
What's wrong with Internet Protocol? - PhaseMage
http://isogrid.org/blog/2016/05/18/what-is-wrong-with-internet-protocol/
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PhaseMage
Hi there! I'm Travis Martin, the creator of IsoGrid. Let me know if you have
any questions!

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brudgers
I remember reading about micropayments as the future of the internet in the
days before Google. It made sense when I was paying a penny a minute for
internet access at 9600 baud [and using it mostly for gophering and email and
usenet].

It appears that the protocol uses routing determined by the sender. If so, how
big will my "hosts" file have to be. It also appears that each hop requires a
tool. If so how do I route around "highway robbers".

More importantly, is there an implementation?

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PhaseMage
Great questions! Happy to answer them :)

Is there an implementation: Not yet. I have a prototype implementation of a
link layer and I've prototyped parts of the network layer and transport layer.
But only enough to convince me that the general isochronous design is
workable.

Yes it uses Source Routing: I've spent the last few months working on the
(extremely important) scalability question. Section 13 of the spec deals with
this in detail, essentially specifying the 'BGP' of IsoGrid (HashMatchLogMap)
so that nodes don't have to specify their own 'hosts' file. I think I've come
up with a protocol that scales O(log(N)), where N is the number of nodes on
the network. It will definitely have a large constant: The base algorithm
starts with just always tracking the 10k or more nodes that are cheapest to
access. The algorithm scales because the addresses of nodes contain a
Geolocation component, which means it's easy to ask for directions from nodes
that you already know about that are both physically and logically (HashMatch)
closer to a desired node. My next step is to start implementing this protocol
such that I can test it on a simulated large network (I'm thinking I'll build
the simulated network dataset from OpenStreetMap).

Not sure what you mean by 'tool', but micropayments are sent along with the
data. If a node only has one link to the IsoGrid (Comcast), then they are
doing it wrong: The node should use the cheapest routes that meet the desired
latency/bandwidth requirements. Competition means that "highway robbery"
should cease to become a viable business model. If a node along a route
decides to just steal the entire micropayment (rather than just their part)
then data stops flowing on that route: The source uses other routes and the
robber ended up stealing from it's own neighbors.

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brudgers
I meant "toll" not "tool". I'm assuming nodes can set their own rates.

~~~
PhaseMage
Yes, absolutely, nodes set their own rates. I've tried my best to keep
economic decisions local. Nodes that steal the credit payment can be detected:
And an algorithm can and will be built that detects it, and subsequently sends
it's business elsewhere.

