption is still around 20%. However, the high turnover for mobile phones has allowed more aggressive changes to the networking stack. Perhaps this, in addition to IPv6, would make something like SCTP easier to adopt widely?
"Still" seems a bit disingenuous when considering the current trajectory IPv6 adoption is on. [0] Yah it's happening slowly, but it does seem to be pushing ahead.
Re: Internet protocols are changing
#17This is just depressing. Sure, sell us out to big corporations by not implementing proper features in protocols like HTTP/2 so we can get tracked for decades to come. Yet, represent freedom by yet another cool way to "fool" governments. When historians look back at what happened to the Internet, or even society, they are going to find that organizations like the IETF was to busy with romantic dreams of their own grea…
What features are missing that should be implemented?
Re: Internet protocols are changing
#18Another interesting protocol, perhaps underused, is SCTP. It fixes many issues with TCP, in particular it has reliable datagrams with multiplexing and avoiding head-of-line blocking. I believe QUIC is supposed to be faster at connection (re)estabishment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_Control_Transmission_Pr...
Interestingly SCTP is used for WebRTC's data channel. Emscripten uses it to emulate UDP.
Re: Internet protocols are changing
#19Let's just hope that future innovations (and, more perniciously, "innovations") reinforce the end-to-end principle. A major weakness of the 2017 Internet is its centralization.
The DNS-over-http discussion in this post mention that in passing, though I wonder if this treatment might not be worse than the disease.
Re: Internet protocols are changing
#20This is just depressing. Sure, sell us out to big corporations by not implementing proper features in protocols like HTTP/2 so we can get tracked for decades to come. Yet, represent freedom by yet another cool way to "fool" governments. When historians look back at what happened to the Internet, or even society, they are going to find that organizations like the IETF was to busy with romantic dreams of their own grea…
> sell us out to big corporations by not implementing proper features in protocols like HTTP/2 so we can get tracked
What are you referring to here?