From: Seth Cooper (scooper@cs.washington.edu)
Date: Mon Nov 15 2004 - 01:36:27 PST
This paper introduces Self-spreading Transport Protocols, or STP. STP
is motivated by the fact that the Internet is constantly changing and
its transport protocols must also change to keep up with the needs of
applications. However, it is difficult to deploy new transport
protocols because most of the time both ends of a connection must
implement the protocol (in the kernel) before either side sees a
benefit. Therefore there is a disincentive for early adopters. STP
attempts to fix this problem by allowing both sides to be upgraded at
once, by implementing new transport protocols in mobile code that can be
safely spread to other hosts.
One strength of the STP is that it presents an effective method for
allowing untrusted mobile code to be executed on a host. If a host is
to run arbitrary code that it receives over the network, it is important
that the code not be allowed to carry out malicious behavior. By
implementing new protocols in Cyclone, STP gains all of the safety
implied by that language. By isolating untrusted code and limiting the
transfer of flow control to it, STP can execute such code in a
relatively safe manner, and terminate it if it does something unexpected.
One weakness of STP is that it may make implementing new transport
protocols too easy. If every host were to decide that it has a good
transport protocol to distribute, then many connections may incur the
overhead of needing to send new protocols, and hosts would have to
remember many protocols as they connected with other hosts. In order
for STP to be effective, it would be important for hosts to spread a
small number of new transport protocols over time.
This paper is relevant because the Internet is not complete, rather it
is constantly evolving. This paper presents a method for the transport
protocols that the Internet employs to keep up with changes in the
Internet. Decisions made that effect the network should be made in such
a way that they can be dynamic and scalable; STP is one way to make
transport protocols more dynamic.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.6 : Mon Nov 15 2004 - 01:36:20 PST