Hi Dirk,
Thanks for your answer.
If I understood your last paragraph correctly, do you mean that a DCS
for BGP updates would have some kind of bounded delay for message
propagation, so its data can keep up with the propagation speed of
"regular" BGP messages?
Thanks,
Jordi
El 17/11/22 a les 18:02, Dirk Trossen ha escrit:
Hi Jordi,
Thanks for the reference, which is really useful. We’ve not looked
specifically into the right consensus mechanism but as you outline in
your paper, PoS seems to be fitting given the use case here, indeed.
PoW seems to not only be somehow disconnected from the ‘ownership’
aspect that the use case embodies but its prohibitive footprint makes
it not a candidate of choice when proposing this as a mechanism going
forward (the IAB workshop on environmental impact of Internet
applications comes to mind here).
You are right that the challenge lies in the consensus convergence,
i.e., the ‘throughput’ of the DCS in terms of transaction validations.
This also relates to the draft on impact of DLTs on provider networks
(https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-trossen-rtgwg-impact-of-dlts/)
, where we studied what the required messaging in a DCS (with the
example being ETH in the work) caused by the needed diffusion
multicast in DLT is doing in and to networks.
Those insights, however, may be useful to think of network innovations
that may improve not just on that impact (in terms of signaling and
thus costs) but also convergence time. A first step would be to bound
that required time, given by the use case here (validating BGP
updates) in order to define the boundary against which any possible
(DCS) solution must be designed.
Best,
Dirk
*From:*Dlt-networking <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of
*Jordi Paillissé Vilanova
*Sent:* 17 November 2022 17:14
*To:* Michael McBride <[email protected]>; Dirk Trossen
<[email protected]>; Thomas Martin <[email protected]>;
[email protected]
*Cc:* [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: [Dlt-networking] updated draft-mcbride-rtgwg-bgp-blockchain
Hi Thomas, Mike,
I had a quick look at your draft and a key question that comes to my
mind is: which consensus algorithm would you use in the this
blockchain? You mention linking the blockchain access control to the
the RPKI, but not how you'd achieve consensus.
However, even though I am a blockchain enthusiast, I see some
difficulties in deploying such blockchain. What would be really nice,
adding the AS_PATH (right now not covered by the RPKI and dependent on
the deployment of BGPsec) presents some scalability challenges,
because there is a significant amount of data to validate and needs to
propagate as fast as possible so routers can validate the BGP
announcements.
You may want to have a look at our paper about the topic:
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8903274
Thanks,
Jordi
El 17/11/22 a les 1:52, Michael McBride ha escrit:
Good points Thomas and Dirk.
We will add some of that text to the draft, Thomas, thank you, you
are welcome to join the draft as an author if interested. By group
of users I was thinking of those devices (minors, validators)
which actually create the blocks. Good point about smart
contracts, we need to explain their role in greater detail.
Before our next IETF (Yokohama) I’d like to have a draft which
proposes specifically how we think blockchain can help a routing
protocol such as BGP. The current draft simply provides an
overview of various possibilities. It’ll probably be a good idea
to have a side meeting as well to discuss this topic beyond 10
minutes in rtgwg.
Lastly, some of the comments during the rtgwg meeting (cc’d) included:
1. Having a blockchain as part of the bgp control loop is
probably not a good thing due it’s low transaction speed.
2. Only way this may be useful is to show proof of ownership of
network assignments (addr, prefix, AS, etc).
3. BGP policy may be a good area of focus for blockchain: Address
delegation contracts. Billing. ARIN/RIPE databases...
mike
*From:* Dirk Trossen <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:* Wednesday, November 16, 2022 5:09 AM
*To:* Thomas Martin <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>; Michael McBride
<[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>; [email protected]
*Subject:* RE: updated draft-mcbride-rtgwg-bgp-blockchain
Hi Thomas,
Many thanks for the feedback and comments. Good to see the
discussion; I will leave it to Mike to decide whether we should
reflect this discussion also on the RTG WG list (where the draft
was presented). For now, I am quite fine here.
Best,
Dirk
*From:* Dlt-networking <[email protected]> *On
Behalf Of *Thomas Martin
*Sent:* 16 November 2022 12:40
*To:* Michael McBride <[email protected]>;
[email protected]
*Subject:* Re: [Dlt-networking] updated
draft-mcbride-rtgwg-bgp-blockchain
Hello,
I've read the draft and I have some comments (first time posting
to a IETF mailing list, apologies if there's etiquette I'm not
aware of). The proposal seems to be written with a view of putting
BGP data in the blockchain and using smart contracts to control
how the data is managed. This is creating a single source of
truth, something that blockchains are particularly well suited
for. However, reading some of the draft indicates to me that there
is potential that has not been identified:
"In terms of trust assumptions, a DCS for BGP may require
authentication to prevent fraudulent DCS transactions, such as
fraudulent BGP announcements being made. For this, the existing
RPKI system could be used to authorize any client before sending
suitable smart contract transactions into the DCS."
"Furthermore, the DCS could be permissisoned, thereby restricting
the nodes holding as well as accessing information to trusted
members of the community."
Both of these quotes indicates that authentication/authorisation
would need to be added-on to the DCS. Blockchains have inherent
authentication through the use of public-private keys. Any action
that changes the state of the blockchain ledger requires a
signature, which authenticates the entity (only someone with the
private key could have created the signature). If you need some
method of relating a blockchain address to a real-world entity,
then that is something that would need to be added-on. But any
blockchain solution should take advantage of the inherent
authentication provided by the use of public keys.
*/[DOT] Your reference to the pub/priv keys used is, in fact,
similar to the use of the RPKI system for achieving the same
objective. The BGP community is quite familiar with its objective
and purpose, hence the mentioning on it rather than the pub/priv
keys usually used in BC. /*
*/[DOT] When it comes to the permissioned aspect, it more relates
to your issue below, I think./*
The other implicit message I read from the above quotes (and the
rest of the draft) was the idea of a group of authorised users.
That there is some set of users who can make changes to the BGP
data on the blockchain, and everyone else is prevented from
changing anything/can only read the data. To me, this is not
implementing the principle of least privilege.
*/[DOT] I am not entirely sure that this is the message that was
intended here and I would argue that the possibly commissioned
nature is not about that either (if anything, it is restricting
the set of users per se, period, not just for write access). /*
If the smart contract is only checking membership in the
authorised set, then the users would have the capability to
perform many actions beyond what they should. Accidental errors
(or compromised accounts) could lead to harm. A secure blockchain
system will place as much of the logic controlling/restricting
access in the code of the smart contract itself as possible as
this is the least corruptible part of the system.
*/[DOT] I agree with that, if that was indeed the intended
objective but see my last comment. /*
To apply this to BGP, it could be possible to use another thing
that blockchains do very well: namely assigning individual owners
to resources. NFTs gets a lot of deserved ridicule for the
associated hype and unethical behaviour, but the technology allows
a verifiable single source of ownership to be determined. This is
something that a PKI cannot do. It is possible to have multiple
conflicting chains of certificates signed (e.g., through error or
attack). To me, the natural application of blockchains to BGP
would be to consider prefixes as tokens assigned to AS blockchain
addresses. The unique owner of any prefix could be determined with
high confidence. This, plus the signing of peering relationships
by the relevant ASes, could solve a lot of the problems with
fraudulent announcements. If the smart contract is written
correctly (big if, obviously), then it would be impossible for any
entity to announce a route they were not authorised to.
*/[DOT] I think this is an excellent point and worthwhile
capturing in the draft, i.e., using BC to assert ownership of a
resource (like a prefix). If we positioned this (rightly) as the
key issue for BGP operations, all else may just be ‘bootstrapped’
from it. /*
There are a lot of unanswered questions about how practical and
scalable any of the above is.
*/[DOT] You may (or may not) have noticed a second draft in the
IETF on “impact of DLTs on provider networks”, now superseded by a
more detailed publication and originating from some work done in
the IIC (Industrial Internet Consortium) with a whitepaper
released in Jan 2022. This work is looking at DCS (example there
is Ethereum) and what it ‘does’ to a network, largely driven by
the need for capability-based communication to realise the
randomized diffusion broadcast/multicast that underlies the DLT
operation. From a network perspective, it is quite painful but
raises also interesting questions on how networks could improve on
it or provide support (through network-level innovations). /*
It is an area of research I've put some thought into, but not yet
had much of a chance to do any serious work on it. If any of the
above may be applicable to the aim of this group, please let me know.
*/[DOT] It sure sounds like it and it would be good to get these
thoughts into a revision of the draft and further discussed. We
are still looking into the constituency within the IETF to have
this conversation but it may well be this group, which will
hopefully grow. /*
Kind Regards,
Thomas.
**
Dr Thomas Martin (he/him) | Senior Lecturer | Department of
Computing and Mathematics | [email protected]
0161 247 1501 | Room JD E120
Manchester Metropolitan University | John Dalton Building |
Manchester | M1 5GD
Office Hours: Monday 3:00 - 4:30 pm and Wednesday 11:30 - 1:00 pm
Please note that I am on a flexible working schedule and will only
be reading/answering MMU email on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:*Dlt-networking <[email protected]> on behalf
of Michael McBride <[email protected]>
*Sent:* 01 July 2022 9:46 PM
*To:* [email protected] <[email protected]>
*Subject:* [Dlt-networking] updated
draft-mcbride-rtgwg-bgp-blockchain
*This email originated from outside of Manchester Met. Do not
click links or open attachments unless you recognise the sender
and believe the content to be safe. Please contact the IT Helpline
if you have any concerns, https://www.mmu.ac.uk/isds/contact
<https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mmu.ac.uk%2Fisds%2Fcontact&data=05%7C01%7Cmichael.mcbride%40futurewei.com%7C3c48c5a9deb648bd46e708dac7d3b518%7C0fee8ff2a3b240189c753a1d5591fedc%7C1%7C0%7C638042009342782431%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=SZxvPzLDwCZ7YkLp43K77bLq8NSaqUmJWHipD7Writg%3D&reserved=0>*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello,
A couple of new authors joined in and we’ve updated
https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-mcbride-rtgwg-bgp-blockchain-01.txt
<https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ietf.org%2Farchive%2Fid%2Fdraft-mcbride-rtgwg-bgp-blockchain-01.txt&data=05%7C01%7Cmichael.mcbride%40futurewei.com%7C3c48c5a9deb648bd46e708dac7d3b518%7C0fee8ff2a3b240189c753a1d5591fedc%7C1%7C0%7C638042009342782431%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=FBDHIa9semYZv6DXO4UpUdG5HzOOBtSeYPict4JYK8w%3D&reserved=0>
with a fair amount of new information including the use of smart
contracts. Please give it a read and comment if you feel it’s on
the right track or not. We have time to update the draft again
before the deadline. We will likely discuss this at the upcoming
IETF 114 meeting in rtgwg if there is time. Hope to see many of
you in Philly.
Thanks,
mike
"Before acting on this email or opening any attachments you should
read the Manchester Metropolitan University email disclaimer
available on its website http://www.mmu.ac.uk/emaildisclaimer
<https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mmu.ac.uk%2Femaildisclaimer&data=05%7C01%7Cmichael.mcbride%40futurewei.com%7C3c48c5a9deb648bd46e708dac7d3b518%7C0fee8ff2a3b240189c753a1d5591fedc%7C1%7C0%7C638042009342782431%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=sUy1w7ALgeupl84GVTwst2RUE1d90jCBQ7o5Voog78E%3D&reserved=0>
"
_______________________________________________
rtgwg mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtgwg
_______________________________________________
rtgwg mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtgwg
