[IP] more on skype
Begin forwarded message:
From: Bob Frankston <Bob2-19-0501@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 23, 2006 1:09:12 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx, ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: dpreed@xxxxxxxx, "'Christian de Larrinaga'" <cdel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: [IP] skype
This makes me think of something Butler Lampson said to me in the
60’s – deal with the extreme cases and the middle will take care of
itself. Or something like that – the point here is that if you can
program around trouble well enough why not make that the norm rather
than a special case? You can then choose the extreme of depending
upon reliable circuits or total independence. What’s the advantage of
depending on a network promising to be E2E when you can’t really
trust the claim anyway?
The importance of Skype is that it’s the real face of end-to-end. It
may seem like a paradox but to get true end-to-end behavior you
cannot depend on the underlying transport being end-to-end. If you’re
at a conference and you just connect to the Ethernet jack you naïvely
assume you’ve got E2E but you don’t know anything about all segments
of the network and it is likely that someone will be watching your
packets, even if only for entertainment purposes.
Just as you can create a reliable path over an unreliable network
using a protocol like TCP you can take a compromised network and get
end-to-end behavior by encrypting and not being dependent upon the
accidental addressing structure. In both cases there are limits to
how well you can do it but it’s important to observe that you can and
that you must.
Naïvely assuming that the underlying network is truly E2E is akin to
being at the mercy of an underlying reliable circuit architecture.
You pay a price for favors you don’t want while putting yourself at
risk.
The real power of Skype is that you don’t need a single underlying
network and can composite a path through an arbitrary infrastructure.
This has similarities to UUCP routing which didn’t depend on the
existence of any network – just a path through cooperating systems.
If you depend on “firewalls” you are very far from E2E – it seems
perverse to argue that you should depend a network being E2E in order
to preserve the non E2E aspects.
Skype relies upon a unified directory system but a fully distributed
version represents the future of the Internet. It wouldn’t depend on
“Internet Inc” and would come far closer to the idea of routing
around problems. To those dependent upon the governed hierarchical
Internet a more distributed approach may seem alien. But then today’s
Internet is alien to the Bellista.
The successor architecture would be unmappable – you will only be
found if you choose to be. Today you are findable by default and all
sort of interesting stuff comes bubbling to the surface and, perhaps,
we are all-the-better for it. But future Googles will have of to
entice people to have their innermost contents listed or find
creative ways to ferret out the information.
-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 08:37
To: ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [IP] skype
Begin forwarded message: forwarded message:
From: Christian de Larrinaga <cdel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
de Larrinaga <cdel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 23, 2006 5:05:27 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>,
Bob2-19-0501@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] Digest 1.1054 for ip
Skype uses the “accidental” topology of the network as the platform
for its addressing. How else does it do it? But because Skype assumes
its users are likely not to have static IP addresses Skype has a
way to route to these users. Its P2P meshing is not a consequence
of this but a necessary party to making this possible.
There is also a potential cost to this as anybody who uses Skype
through a firewall knows as you open up undefined ports to unknown
hosts.
It would be so much easier to establish application level addressing
schema’s including for Skype type services over an end to end
underlying addressing architecture. Being able to program one’s way
out of trouble is clever but it is intelligent not to have to.
Christian de Larrinaga
Bob Frankston <Bob2-19-0501@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote.
On 23 Jun 2006, at 01:28, ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
You don’t want static IP addresses – that’s like putting a concrete
base on your cordless phone. Look at Skype as an example – it creates
its own stable addresses without tying them to the accidental
topology of the network. You get P2P meshing as an accidental
byproduct.
Where I do agree is that local traffic tends to be local and peering
is a business relic not a technology.
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