Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: Cox to Trial New Congestion Management System
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:21:38 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com> Date: January 28, 2009 9:00:40 PM EST To: David Farber <dave () farber net> Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Cox to Trial New Congestion Management System Dave, The march of encryption into all phases of the Internet is continuing at a rapid pace -- though not as fast as I'd like to see. Any ISP management technologies that depend on DPI, or even "known ports" (given port-agile applications) cannot help but be ephemeral in nature. Viewed in their best possible light, they can only be considered to be very short-term stopgaps, with the potential for a range of unfortunate collateral damage. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein lauren () vortex com or lauren () pfir org Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 http://www.pfir.org/lauren Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Co-Founder, NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com - - - On 01/28 19:59, David Farber wrote:
Begin forwarded message: From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart () pobox com> Date: January 28, 2009 7:28:47 PM EST To: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com Subject: Cox to Trial New Congestion Management System "Deep Packet Inspection" usually refers to looking beyond the IP and TCP/UDP headers and into the data itself, typically to see what's inside http or other Port 80 packets. That's not needed for the protocols Cox is handling as low-priority here - well-known TCP ports do the job. Depending on how they implement it, they're actually doing what you would want as a user - you don't want Bittorrent hogging your downlink bandwidth when you're trying to browse the web, much less when you're trying to talk on VOIP. Doing the right thing is easier on DSL than on cable, because in DSL the bottleneck is almost always your downlink, as opposed to a cable you're sharing with your neighborhood, but even for cable it's not bad - queuing low-priority traffic on a congested link is good, and the protocols they're affecting handle it just fine. You don't mind if your ftp's a few milliseconds late, but it's annoying if VOIP has to wait for it. IP TOS or DSCP bits are a more precise method, and they're typically what business customers use, but they're not consistently supported across the public internet across multiple ISPs, though some ISPs support them across their own networks. Also, the TOS bits are designed to let applications ask for _better_ treatment, and what's needed here is marking traffic for slower than best effort but still reliable treatment; even DSCP's AF11 is rather a hack. The controversial choice is not delaying streaming video - unlike videoconferences or broadcast video, Youtube and its friends buffer just fine, but it's harder to identify that without either deep packet inspection or targeting video sites, which has obvious network neutrality issues. ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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Current thread:
- Cox to Trial New Congestion Management System David Farber (Jan 28)
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- Re: Cox to Trial New Congestion Management System David Farber (Jan 28)
- Re: Cox to Trial New Congestion Management System David Farber (Jan 28)
- Re: Cox to Trial New Congestion Management System David Farber (Jan 28)
- Re: Cox to Trial New Congestion Management System David Farber (Jan 28)