[e2e] Time for a new Internet Protocol

[Bob Briscoe]

Tom,

Been away from mail...

At 02:09 22/05/2007, Tom Vest wrote:
>Being a big fan and frequent user/abuser of the tussle concept, let
>me be the first person to observe some obvious problems that follow
>from using it as a normative principle:
>
>1.  Although the concept of tussle is inherently recursive, it's
>typically only used (e.g., by network architects and systems theory
>people) to discuss the upper elements of the protocol/service stack.
>Too often people forget, or maybe fail to notice, that the Internet
>itself only exists in its "current canonical form" in places when &
>where a prior/foundational tussle over control of communications
>facilities/infrastructure inputs resulted in certain sorts of
>outcomes. In places where all or almost of the interfaces are hidden/ 
>controlled by a single monolithic entity (e.g., like hierarchical/ 
>horizontal infrastructure segments within a territorial monopoly
>PSTN), tussle may still exist, but it has approximately zero impact/ 
>significance to outsiders.

See slide 24 of the tussle case studies I linked to earlier in the thread:
<http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/B.Briscoe/present.html#0406pgnet>
The layered tiles and the 'while loop' represent your recursion - previous 
infrastructure products (architectures) on which the present tussle is 
being played out then the next one will play out on this one.

>2. As soon as "tusslers" become aware of the idea, they tend to
>incorporate it, rhetorically if not operationally, into their future
>actions. Granting that I am no game theory expert (and would love to
>hear a better informed comparison here), this seems like just another
>example of an iterative bargaining game, ala the Prisoner's Dilemma.
>An appeal to the reasonableness of a "tussle-friendly outcome" is
>just as likely as not to be a gambit to "win" a larger piece of the
>pie... unless maybe the appeal is coming from someone you already
>trust for some unrelated reason.

Yes.

In my case, you just have to work out whether I'm doing that or not :) I 
work for a telco, but I've got a beard, and I have been seen with a little 
black badge with a big red 'A' in a circle. But may-be I've sold out? 
May-be I don't know I've sold out? May-be I'm a double agent? Triple?


Bob


____________________________________________________________________________
Bob Briscoe, <bob.briscoe at bt.com>      Networks Research Centre, BT Research
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