ACM Sigcomm Computer Communication Review最新文献

eBPF is a popular technology originating from the Linux kernel that enables safely running user-provided programs in a kernel-context. This technology opened the door for efficient programming in the operating system, especially in its network stack. However, its applicability is not limited to the Linux kernel. Various efforts leveraged the eBPF Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) as the basis of other networking related use cases outside of the Linux kernel. This paper focuses on the pluginized protocols' use case such as PQUIC and xBGP where the eBPF ISA serves as the basis to execute plugins providing per-session protocol behavior. It first quickly describes how the Linux kernel builds around this eBPF ISA to provide enhanced in-kernel network programmability. Then, the paper considers the case of pluginized protocols. Leveraging eBPF outside of the Linux kernel environment requires complementing the eBPF ISA to meet the pluginized protocols' requirements. This paper details these integration efforts. Based on the lessons learned from these, it finally concludes by an applicability discussion of the eBPF ISA to other use cases.

This October 2023 issue contains three editorial notes.

The observing reader of CCR will have noticed that there is no July 2023 issue. There are three main factors at play here. Given the timing of our SIGCOMM conferences, summer is a low period for submissions to CCR. Then, as CCR is selective and its scope limited to timely works relevant to our community, few technical papers make it above our bar. Finally, I have witnessed a healthy shift away from technical papers towards more thought-provoking editorials over the last few years. We have enough conference and journals for technical papers to find an appropriate venue. On the other hand, our conferences and journals, due to their selective nature and the overly critical nature of the reviewing process, do not lend themselves to welcome thought-provoking and contentious contributions. Let CCR be their home.

The goal of this short document is to explain why recent developments in the Internet's infrastructure are problematic. As context, we note that the Internet was originally designed to provide a simple universal service - global end-to-end packet delivery - on which a wide variety of end-user applications could be built. The early Internet supported this packet-delivery service via an interconnected collection of commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that we will refer to collectively as the "public Internet." The Internet has fulfilled its packet-delivery mission far beyond all expectations and is now the dominant global communications infrastructure. By providing a level playing field on which new applications could be deployed, the Internet has enabled a degree of innovation that no one could have foreseen. To improve performance for some common applications, "enhancements" such as caching (as in content-delivery networks) have been gradually added to the Internet. The resulting performance improvements are so significant that such enhancements are now effectively necessary to meet current content delivery demands. Despite these tangible benefits, this document argues that the way these enhancements are currently deployed seriously undermines the sustainability of the public Internet and could lead to an Internet infrastructure that reaches fewer people and is largely concentrated among only a few large-scale providers. We wrote this document because we fear that these developments are now decidedly tipping the Internet's playing field towards those who can deploy these enhancements at massive scale, which in turn will limit the degree to which the future Internet can support unfettered innovation. This document begins by explaining our concerns but goes on to articulate how this unfortunate fate can be avoided. To provide more depth for those who seek it, we provide a separate addendum with further detail.

Many researchers are turning to SmartNIC offloads to improve the performance of high-performance networked systems. In this editorial, I discuss why SmartNICs are an especially powerful form factor for improving I/O intensive applications, and how their position in the dataplane enables them to take on central role in managing I/O. Rather than focusing on the benefits of individual offloads, this paper aims to explore the position of SmartNICs in the overall system integration of datacenter servers at the hardware and software level. I argue that SmartNICs should be viewed as 'data movement controllers' (NIC-DMCs) which are responsible for tasks involved in moving data between network, CPU, accelerators, and other endpoints: multiplexing/steering, interfacing between protocols, and enforcing I/O policies. I then enumerate open questions in how the hardware and software systems of the future will evolve to accommodate a dedicated NIC-DMC which is independent of the CPU complex.

On April 1, 2023 we stopped monitoring the traffic on our campus Internet link, nearly 20 years to the day since we first started doing so. During these two decades, we faced a vast array of issues that affected the collection, storage, analysis and backup of our monitoring data. In this paper we share some of our experiences, so that future networking researchers have an opportunity to learn from our successes as well as our many mistakes and misfortunes.

The Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) Research Group on Decentralizing the Internet (DINRG) hosted a workshop on Centralization in the Internet on June 3, 2021. The workshop focused on painting a broad-brush landscape of the Internet centralization problem space: its starting point, its driving force, together with an articulation on what can and should be done.

This April 2023 issue contains one technical paper and four editorial notes.

Vulnerability disclosure is a widely recognized practice in the software industry, but there is a lack of literature detailing the firsthand experiences of researchers who have gone through the process. This work aims to bridge that gap by sharing our personal experience of accidentally discovering a DNS vulnerability and navigating the vulnerability disclosure process for the first time. We document our mistakes and highlight the important lessons we learned, such as the fact that public disclosure can be effective but can also be more time-consuming and emotionally taxing than anticipated. Additionally, we discuss the ethical considerations and potential consequences that may arise during each step of the disclosure process. Lastly, drawing from our own experiences, we identify and discuss issues with the current disclosure process and propose recommendations for its improvement. Our ultimate aim is to provide valuable insights to fellow researchers who may encounter similar challenges in the future and contribute to the enhancement of the overall disclosure process for the benefit of the wider community.

End-users are concerned about protecting the privacy of their sensitive personal data that are generated while working on information systems. This extends to both the data they actively provide including personal identification in exchange for products and services as well as its related metadata such as unnecessary access to their location. This is when certain privacy-preserving technologies come into a place where Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) plays a major role in incorporating such technologies at the fundamental level. Thus, this paper offers an overview of the privacy-preserving mechanisms for layer 3 (i.e. IP) and above that are currently under standardization at the IETF. This includes encrypted DNS at layer 5 classified as DNS-over-TLS (DoT), DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH), and DNS-over-QUIC (DoQ) where the underlying technologies like QUIC belong to layer 4. Followed by that, we discuss Privacy Pass Protocol and its application in generating Private Access Tokens and Passkeys to replace passwords for authentication at the application layer (i.e. end-user devices). Lastly, to protect user privacy at the IP level, Private Relays and MASQUE are discussed. This aims to make designers, implementers, and users of the Internet aware of privacy-related design choices.

The "Measuring Broadband America" program, run by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), continually measures and releases data on the performance of consumer broadband access networks in the US. This paper presents a retrospective on the program, from its beginnings in 2010 to the present. It also reviews the underlying measurement approaches, philosophies, distinguishing features, and lessons learned over the program's duration thus far. We focus on fixed broadband access since it is the program component with the longest history. We also discuss future directions and challenges.