Conference Program

Welcome from General Chairs

Welcome & Logistics from Local Arrangement Chairs

Welcome and Overview of Program from TPC Chairs

Secure Scuttlebutt: An Information-Centric Protocol for Subjective and Decentralized Community Applications

Dominic Tarr, Erick Lavoie (McGill University), Aljoscha Meyer (TU Berlin), Christian Tschudin (University of Basel)

Abstract: Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB) is a novel peer-to-peer event-sharing protocol and architecture for social apps. In this paper we describe SSB’s features, its operations as well as the rationale behind the design.We also provide a comparison with Named Data Networking (NDN),an existing information-centric networking architecture, to motivate a larger exploration of the design space for information-centric networking primitives by formulating an identity-centric approach.We finally discuss SSB’s limitations and evolution opportunities.

Inter-Server Game State Synchronization using Named Data Networking

Philipp Moll (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Sebastian Theuermann (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Natascha Rauscher (NAlpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Hermann Hellwagner (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Jeff Burke (UCLA)

Abstract: In this paper, we develop a system for inter-server game state synchronization using the NDN architecture. We use Minecraft as a real-world example of online games and extend Minecraft’s single-server architecture to work as multi-server game. In our prototype,we use two different NDN-based approaches for the dissemination of game state updates in server clusters. In a naive approach, servers request game state updates for small segments of the game worldfrom other servers of the cluster. In an improved approach – the region manifest approach– servers identify changed parts of the world by subscribing to manifest files containing information about world regions managed by the other servers of the cluster. An apparent downside of the NDN approaches is the high overhead when handling small-sized game state updates, but our evaluation shows that NDN already improves on IP-based implementations regarding the resulting traffic volume when three or more servers are involved. Furthermore, caused by NDN’s inherent multicast functionality, the advantage over IP increases with the size of theserver cluster. Moreover, the use of NDN-based approaches leads to benefits beyond traffic reduction only. The name-based host-independent access to world regions allows to scale server clusters easier.

Decentralized and Secure Multimedia Sharing Application over Named Data Networking

Ashlesh Gawande (University of Memphis), Jeremy Clark (University of Memphis), Damian Coomes (University of Memphis), Lan Wang (University of Memphis)

Abstract: Named Data Networking (NDN) thrives in peer-to-peer data sharing scenarios, through naming data and decoupling data from its containers. Meanwhile, social media applications have come under increased criticism for excessive centralization and opacity. We present npChat, an Android application that allows users to capture and share multimedia with friends in a secure and fully decentralized way, while still giving users complete control over their data.We propose using namespaces owned by users instead of a shared application namespace and establish trust using multiple trust models. We use an application-level pub-sub model to share friend information and publish data, as well as a per-object access control scheme to share content with selected friends. Our evaluation demonstrates the application’s data sharing performance and low overhead in various scenarios.

NDN-CNL: A Hierarchical Namespace API for Named Data Networking (Short Paper)

Jeff Thompson (UCLA REMAP), Peter Gusev (UCLA REMAP), Jeff Burke (UCLA REMAP)

Abstract: The Named Data Networking Common Name Library (NDN-CNL) is a high-level library that enables applications to work with hierarchical, named data collections as an abstract interface to NDN’s request-response protocol. This approach foregrounds the importance of application-named data in NDN applications and is intended as an alternative to socket APIs. It aims to simplify programming of asynchronous applications that use a variety of data-centric approaches at the same time, including naming conventions for versioning, segmenting, synchronization, name-based access control, name confidentiality, schematized trust, as well as standard features needed in many applications such as interest pipelining and latest data retrieval. This paper introduces the rationale and design of the library, shows its use through a series of examples, and concludes with a brief discussion of future work. Our emphasis is on introducing the new abstraction, so the library’s internal implementation is not discussed in detail; source code is available on Github.1

The Missing Piece: On Namespace Management in NDN and How DNSSEC Might Help

Pouyan Fotouhi Tehrani (Fraunhofer FOKUS), Eric Osterweil (GMU), Jochen Schiller (Freie Universität Berlin), Thomas C. Schmidt (HAW Hamburg), Matthias Waehlisch (Freie Universität Berlin)

Abstract: Names are the cornerstone of every Information-Centric Network (ICN), nonetheless, namespace management has been by far neglected in ICN. A global and scalable namespace management approach is a challenge which not only concerns technical, but also requires attention to non-technical, e.g., organizational issues. In this paper, we present both a clear position on namespace management in ICN and preliminary work on a potential solution. We conceptualize a namespace management system for hierarchical names and introduce a prototype for NDN, which leverages existing DNSSEC equipped DNS infrastructure. Based on this, we are able to implement both technical and non-technical aspects of namespace management. We consider lessons learned and pitfalls from decades of the ever-evolving development of domain name system. As the de facto standard namespace management for the Internet, it is an integral orientation factor for both our concept and its implementation.

Name Space Analysis: Verification of Named Data Network Data Planes

Mohammad Jahanian (University of California, Riverside), K. K. Ramakrishnan (University of California, Riverside)

Abstract: Named Data Networking (NDN) has a number of forwarding behaviors, strategies, and protocols proposed by researchers and incorporated into the codebase, to enable exploiting the full flexibility and functionality that NDN offers. This additional functionality introduces complexity, motivating the need for a tool to help reason about and verify that basic properties of an NDN data plane are guaranteed. This paper proposes Name Space Analysis (NSA), a network verification framework to model and analyze NDN data planes. NSA can take as input one or more snapshots, each representing a particular state of the data plane. It then provides the verification result against specified properties. NSA builds on the theory of Header Space Analysis, and extends it in a number of ways, e.g., supporting variable-sized headers with flexible formats, introduction of name space functions, and allowing for name-based properties such as content reachability and name leakage-freedom. These important additions reflect the behavior and requirements of NDN, requiring modeling and verification foundations fundamentally different from those of traditional host-centric networks. For example, in name-based networks (NDN), host-to-content reachability is required, whereas the focus in host-centric networks (IP) is limited to host-to-host reachability.We have implemented NSA and identified a number of optimizations to enhance the efficiency of verification. Results from our evaluations, using snapshots from various synthetic test cases and the real-world NDN testbed, show how NSA is effective, in finding errors pertaining to content reachability, loops, and name leakage, has good performance, and is scalable.

Enabling ICN in the Internet Protocol: Analysis and Evaluation of the Hybrid-ICN Architecture

Giovanna Carofiglio (Cisco Systems), Luca Muscariello (Cisco Systems), Jordan Augé (Cisco Systems), Michele Papalini (Cisco Systems), Mauro Sardara (Cisco Systems), Alberto Compagno (Cisco Systems)

Abstract: Information-Centric Networking (ICN) embraces a family of network architectures rethinking Internet communication principles around named-data. After several years of research and the emergence of a few popular proposals, the idea to replace the Internet protocol with data-centric networking remains a subject of debate. ICN advantages have been advocated in the context of 5G networks for the support of highly mobile, multi-access/source and latencyminimal patterns of communications. However, large scale testing and insertion in operational networks are yet to happen, likely due to the lack of a clear incremental deployment strategy. In this paper, we analyze a recent proposal Hybrid-ICN (hICN), an ICN integration inside IP (rather that over/ under/ in place of) that has the ambition to trade-off no ICN architectural principles. By reusing existing packet formats, hICN brings innovation inside the IP stack, requiring minimal software upgrades and guaranteeing transparent interconnection with existing IP networks. We describe the architecture and use the open source implementation to test hICN in the open Internet to validate its short-term deployability. Further, we consider linear video streaming over mobile wireless heterogeneous networks as use case to highlight hICN advantages compared to TCP/IP counterpart.

Compute First Networking: Distributed Computing meets ICN

Michał Król (University College London), Spyridon Mastorakis (UCLA), Dave Oran (Network Systems Research & Design), Dirk Kutscher (University of Applied Sciences Emden/Leer)

Abstract: Modern distributed computing frameworks and domain-specific languages provide a convenient and robust way to structure large distributed applications and deploy them on either data center or edge computing environments. The current systems suffer however from the need for a complex underlay of services to allow them to run effectively on existing Internet protocols. These services include centralized schedulers, DNS-based name translation, stateful load balancers, and heavy-weight transport protocols. In contrast, ICN-oriented remote invocation methodologies provide an attractive match for current distributed programming languages by supporting both functional programming and stateful objects such as Actors. In this paper we design a computation graph representation for distributed programs, realize it using Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs) as the underlying data structures, and employ RICE (Remote Method Invocation for ICN) as the execution environment. We show using NDNSim simulations that it provides attractive benefits in simplicity, performance, and failure resilience.

Towards Peer-to-Peer Content Retrieval Markets: Enhancing IPFS with ICN

Onur Ascigil (University College London), Sergi Rene (University College London), Michał Król (University College London), George Pavlou (University College London), Lixia Zhang (UCLA), Toru Hasegawa (Osaka University), Yuki Koizumi (Osaka University), Kentaro Kita (Osaka University)

Abstract: In the current Internet, content delivery, e.g., video-on-demand (VoD), at scale is associated with a large distributed infrastructure which requires considerable investment. Content Providers (CPs) typically resort to third-party Content Distribution Networks (CDNs) or build their own expensive content delivery infrastructure in order to cope with the peak demand and maintain su￿cient quality-of-service (QoS), while Internet Service Providers (ISPs) need to overprovision their networks. In this paper we take a ￿rst step towards designing a system that uses storage space of users as CDN caches and deliver content with su￿cient (i.e., CDN-like) quality while rewarding users for their resource usage as in a content retrieval marketplace. As a possible candidate for such a system, we consider recent P2P storage and delivery systems that have adopted new mechanisms such as rewarding of useful work (e.g., storage) while ensuring fairness and accountability through cryptographic proofs. In this paper, we experiment with the popular Interplanetary File System (IPFS) and investigate its performance in delivering VoD content locally within an ISP. Our ￿ndings suggest that operating IPFS (operating on top of IP) has its performance limitations and complementing it with an ICN network layer can signi￿cantly improve the delivery quality. We then propose and compare several forwarding strategies for ICN which can e￿ciently route requests and balance the load between peers with limited uplink resources.