Session Date/Time: 03 Nov 2024 18:00

Hot RFC Lightning Talks

Summary

This session featured short presentations on various emerging topics relevant to the IETF. The talks covered new tools for RFC commenting, application of large language models (LLMs) to networking problems, novel routing architectures, new identifier schemes, network latency measurement, security enhancements for TLS, web content authenticity, defenses against denial-of-service attacks on TLS, TCP socket buffer management, sustainability in networking, carbon-aware networking telemetry, and privacy-preserving set intersection protocols.

Key Discussion Points

RFC Commenting Tool (Philip): A new web-based tool for annotating IETF drafts, aimed at improving the process of providing and managing comments. It includes features for categorizing comments (e.g., question, objection, typo) and tracking issue resolution. Addresses the limitations of GitHub for focused RFC review.
Large Language Models for Networking (Ming Xiazing): Exploration of using LLMs for network modeling and decision-making tasks. Challenges include data multi-modality, reasoning complex network tasks, and ensuring the trustworthiness and safety of LLM outputs. Related side meeting announced.
Kira Routing Architecture (Roland Bless): A scalable, zero-touch routing architecture designed to provide resilient control plane connectivity for complex networks. The architecture scales to 100,000s of nodes in a single domain. An internet draft is available.
STEM Identifiers (Manu fontaine): Proposal for a new type of identifier called a STEM identifier that resides within trusted execution environments and provide mathematical integrity and verifiable encryption. A solution for managing identifiers at the entity level, offering integrity, provenance, and confidentiality.
Round Trips Per Minute (RPM) Metric (Stuart Cheshire): Introduction of a new metric, Round Trips Per Minute (RPM), for measuring network latency under realistic, non-idle conditions. The tool aims to provide a user-centric measurement that reflects real-world application performance. Feedback solicited from video conferencing app developers.
Formal Analysis of Attested TLS (Muhammad): Discussed the use of attested TLS for endpoint security in confidential computing scenarios, including pre-handshake, post-handshake, and parallel attestation approaches. The presenter is looking for standardization efforts around the topic.
Originator Profile Technology (Shigeya Suzuki): Described the originator profile technology for identifying the originator or publisher of web content to establish authenticity, particularly for news outlets.
Client Puzzles for TLS DoS Prevention (David Vennock): Explored the use of client puzzles as a defense against denial-of-service attacks targeting TLS handshakes. The presenter is looking for alternative solutions.
TCP Replenish Time (Stuart Cheshire): Presented a solution to reduce latency by controlling when applications are prompted to send more data to TCP sockets, and discusses a desire for a time based api and cross platform consistency in socket options.
Sustainability Research Group (Eve Schooler): Proposed the formation of a new research group within the IRTF focusing on the sustainability of the Internet, encompassing environmental, social, and economic dimensions.
Carbon-Aware Networking Telemetry (Omit): Emphasized the need for real-time telemetry solutions to enable carbon-aware networking. Called for IETF to define standard matrices.
Private Set Intersection based on ECDH (Winting Chang): Presented ECDH based Private Set Intersection (PSI) to calculate the intersection of two parties without revealing data outside the intersection.

Decisions and Action Items

Sustainability Research Group (RG) Proposal: Encourage those interested in Internet sustainability to attend the side meeting to help shape the direction of the proposed IRTF research group.

Next Steps

Follow up on action items identified above.
Review internet drafts and contact presenters to offer assistance and feedback.
Attend side meetings for more detailed discussions.