[e2e] overlay over TCP

[David P. Reed]

John Kristoff wrote:

>It may come as either this type of overlay or
>as something more fundamental through new channels (wireless) that have
>no central control.
>  
>
You could say I'm doing my bit to work on both... (central-control-free 
wireless and applications that motivate edge-based network overlays).  I 
tend to think of them as belt and suspenders, rather than independent 
alternatives.

>It would be very interesting to build those Internets on top of the
>Internet.  Dealing with one-way circuit setups, instabilities of that
>first Internet layer and further attempts to restrict communications
>at that first layer could pose significant hurdles however.  The
>closest thing that I can think of that has been deployed are things
>like the onion router projects and more recently Tor:
>
>  <http://tor.eff.org>
>  
>
My reverse-engineering of Skype suggests that whether or not the 
now-centrally-controlled IETF gets its way, there continue to be ways to 
connect end-user benefit to decentralized solutions. (wait till someone 
starts selling middlebox "skype-blockers" and see what they use as 
"justification" for why people should "be afraid, be very afraid" of Skype).

Nothing's perfect, but lowly Skype's done a pretty darn good pragmatic 
job of what we used to call "internetworking" with a lowercase "i" 
against the wishes of those who would recreate walled gardens. (a lot 
more quickly and efficiently than "STUN" or "Teredo" has been deployed).

If I were teaching networking protocols today, I'd be teaching 
bittorrent and skype - how they work and why they work.  They 
approximate the role of the Internet experiment in the late '70's in 
today's environment.  (of course the smartest students have already 
figured that out, but perhaps a 50+-year-old's perspective might be 
useful to them anyway).