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Internet protocols are changing

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Re: Internet protocols are changing

#31

Post by xxpor »

dragontamer wrote: post #8
shalabhc wrote: post #5

Another 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.

You can tunnel SCTP on top of UDP. Port 9899.

https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/48/I-D/sigtran-sctptunnel-0...

Re: Internet protocols are changing

#32

Post by frut »

pjc50 wrote: post #20
frut wrote: post #11

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 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?

Authentication mostly. The lack of which is the major reason why the majority of us are still typing passwords into boxes in the browser and send them over the Internet in contradiction to best practices. Doing away with that would potentially solve a lot of problems, like phishing, but also replace cookies. Meaning it would be much harder to track users across the Internet threatening not only the revenue of major player but also their dominance since being able to handle security issues is a major advantage for them. So instead of fixing the problem at the source, we have security people recommending password managers and the EFF making cookie blockers.

Essentially every geek I have ever talked to support standards, decentralization, community efforts etc. Yet, here we have the company that has more influence than anyone else over the Internet almost single-handedly designing the protocol.

Re: Internet protocols are changing

#33

Post by sarah180 »

peterwwillis wrote: post #10
jandrese wrote: post #3

> 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…

There's a technical reason for this. The Internet2 project spent a lot of time and effort working on things like prioritized traffic to deal with congested links. They found that it was easier and more cost effective to just add more bandwidth than it was to design and roll out protocols that would deal with a lack of bandwidth.

For more info, read this: https://www.webcitation.org/5shCiXna8

A noteworthy quote:

> In those few places where network upgrades are not practical, QoS deployment is usually even harder (due to the high cost of QoS-capable routers and clueful network engineers). In the very few cases where the demand, the money, and the clue are present, but the bandwidth is lacking, ad hoc approaches that prioritize one or two important applications over a single congested link often work well. In this climate, the case for a global, interdomain Premium service is dubious.

"Premium service" in this document refers, basically, to an upgraded Internet with additional rules to provide quality of service for congested links.

(I'm not personally claiming that all these conclusions are correct and that they still apply today, just that there's some backstory here.)

Re: Internet protocols are changing

#34

Post by ocdtrekkie »

jjrh wrote: post #15
peterwwillis wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Almost positively that answer is Google. Notice they are behind multiple of the new protocols here (HTTP/2 and QUIC), and are used as an example how bundling DOH with an existing major player can prevent blocking DNS.

Google is effectively the actual determiner of Internet standards. As the article notes, Google implemented QUIC on their servers and their browsers, and therefore, 7% of Internet traffic is already QUIC-based, despite it not being officially accepted at this point. This is essentially the same as what happened with SPDY at the time.

As Google controls both the primary source of Internet traffic (up to 35-40% of all Internet traffic, depending who you ask, and a browser share in the what 65% range), Google can implement any new protocol it wants, and everyone else needs to support it or be left out.

Arguably, the IETF is no longer the controlling organization here: Google is. Should the IETF not approve Google's proposals, Google will continue to use them, and everyone else will continue to need to support them.

As the parent notes, Google both essentially determines these standards, and has an interested in faster networks so they can shove fatter payloads down the pipe. This is in part due to the ability to implement pervasive tracking, and of course, they operate a lot of content distribution products like YouTube.

Note that every method here that makes it harder for governments to censor and ISPs to prioritize also makes it harder for people to detect, inspect, and filter out Google's pervasive surveillance.

Re: Internet protocols are changing

#35

Post by ocdtrekkie »

hellbanner wrote: post #21
peterwwillis wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Who are the powers that be that benefit from fatter pipes + content distribution?

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15908810

Re: Internet protocols are changing

#36

Post by X86BSD »

dragontamer wrote: post #8
shalabhc wrote: post #5

Another 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.

Which is frankly horrifying considering the reference implementation was released in FreeBSD 7. That really ought to scare people from purchasing any of those routers/firewalls that don’t support it.

Re: Internet protocols are changing

#37

Post by ocdtrekkie »

gumby wrote: post #19

Let'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.

The DOH example, in particular, only conveys it's benefits if centralized to something governments are hesitant to block. This is an example of "innovation" specifically designed to centralize. There's maybe a handful of companies with enough influence that countries would hesitate to block in order to block DOH.

Re: Internet protocols are changing

#38

Post by JBiserkov »

24gttghh wrote: post #16
pfranz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. [0] https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html

Offtopic, but did you notice the 3-4% spikes on Saturdays? And the dips on workdays.

I assume workplaces have a lower adoption rate due to enterprise inertia. Or is there another explanation?

Re: Internet protocols are changing

#39

Post by zb3 »

topspin wrote: post #12
ilaksh wrote: post #2

It 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 prot…

But I, as an user, want to be able to block domains, inject scripts and see what Chrome is sending to Google on my own devices (which is what Google doesn't want me to do). That's why I can't support these protocols...
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