a proposed way forward was Re: Spin bit decision

["Brian Trammell (IETF)" <[e-mail]>]

hi Ian, all,

Perhaps we can exploit the asymmetry inherent in QUIC (there are servers and clients), the spin bit (the server reflects, the client inverts), and the desire to participate or not (ISTM that most of the discussion we've had about opting out have focused on client opt-out, based either on the principle of the thing and/or a suspicion that the signal is useless) to resolve this discussion.


A proposal:

1. Servers MUST reflect the spin value. Clients MAY treat an unambiguously detected non-reflected bit as a protocol error.

2a. Clients SHOULD invert the spin value, unless [EDNOTE: someone other than me should write convincing reasons for non-implementation here], or the client has been configured not to spin, or to use some other client behavior.

-OR-

2b. Clients set the spin bit value as they see fit, provided that this behavior is consistent per connection ID. In order to provide RTT information to the path, clients MAY invert the spin value (per reference to a separate RFC that looks a lot like draft-tsvwg-quic=spin, to be published by QUIC, TSVWG, or IPPM).

3. Servers and clients MUST NOT expose spin state from one Connection ID to another Connection ID.


1 is intended to drive deployment through server defaults. Yes, one can argue that the protocol error here is artificial (and the proposal explicitly acknowledges that through the client MAY error out), but the client can always opt out by clamping to a random value per CID.

The 2a variant is essentially a 2119-compliant way of saying "we'd really like it if you implemented the spin bit", leaving the question of client defaults (opt in versus opt out) up to the client implementors.

The 2b variant is designed to allow for future or parallel client-side behaviors other than spinning to support different measurement goals. For example, using the adaptive square wave proposed for on-path loss measurement (by either Mikkel or Kazuho, I believe) at the client with server reflection would allow accumulation of loss on the upstream as well as the downstream path, as well as upstream (toward the server) RTT measurement. Obviously, the set of these deployed in the wild would have to be kept small in order to allow a measurement device to heuristically determine which signal was in use given a spinbit stream.

3 prevents spin state from leaking across CIDs, reducing the (already tiny but nonzero) linkability surface.

(Obviously, the above needs wordsmithing, but these are the broad lines.)

Cheers,

Brian

> On 2 Oct 2018, at 19:13, Ian Swett <ianswett=[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> One piece of information related to the above discussion is whether detecting who is and is not spinning is easy and reliable.
> 
> One of my concerns is unintentional mis-use of the signal, and if it can't be detected reliably in a mixed environment, that means SHOULD is unwise and argues for either not including it or making it a MUST.
> 
> On Tue, Oct 2, 2018 at 12:51 PM Mike Bishop <[e-mail]> wrote:
> I don’t think it’s a grim view, I think it’s a pragmatic view.  Our role is to specify the things which are fundamental to the protocol and have to happen for peers to interoperate.  Mis-using normative language for other things is an abuse of the process -- that's kind of the point of RFC 6919.
> 
> 
> 
> RFC 2119 says:
> 
> In particular, [normative language] MUST only be used where it is actually required for interoperation or to limit behavior which has potential for causing harm (e.g., limiting retransmisssions)  For example, they must not be used to try to impose a particular method on implementors where the method is not required for interoperability.
> 
> 
> 
> Given that the spin bit is not “actually required for interoperation,” but is the very definition of “try to impose a particular method on implementors,” I’d say that RFC 2119 imperatives are unwarranted.
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: QUIC <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of [e-mail]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 2, 2018 8:05 AM
> To: Lars Eggert <[e-mail]>
> Cc: IETF QUIC WG <[e-mail]>
> Subject: Re: Spin bit decision
> 
> 
> 
> On 10/02/18 16:00, Lars Eggert wrote:
> 
> >
> 
> > The point I can't seem to be getting across is that irrespective of
> 
> > what the WG decides to require, there is no penalty for individual
> 
> > stacks at deployment time (or after) to do whatever they wish, since
> 
> > the spin bit by design has no impact on protocol operation and interop.
> 
> 
> 
> It is getting across, but it is a very grim view of the standardization process itself. Are there many examples of MUST in RFCs that turned out to be ignored by implementations just because they were not part of the core semantics and hence not enforced by other peers ?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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