title: Per-hop Internet Measurement Protocols

authors: Luckie, Matthew John

subjects: Internet Measurement

abstract: Accurately measuring per-hop packet dynamics on an Internet path is difficult. Currently available techniques have many well-known limitations that can make it difficult to accurately measure per-hop packet dynamics. Much of the difficulty of per-hop measurement is due to the lack of protocol support available to measure an Internet path on a per-hop basis. This thesis classifies common weaknesses and describes a protocol for per-hop measurement of Internet packet dynamics, known as the IP Measurement Protocol, or IPMP. With IPMP, a specially formed probe packet collects information from intermediate routers on the packet's dynamics as the packet is forwarded. This information includes an IP address from the interface that received the packet, a timestamp that records when the packet was received, and a counter that records the arrival order of echo packets belonging to the same flow. Probing a path with IPMP allows the topology of the path to be directly determined, and for direct measurement of per-hop behaviours such as queueing delay, jitter, reordering, and loss. This is useful in many operational situations, as well as for researchers in characterising Internet behaviour.

IPMP's design goals of being tightly constrained and easy to implement are tested by building implementations in hardware and software. Implementations of IPMP presented in this thesis show that an IPMP measurement probe can be processed in hardware without delaying the packet, and processed in software with little overhead. This thesis presents IPMP-based measurement techniques for measuring per-hop packet delay, jitter, loss, reordering, and capacity that are more robust, require less probes to be sent, and are potentially more accurate and convenient than corresponding measurement techniques that do not use IPMP.

text: Per-hop Internet Measurement Protocols Accurately measuring per-hop packet dynamics on an Internet path is difficult. Currently available techniques have many well-known limitations that can make it difficult to accurately measure per-hop packet dynamics. Much of the difficulty of per-hop measurement is due to the lack of protocol support available to measure an Internet path on a per-hop basis. This thesis classifies common weaknesses and describes a protocol for per-hop measurement of Internet packet dynamics, known as the IP Measurement Protocol, or IPMP. With IPMP, a specially formed probe packet collects information from intermediate routers on the packet's dynamics as the packet is forwarded. This information includes an IP address from the interface that received the packet, a timestamp that records when the packet was received, and a counter that records the arrival order of echo packets belonging to the same flow. Probing a path with IPMP allows the topology of the path to be directly determined, and for direct measurement of per-hop behaviours such as queueing delay, jitter, reordering, and loss. This is useful in many operational situations, as well as for researchers in characterising Internet behaviour.

IPMP's design goals of being tightly constrained and easy to implement are tested by building implementations in hardware and software. Implementations of IPMP presented in this thesis show that an IPMP measurement probe can be processed in hardware without delaying the packet, and processed in software with little overhead. This thesis presents IPMP-based measurement techniques for measuring per-hop packet delay, jitter, loss, reordering, and capacity that are more robust, require less probes to be sent, and are potentially more accurate and convenient than corresponding measurement techniques that do not use IPMP.

year: 2007

title: Blurring the lines: the vague boundary between mainstream and deviant internet pornography tags for at-risk viewers

authors: Gane, G

abstract: Illegal material is increasingly appearing on popular mainstream websites. Many commentators worry about the impact of such material on adolescents' psycho-sexual development and the potential for some legal pornography to act as a gateway to child sexual exploitation material for users of any age. In this study, we collected publicly available data from a popular legal pornography website to assess the risk of adolescent exposure to content that may hinder healthy psycho-sexual development. We analysed over 27 million customer searches involving 149 video tags from this site. Five international experts on the effects of pornography rated the tags, categorising them into five overlapping genres: mainstream, incestuous, underage, aggressive and non-consensual. They also assessed the potential risk each genre posed. Our analysis found a significant positive correlation between the harm ratings and the frequency of tags used as search terms. Additionally, eleven of the twelve tags with the highest mean risk scores involved potential underage and/or incestuous content. This study highlights a concerning relationship between the harm ratings of various pornographic genres and their popularity as search terms. While exploratory, these results emphasise the need for regulatory measures to address the presence of harmful material on mainstream websites. PRACTICE IMPACT STATEMENT: The study has practical implications for the regulation of potentially harmful pornography by legal pornography sites. The sites should (a) control the use of tags and how new tags are developed in order to prevent content creators from advertising potentially illegal material, (b) vet all content before it is uploaded for public consumption, and (c) implement screening systems to retrospectively find and eradicate all illegal or harmful content already in their collection.

text: Blurring the lines: the vague boundary between mainstream and deviant internet pornography tags for at-risk viewers Illegal material is increasingly appearing on popular mainstream websites. Many commentators worry about the impact of such material on adolescents' psycho-sexual development and the potential for some legal pornography to act as a gateway to child sexual exploitation material for users of any age. In this study, we collected publicly available data from a popular legal pornography website to assess the risk of adolescent exposure to content that may hinder healthy psycho-sexual development. We analysed over 27 million customer searches involving 149 video tags from this site. Five international experts on the effects of pornography rated the tags, categorising them into five overlapping genres: mainstream, incestuous, underage, aggressive and non-consensual. They also assessed the potential risk each genre posed. Our analysis found a significant positive correlation between the harm ratings and the frequency of tags used as search terms. Additionally, eleven of the twelve tags with the highest mean risk scores involved potential underage and/or incestuous content. This study highlights a concerning relationship between the harm ratings of various pornographic genres and their popularity as search terms. While exploratory, these results emphasise the need for regulatory measures to address the presence of harmful material on mainstream websites. PRACTICE IMPACT STATEMENT: The study has practical implications for the regulation of potentially harmful pornography by legal pornography sites. The sites should (a) control the use of tags and how new tags are developed in order to prevent content creators from advertising potentially illegal material, (b) vet all content before it is uploaded for public consumption, and (c) implement screening systems to retrospectively find and eradicate all illegal or harmful content already in their collection.

year: 2024

title: Distributed agent-centric system for indigenous data sovereignty

authors: Noovao, Setephano

subjects: holochain

abstract: The sovereignty of indigenous data is a key issue facing indigenous communities. Holochain, a distributed ledger technology, has the potential to address some of the challenges indigenous communities face with respect to data sovereignty. The purpose of this thesis is to critically evaluate the feasibility of using holochain technology to support indigenous data sovereignty. This paper first explores the literature on holochain technology, examining its underlying architecture and features. The research employs a three-phase design science research methodology, conducting an experiment to explore the integration of a decentralized application, holochain, with a prominent cloud service provider. The first phase concentrates on emulating real data-sharing platforms that may utilize data at its disposal, following the principles of indigenous data sovereignty, where a centralized platform could be hosted on a cloud computing service with multiple services in operation. The second phase involves developing a holochain application guided by the principles of indigenous data sovereignty. The final phase seeks to combine the established centralized platform from the first phase with the outcomes of the holochain application from the second phase to experimentally assess whether both technologies can create a data sovereignty solution that aligns with the needs of indigenous data sovereignty. The results of the experiment will provide a solid foundation for understanding the current state of the field and identifying areas where holochain can potentially offer solutions. Furthermore, the results of our research indicate that holochain shows significant promise in tackling the issue of indigenous data sovereignty, although there are considerable limitations that must be addressed and resolved to achieve improved results.

text: Distributed agent-centric system for indigenous data sovereignty The sovereignty of indigenous data is a key issue facing indigenous communities. Holochain, a distributed ledger technology, has the potential to address some of the challenges indigenous communities face with respect to data sovereignty. The purpose of this thesis is to critically evaluate the feasibility of using holochain technology to support indigenous data sovereignty. This paper first explores the literature on holochain technology, examining its underlying architecture and features. The research employs a three-phase design science research methodology, conducting an experiment to explore the integration of a decentralized application, holochain, with a prominent cloud service provider. The first phase concentrates on emulating real data-sharing platforms that may utilize data at its disposal, following the principles of indigenous data sovereignty, where a centralized platform could be hosted on a cloud computing service with multiple services in operation. The second phase involves developing a holochain application guided by the principles of indigenous data sovereignty. The final phase seeks to combine the established centralized platform from the first phase with the outcomes of the holochain application from the second phase to experimentally assess whether both technologies can create a data sovereignty solution that aligns with the needs of indigenous data sovereignty. The results of the experiment will provide a solid foundation for understanding the current state of the field and identifying areas where holochain can potentially offer solutions. Furthermore, the results of our research indicate that holochain shows significant promise in tackling the issue of indigenous data sovereignty, although there are considerable limitations that must be addressed and resolved to achieve improved results.

year: 2024