Savant: An Accounting and Accountability Framework for Information Centric Networks

205 Pages·2016·4.65 MB·English

PHD THESIS
Savant: An Accounting and
Accountability Framework for
Information Centric Networks
Author: Supervisor:
Diarmuid COLLINS Professor. Donal O’MAHONY
October 8, 2016
ii
Declaration
I declare that this thesis has not been submitted as an exercise for a degree at this or any
otheruniversityanditisentirelymyownwork.
I agree to deposit this thesis in the University’s open access institutional repository or
allow the library to do so on my behalf, subject to Irish Copyright Legislation and Trinity
CollegeLibraryconditionsofuseandacknowledgement.
Signed,
DiarmuidCollins
Date: October8,2016
iv DECLARATION
Abstract
ContentProvideri.e. entitiesthatownorarelicensedtosellanddistributecontente.g.,HBO,
Netflix,AmazonPrime,whichusetheIP-basedInternetmodelforcontentdistribution,con-
sume a large percentage of network bandwidth that is expected to almost treble between
2014 and 2019 [Cisco, 2015]. This requires significant infrastructural investment by con-
tent providers, content distributors (i.e. fixed-infrastructure content distribution networks
(CDNs))andnetworkoperatorse.g.,AT&T.Consequently,contentprovidersarelookingfor
more efficient, cheaper, secure, scalable and accountable mechanisms for the distribution of
contenttoend-users.
Many existing and proposed future content distribution architectures offer desirable el-
ements that may lead to less bandwidth usage, reduced network congestion, higher content
availability and reduced costs e.g., multicast IP, peer-to-peer (P2P), and so forth. For exam-
ple, the Information Centric Networking (ICN) paradigm offers solutions to many of these
challenges by decoupling user trust in content from where it is obtained by enabling the
content to self-verify i.e. the user can establish integrity, trust and provenance in content re-
ceived from trusted or untrusted infrastructure. However, these architectures typically span
domains of trust that lack central administration. Consequently, it is difficult to gather re-
liable accounting and accountability information for the content distribution process, which
weargueisafundamentalbusinessrequirementformanycontentproviders.
Contentaccountingreferstoanyinformationthatacontentdistributorneedstotrack,re-
latingtothedeliveryofcontenttoitsintendedconsumers. Incontrast,contentaccountability
refers to the willingness of the communicating infrastructure to produce accurate and verifi-
able information about the content distribution process. The primary difference between an
v
vi ABSTRACT
accounting architecture and accountability architecture is that when trust fails the latter has
thetoolstopinpointtheresponsibleentitywithnon-repudiableevidence.
Inthisthesis,wedeveloptwotoolstohelpidentifythedrawbacksandmeritsofexisting
architectures. The first is a taxonomy for accounting information based on our analysis of
logging informationgathered from thesurveyed systems. The second isa generic modelfor
content distribution based on a synthesis of desirable elements from the surveyed architec-
tures. Utilisingthesetools,weproposeanICNarchitectureextensionforcontentaccounting
and accountability called the Savant framework, which we apply to the Named Data Net-
working (NDN) architecture. Savant naturally supports efficient content distribution while
gathering non-repudiable near real-time information efficiently from NDN clients and NDN
caches. ThisissupportedusingNDNsnaturalsupportforsecurity,integrityandtrustandby
maintaining hash chains of logs and commitment to log integrity between communicating
nodes.
Our proof-of-concept implementation, which is based on an NDN video content distri-
butionsession,demonstratedthataccountingandaccountabilityinformationcanbegathered
foranICNpacket-levelarchitecture. Ouranalysisalsoshowedthattheoverheadonthesys-
tem is very small if several extensions and improvements are applied to the architecture for
efficiency.
As described, ICNs/NDN with Savant support could eventually complement or replace
today’s CDN infrastructure with a scalable, trustworthy, reliable accounting and account-
ability framework for content distributed in trusted and untrusted environments meeting the
diverserequirementsofcontentproviders,networkoperatorsandend-users.
Acknowledgements
First,Iwouldliketothankmysupervisor,Prof. DonalO’Mahony. Hehasbeenanexcellent
advisorthroughoutthePhDjourneygivingmetheflexibilitytoexploremanyresearchareas
and topics while providing me with extensive support, knowledge and guidance. I am also
verygratefulforthepersonalsupportandguidancehehasgivenmeoverthelastfouryears.
Iwouldalsoliketoacknowledgeallthehelp,encouragementandsupportIhavereceived
from staff and students in CTVR/CONNECT Centre for Future Networks over the last four
years. TheyhavehelpedmakethisPhDjourneyaloteasier.
I would also like to acknowledge the help, support and feedback I have received from
several other Trinity College Dublin students particularly Elwyn Davies, Emanuele Di Pas-
cale,PaulDugganandAndrianaIoannou.
Iwanttothanktheanonymousreviewersatvariousdifferentworkshops,conferencesand
journals for their excellent comments and feedback, which helped define and crystallise my
researchtopic.
I want to thank mam, dad, my siblings and friends for all their encouragement, love and
supportoverthelastfouryears.
Finally, I want to thank my wife Monica and sons Mateo and Miguel for being my big
rock and my little rocks. Without your love and support none of this would have been
possible.
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Contents
Declaration iii
Abstract v
Acknowledgements vii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 BackgroundandRequirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 SavantAccountingandAccountabilityFramework . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 KeyContributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 OrganisationofthisWork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.5 PublicationsArisingfromthisWork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2 BackgroundandRelatedWork 9
2.1 AccountingandAccountabilityinDistributionSystems . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.1.1 MulticastIPandWebCaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.1.2 Peer-to-Peer(P2P) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1.3 ContentDeliveryNetworks(CDNs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1.4 HybridCDN-P2P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.1.5 TransparentCaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.1.6 NetworkCDN,CDNIandVirtualisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.1.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.2 InformationCentricNetworking(ICN) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.2.1 AData-Oriented(andBeyond)NetworkArchitecture(DONA) . . . 45
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x CONTENTS
2.2.2 Publish-SubscribeInternet(PSI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.2.3 NetworkofInformation(NetInf) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.2.4 Content-CentricNetworking(CCN) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2.2.5 eXpressiveInternetArchitecture(XIA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
2.2.6 MobilityFirst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.2.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.3 SecurityMechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.3.1 DNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.3.2 PKI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.3.3 SPKI/SDSI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
2.3.4 SecurityAttacksinICNs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.3.5 NamingandSecurity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.3.6 CCN-KeyResolutionService(CCN-KRS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
2.3.7 AuthenticatedInterests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
2.3.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.4 AccountingFrameworks: StateoftheArt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.4.1 SNMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.4.2 Ccndstatus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
2.4.3 Contrace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
2.4.4 LIRA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
2.4.5 Encryption-BasedandPushInterestBasedAccountinginCCN . . 71
2.4.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
2.5 InformationProcessingSystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
2.5.1 ScalableDistributedInformationManagementSystem(SDIMS) . . 74
2.5.2 QuerySystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.5.3 GoogleAnalytics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
2.5.4 C3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
2.5.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
2.6 ChapterSummary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83