Re: [p2pi] After-BoF charter

[Enrico Marocco <[e-mail]>]

John Leslie wrote:
>    The speed of convergence to optimal is the critical issue: we want
> a "better-than-random" initial set of peers to try (and possibly an
> ordered list to try if they prove unsatisfactory.
> 
>    I think adding the word "inital" would help:
> "
> " information to perform better-than-random initial peer selection.

Yes, that's better.

>>> When the WG considers standardizing schemas, measures or other
>>> information that the ALTO service could provide, the following
>>> criteria are important to ensure real feasibility.
>>>
>>> - Can an ALTO service technically provide that information?
>>>
>>> - Is the ALTO service willing to obtain and divulge that information?
>>>
>>> - Is it information that some client will find useful?
> 
>    Good criteria, but I'd suggest uniformity of the indefinite article:
> 
> - "an" ALTO service technically provide
> - "an" ALTO service willing to obtain and divulge
> - "a" client will find useful

Ok.

>>> Protocols used for peer selection optimization will carry information
>>> related to the topology and the policies of the querying peer's
>>> network (i.e. queries on behalf of other peers are not allowed).
> 
>    We should perhaps be careful about this last prohibition. I'm not
> sure the obvious mechanism (matching the source IP address of a query)
> is wise (though I certainly wouldn't prohibit implementations from
> trying it).
> 
>    There are obvious potential benefits from letting particular
> trackers read an ISP's policies (by prior arrangement, usually). A
> blanket prohibition of this seems unnecessary.

That's true, but, on the other hand, allowing uncontrolled third-party
queries would be a privacy nightmare, for both users and ISPs. I've
personally had a discussion with Stanislav, who said that having peers
doing the ALTO query and passing the response back to a BitTorrent
tracker would not be too much of a hassle, so, probably, given the costs
that controlling third-party queries in a reasonable way would imply, it
could be wise to just forbid them. However, I would really like to hear
what other people think about this, especially on the P2P side.

>>> It is reasonable to expect that applications will use such protocols
>>> to discover Autonomous System (AS) numbers and approximate geographic
>>> location of peers hosting the needed resources,
> 
>    I don't even _understand_ this.
> 
>    Current trackers _do_ try to find these pieces of information, but
> IMHO they're suboptimal substitutes for information ISPs could provide.
> I see no reason to include such text in a charter.

Right, we have let them in exactly because that's the kind of
information a third-party non-ISP ALTO service provider could provide
(ip2location and "looking glass" web services already do, just in a
non-standard way). We could get rid of those pieces of information, but
that would probably reduce the suitability of ALTO for non-ISPs.

-- 
Ciao,
Enrico

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