[e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet?

[Joe Touch]

David P. Reed wrote:
> 
> 
> Joe Touch wrote:
>>> I very much doubt that any Linux developers are expecting anyone to
>>> be 'bailing them out' here. Ditto for any Microsoft Compound TCP
>>> developers.
>>>     
>>
>> That, perhaps, is part of the problem.
>
> Is there a Security Hole if CUBIC is used?  Should I be really scared?  
> Will I bring down the entire Internet?  

Nobody knows. Again, that's why controlled testing would have been
useful, rather than widescale deployment.

> If I'm willing to take a risk
> myself (running Fedora is a moderate risk, like opening up the case on
> your PC and installing a new memory card) why should anyone worry about
> me needing to be bailed out?

There are concerns about its fairness:
http://www.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/2006-October/006327.html
http://www.hamilton.ie/net/pfldnet2007_cubic_final.pdf

There is a rebuttal as well:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~rhee/Rebuttal-LSM-new.pdf

The jury is out as to whether this is safe to deploy, AFAICT.

> I'm honestly curious.   Since I build my own kernels every day, I could
> just turn CUBIC off.   But I figure that exercising it a bit in the
> *real* world is probably good.

This sounds a lot like you're interested in participating in an
experiment where you don't know the impact. Does that seem like a good
idea to you?

> Is that any different than running CUBIC between PlanetLab nodes and
> users on PCs in academic computer networking research labs?

Those users knew they were running experiments, and knew when they were
over. Deploying CUBIC in public distributions lets the experiment out
into thw wild, and is no longer a controlled, voluntary participation
experiment.

Joe

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 250 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080104/b0eb499b/signature.bin