
Enabling a permanent revolution in internet architecture - akshayn
https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3342075
======
mitchs
As far as I'm concerned this paper more or less describes HTTP(S) fairly well.
The "3.5" address is the domain name that resolves to a meaningful IP address
for the L3 domain you are in.

Folks are already using disjoint L3 address spaces with elements like load
balancers providing the bridge between the public IP space and their own
private IP space. I don't know if you could ever sell me on having more than
one "main" IP space though, as I don't entirely understand what purpose that
would serve, other than massively complicating the process of understanding
what it is you are purchasing connectivity to.

See also RFC 1925, particularly sections 2.6a, and perhaps 2.11 :p

~~~
zzzcpan
> As far as I'm concerned this paper more or less describes HTTP(S) fairly
> well.

Sure, but only if you ignore the specifics and over generalize. As overlaying
is fundamental to all client server communications.

------
dluan
dmytri kleiner gave a great talk about doing this at a little bit of higher
level back at SIGINT10.

[https://media.ccc.de/v/sigint10_3821_en_peer_to_peer_communi...](https://media.ccc.de/v/sigint10_3821_en_peer_to_peer_communism)

------
hirundo
%s/a permanent revolution/evolution/g

~~~
IfOnlyYouKnew
That's... sort of the reason the term is evocative.

------
contingencies
Setting aside the cultural baggage of its authorship and nomenclature, from a
purely objective standpoint I could not pass _Introduction / Motivation_
without attempting to elucidate the objections I felt to its generalizations.

 _The most frequently cited architectural flaw is the lack of a coherent
security design_ : The success of IP is simplicity/general utility - the
ability of the system to support different use cases as a packet-switched
alternative to previously dominant circuit-switched telephony systems. This is
precisely the capacity of the system to vary service types and levels based
upon application requirements. Viewed in this lens, not having a 'coherent
security design' is _the core feature_ , not a bug.

 _many question whether the basic service model of the Internet (point-to-
point packet delivery) is appropriate now that the current usage model is so
heavily dominated by content-oriented activities_ : CDNs, content-addressable
P2P networks (torrents), and multi-mirror package management databases are all
excellent, broadly deployed counter-examples. The fact is, by normalizing
packet-switching, IP has made bandwidth so cheap that inefficient distribution
becomes a trivialized cost. Again, this is a _core feature_.

~~~
oscillatingfans
A system cannot switch the service type to "prevent DDoS from spoofed IP
packets" though.

The authors are not arguing against packet switching; they're questioning
whether point-to-point still applies when a majority of the Internet is used
for accessing content. CDNs aren't cheap, a content-centric network (e.g.,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Named_data_networking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Named_data_networking))
could substantially increase efficiency.

~~~
contingencies
There are many effective DDoS resistance strategies. However, if you had to
build those costs in to the core of the internet, then there is a fair
argument that it may never have taken off as overheads would have been too
high.

For the NDN concept, again the whole point of IP is that you can implement it
on the same base: _Upgrade cost of network complexity: The Internet has smart
edges ... and a simple core. Adding an new Internet service is just a matter
of distributing an application ... Compare this to voice, where one has to
upgrade the entire core._ \- RFC3439 (2002)

------
inopinatus
Between the name, the acronym TP, the tagline, and the fact that it was a
paper co-authored by _A Panda_ whilst presented in Beijing, all led me to
assume it was an elaborate setup for a joke for at least half the paper.

~~~
ShorsHammer
[https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~apanda/](https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~apanda/)

------
pgcj_poster
> In this paper, we try to reconcile these two perspectives by proposing a
> backwards-compatible architectural framework called Trotsky in which one can
> incrementally deploy radically new designs. We show how this can lead to a
> permanent revolution in Internet architecture by (i) easing the deployment
> of new architectures and (ii) allowing multiple coexisting architectures to
> be used simultaneously by applications

In Trotskyist theory, permanent revolution has a specific meaning. There are
two main components:

1\. A socialist, proletarian revolution has to occur in a pre-capitalist
society (such as Czarist Russia), bypassing the step of a bourgeois,
capitalist revolution (such as the French Revolution), which Orthodox Marxism
expected to be necessary in such countries.

2\. The revolution has to be global, in contrast with eg. Stalin's theory of
Socialism in One Country.

Seeing as permanent revolution is 1. not incremental and 2. does not allow for
co-existence with capitalism, it seems sort of strange to name this approach
after it.

~~~
cat199
> it seems sort of strange to name this approach after it.

many people wearing che guevarra t-shirts are neither marxist nor especially
bolshevik. but they _are_ 'cool' and 'edgy' (supposedly).

------
Forellen
Why Trotsky? Because "permanent revolution"? sigh.

~~~
dang
" _Eschew flamebait. Don 't introduce flamewar topics unless you have
something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic
tangents._"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
mattnewport
How is it considered appropriate to name this project Trotsky? Would they name
a project Goebbels or Himmler?

~~~
IntelMiner
Are you seriously equating a Russian revolutionary and the German Third Reich?

~~~
christkv
He was of the same caliber of mass murder. He was one of the main architects
of the red terror that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The
whitewashing of Trotsky and of Lenin does nobody any favors. They were mass
murdereres not whitstanding whatever utopia they were dreaming off.

~~~
seniorivn
To be fair, I don't think they believed in anything they were selling to the
masses. They just used it to get enough power to establish themselves as
stable as absolute monarchs(the end of the great terror was the moment when
elites realized that they actually already that) Which is exactly why no one
should have as much power. The only question how to make it impossible?

~~~
pgcj_poster
Do you have any evidence for this? If Trotsky didn't believe in Marxism, why
did he spend most of his time in exile writing Marxist theory?

