Reading List: 060916
A few of the papers, RFCs, and drafts I’m reading this week, along with a short description of each.
A Survey of Worldwide Censorship Techniques
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Censorship is a large problem on the Internet—but it’s often difficult to find any good description of the various ways censors can both find and block “offending” content. This draft is a short, readable overview of the various techniques actually seen in the wild, along with pointers to research about the techniques themselves, and instances where they’ve been used in the real world.
IPv6 Extension Headers and Packet Drops
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One of the interesting features of IPv6 is its support for extension headers, which are variable length bits of information—metadata about the packet, for instance—that can be attached to a packet and processed by either the receiving host or forwarding devices along the way. Extension headers are useful, in that they allow IPv6 to be easily extended on the fly, rather than forcing the protocol designer to create a set of metadata “in stone.” Extension headers, however, are also controversial; how should an ASIC designer decide which ones to support in hardware, and how should extension headers that cannot be handled in hardware Continue reading