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Enabling a permanent revolution in internet architecture

by akshayn on 8/24/19, 4:38 PM with 28 comments

by mitchs on 8/24/19, 7:19 PM
As far as I'm concerned this paper more or less describes HTTP(S) fairly well. The "3.5" address is the domain name that resolves to a meaningful IP address for the L3 domain you are in.
Folks are already using disjoint L3 address spaces with elements like load balancers providing the bridge between the public IP space and their own private IP space. I don't know if you could ever sell me on having more than one "main" IP space though, as I don't entirely understand what purpose that would serve, other than massively complicating the process of understanding what it is you are purchasing connectivity to.
See also RFC 1925, particularly sections 2.6a, and perhaps 2.11 :p
by dluan on 8/24/19, 8:32 PM
dmytri kleiner gave a great talk about doing this at a little bit of higher level back at SIGINT10.
https://media.ccc.de/v/sigint10_3821_en_peer_to_peer_communi...
by hirundo on 8/24/19, 6:46 PM
%s/a permanent revolution/evolution/g
by contingencies on 8/25/19, 1:22 AM
Setting aside the cultural baggage of its authorship and nomenclature, from a purely objective standpoint I could not pass Introduction / Motivation without attempting to elucidate the objections I felt to its generalizations.
The most frequently cited architectural flaw is the lack of a coherent security design: The success of IP is simplicity/general utility - the ability of the system to support different use cases as a packet-switched alternative to previously dominant circuit-switched telephony systems. This is precisely the capacity of the system to vary service types and levels based upon application requirements. Viewed in this lens, not having a 'coherent security design' is the core feature, not a bug.
many question whether the basic service model of the Internet (point-to-point packet delivery) is appropriate now that the current usage model is so heavily dominated by content-oriented activities: CDNs, content-addressable P2P networks (torrents), and multi-mirror package management databases are all excellent, broadly deployed counter-examples. The fact is, by normalizing packet-switching, IP has made bandwidth so cheap that inefficient distribution becomes a trivialized cost. Again, this is a core feature.
by inopinatus on 8/24/19, 10:39 PM
Between the name, the acronym TP, the tagline, and the fact that it was a paper co-authored by A Panda whilst presented in Beijing, all led me to assume it was an elaborate setup for a joke for at least half the paper.
by pgcj_poster on 8/24/19, 8:40 PM
> In this paper, we try to reconcile these two perspectives by proposing a backwards-compatible architectural framework called Trotsky in which one can incrementally deploy radically new designs. We show how this can lead to a permanent revolution in Internet architecture by (i) easing the deployment of new architectures and (ii) allowing multiple coexisting architectures to be used simultaneously by applications
In Trotskyist theory, permanent revolution has a specific meaning. There are two main components:
1. A socialist, proletarian revolution has to occur in a pre-capitalist society (such as Czarist Russia), bypassing the step of a bourgeois, capitalist revolution (such as the French Revolution), which Orthodox Marxism expected to be necessary in such countries.
2. The revolution has to be global, in contrast with eg. Stalin's theory of Socialism in One Country.
Seeing as permanent revolution is 1. not incremental and 2. does not allow for co-existence with capitalism, it seems sort of strange to name this approach after it.
by Forellen on 8/25/19, 4:06 PM
Why Trotsky? Because "permanent revolution"? sigh.
by mattnewport on 8/24/19, 7:03 PM
How is it considered appropriate to name this project Trotsky? Would they name a project Goebbels or Himmler?