The state of peer-to-peer network simulators

Networking research often relies on simulation in order to test and evaluate new ideas. An important requirement of this process is that results must be reproducible so that other researchers can replicate, validate and extend existing work. We look at the landscape of simulators for research in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks by conducting a survey of a combined total of over 280 papers from before and after 2007 (the year of the last survey in this area), and comment on the large quantity of research using bespoke, closed-source simulators. We propose a set of criteria that P2P simulators should meet, and poll the P2P research community for their agreement. We aim to drive the community towards performing their experiments on simulators that allow for others to validate their results

Architectures de réseaux pour la délivrance de services à domicile

Avec l’omniprésence au quotidien du numérique et de l’informatique, de plus en plus d’utilisateurs souhaitent avoir accès à Internet et à leurs applications via n’importe quel périphérique, de n’importe où et n’importe quand. Les appareils domestiques intelligents se développant, les besoins d’échanger des données au domicile même se font de plus en plus sentir. C’est dans ce contexte, celui des services à domicile avec besoin d’interconnexion que se situe notre étude. Ce type de service est qualifié de Home Service (HS) alors que le réseau à domicile est nommé Home Network (HN). La problématique pour les opérateurs est alors de concevoir des architectures appropriées à l’interconnexion des HN de manière sécurisée tout en permettant un déploiement facile et à grande échelle. Dans la première étape, nous considérons la livraison de services sécurisés à travers un réseau de nouvelle génération (NGN) : IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem). IMS étant l’architecture de référence pour son caractère réseau NGN des opérateurs, diverses architectures peuvent être développées comme support aux HS. Nous avons choisi d'analyser et de mettre en place une architecture P2P centralisée et de le comparer à l’architecture de référence. Plusieurs mécanismes d'authentification sont mis en place autour du P2P centralisé afin de sécuriser la prestation de services. La modélisation et l’évaluation de notre proposition ont permis d’identifier sa relation à l’IMS mais aussi des problèmes inhérents aux solutions centralisées : la protection des données personnelles, l’impact de la taille sur réseau sur les performances, l’existence d’un point de faiblesse unique face aux attaques et la congestion au niveau du serveur centralisé. Par conséquent, nous nous sommes tournés vers les solutions distribuées pour résoudre ces problèmes. Dans la deuxième étape, nous considérons l’architecture P2P non-structurée, qualifiée de pur P2P. La cryptographie basée sur l'identité (IBC) est ajoutée au P2P pur afin d’authentifier les utilisateurs et de protéger leurs communications. Pour chacune des solutions une analyse du coût de signalisation est effectuée révélant une faiblesse en ce qui concerne l’étape de recherche. Dans un déploiement à grande échelle, le coût de cette phase est trop élevé. Aussi, nous examinons le P2P structuré basé sur les Dynamic Hash Tables, une autre solution distribuée. Cette architecture est étudiée par l'IETF en tant qu’une des dernières générations de P2P: REsource LOcation And Discovery (RELOAD) Base Protocol. Nous proposons son utilisation dans le cadre des HSs. Comme preuve du concept, cette solution a été implantée et déployée sur un petit réseau en utilisant TLS/SSL comme mécanisme de sécurité. Cette plateforme nous a permis d’étudier les délais et les coûts de cette solution. Pour terminer, un bilan est établi sur toutes les solutions proposées En outre, nous introduisons d’autres types de HS et leurs possibilités de déploiement futur. ABSTRACT : With digital life enhancement, more users would like to get seamless Internet and information with any devices, at any time and from anywhere. More and more home devices need to exchange data or to control other devices. The type of services is labelled Home Service (HS) and it is deployed though a Home Network (HN). Some users need to use their HS outside their HN, some others need to interconnect other HN. Operators have to provide suitable network architectures to ensure this interconnection and to provide at the same time, scalability, remote access, easy deployment and security. Here is the topic of our work. In the fist step, we consider a practical illustration around the Next-Generation Network (NGN) and the secured services. It is the IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) approach for the management of services that is generally supported by the NGN network operators. However, various network operator architectures can be developed to support these services. An alternative way is the P2P architectures. We choose to analyze and implement a centralized P2P and we compare it with the IMS solution. Several authentication mechanisms are introduced to secure the centralized P2P. An evaluation of these architectures is conducted. Since the previous solutions present some issues due to their centralized feature, we consider distributed solutions in a second step. The non-structured P2P, called pure P2P, can also support HS. Identity Based Crytography (IBC) is added to these architectures in order to offer authentication and protection to user communications. The different solutions are compared through their signaling and transmission cost. The study shows that searching step in this architecture is really costly, facing a scalability problem. Thus, we propose to use a structured P2P (called Dynamic Hash Table) for delivering HS between HN. This type of architecture is studied by IETF with the REsource Location And Discovery (RELOAD) Base Protocol. This solution is implanted and deployed here to be a proof of the concept. This test-bed enables the study of delay and security overhead in a real system. Eventually, the presented solutions are recaptured in order to see their advantages/ disadvantages. In addition, we introduce other perspectives in terms of HSs and network interconnection

Trust Management for Mobile Media Distribution

Multimedia content delivery to capable smart phones with high-speed next-generation Internet connectivity is becoming commonplace. However, the openness of delivery demands adaptive and robust management of intellectual property rights. The purpose of this article is to describe a framework to address the central issues in content delivery: a scalable peer-to-peer-based content delivery model. Our method pairs the delivery with a secure access control model that enables data providers to secure a return from making their original content available. Our work resulted in a prototype implementation written in Java that includes a client for the Android mobile platform. Adding robust trust management to scalable peer-to-peer content delivery is the major significance of our work

A Comprehensive Survey of Voice over IP Security Research

We present a comprehensive survey of Voice over IP security academic research, using a set of 245 publications forming a closed cross-citation set. We classify these papers according to an extended version of the VoIP Security Alliance (VoIPSA) Threat Taxonomy. Our goal is to provide a roadmap for researchers seeking to understand existing capabilities and to identify gaps in addressing the numerous threats and vulnerabilities present in VoIP systems. We discuss the implications of our findings with respect to vulnerabilities reported in a variety of VoIP products. We identify two specific problem areas (denial of service, and service abuse) as requiring significant more attention from the research community. We also find that the overwhelming majority of the surveyed work takes a black box view of VoIP systems that avoids examining their internal structure and implementation. Such an approach may miss the mark in terms of addressing the main sources of vulnerabilities, i.e., implementation bugs and misconfigurations. Finally, we argue for further work on understanding cross-protocol and cross-mechanism vulnerabilities (emergent properties), which are the byproduct of a highly complex system-of-systems and an indication of the issues in future large-scale systems

User generated content for IMS-based IPTV

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.Web 2.0 services have been on the rise due to improved bandwidth availability. Users can now connect to the internet with a variety of portable devices which are capable of performing multiple tasks. Due to this, services such as Voice over IP (VoIP), presence, social networks, instant messaging (IM) and Internet Protocol television (IPTV) to mention but a few, started to emerge...This thesis proposed a framework that will offer user-generated content on an IMS-Based IPTV and the framework will include a personalised advertising system..

Peer-to-Peer Conferencing using Blockchain, WebRTC and SIP

  The owner of the centralized video platform has more control over uploaded content than the content producer does. But the other Blockchain-based decentralized video services are attempting to reduce ad pressure and get rid of middlemen. The article suggests a combination of a safe encryption technique and an access control mechanism created "with technology" to create a successful decentralized video streaming platform built on the Blockchain. Peer-to-peer (P2P) overlays are one of the complicated network applications and services that have been migrated to the Web as a result of the increasing support for Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) standard in modern browsers for real-time communications. The expansion of access networks’ bandwidth also makes it possible for end users to start their own content businesses. This paper presents a preliminary proposal of metrics and technologies to move toward a decentralized cooperative architecture for large-scale, real-time live stream content de- livery based on WebRTC, without the requirement of a Content Delivery Network (CDN) infrastructure. The paper takes into account the light of the aforementioned aspects [6]

Prospects of peer-to-peer SIP for mobile operators

Tämän diplomityön tarkoituksena on esitellä kehitteillä oleva Peer-to-Peer Session Initiation Protocol (P2PSIP), jonka avulla käyttäjät voivat itsenäisesti ja helposti luoda keskenään puhe- ja muita multimediayhteyksiä vertaisverkko-tekniikan avulla. Lisäksi tarkoituksena on arvioida P2PSIP protokollan vaikutuksia ja mahdollisuuksia mobiilioperaattoreille, joille sitä voidaan pitää uhkana. Tästä huolimatta, P2PSIP:n ei ole kuitenkaan tarkoitus korvata nykyisiä puhelinverkkoja. Työn alussa esittelemme SIP:n ja vertaisverkkojen (Peer-to-Peer) periaatteet, joihin P2PSIP-protokollan on suunniteltu perustuvan. SIP mahdollistaa multimedia-istuntojen luomisen, sulkemisen ja muokkaamisen verkossa, mutta sen monipuolinen käyttö vaatii keskitettyjen palvelimien käyttöä. Vertaisverkon avulla käyttäjät voivat suorittaa keskitettyjen palvelimien tehtävät keskenään hajautetusti. Tällöin voidaan ylläpitää laajojakin verkkoja tehokkaasti ilman palvelimista aiheutuvia ylläpito-kustannuksia. Mobiilioperaattorit ovat haasteellisen tilanteen edessä, koska teleliikennemaailma on muuttumassa yhä avoimemmaksi. Tällöin operaattoreiden asiakkaille aukeaa mahdollisuuksia käyttää kilpailevia Internet-palveluja (kuten Skype) helpommin ja tulevaisuudessa myös itse muodostamaan kommunikointiverkkoja P2PSIP:n avulla. Tutkimukset osoittavat, että näistä uhista huolimatta myös operaattorit pystyvät näkemään P2PSIP:n mahdollisuutena mukautumisessa nopeasti muuttuvan teleliikennemaailman haasteisiin. Nämä mahdollisuudet sisältävät operaattorin oman verkon optimoinnin lisäksi vaihtoehtoisten ja monipuolisempien palveluiden tarjoamisen asiakkailleen edullisesti. Täytyy kuitenkin muistaa, että näiden mahdollisuuksien toteuttamisten vaikutusten ei tulisi olla ristiriidassa operaattorin muiden palveluiden kanssa. Lisäksi tulisi muistaa, että tällä hetkellä keskeneräisen P2PSIP-standardin lopullinen luonne ja ominaisuudet voivat muuttaa sen vaikutuksia.The purpose of this thesis is to present the Peer-to-Peer Session Initiation Protocol (P2PSIP) being developed. In addition, the purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the impacts and prospects of P2PSIP to mobile operators, to whom it can be regarded as a threat. In P2PSIP, users can independently and easily establish voice and other multimedia connections using peer-to-peer (P2P) networking. However, P2PSIP is not meant to replace the existing telephony networks of the operators. We start by introducing the principles of SIP and P2P networking that the P2PSIP is intended to use. SIP enables to establish, terminate and modify multimedia sessions, but its versatile exploitation requires using centralized servers. By using P2P networking, users can decentralize the functions of centralized servers by performing them among themselves. This enables to maintain large and robust networks without maintenance costs resulted of running such centralized servers. Telecommunications market is transforming to a more open environment, where mobile operators and other service providers are challenged to adapt to the upcoming changes. Subscribers have easier access to rivalling Internet-services (such as Skype) and in future they can form their own communication communities by using P2PSIP. The results show that despite of these threats, telecom operators can find potential from P2PSIP in concurrence in adaptation to the challenges of the rapidly changing telecom environment. These potential roles include optimization of the network of the operator, but as well roles to provide alternative and more versatile services to their subscribers at low cost. However, the usage of P2PSIP should not conflict with the other services of the operator. Also, as P2PSIP is still under development, its final nature and features may change its impacts and prospects

Designing and prototyping WebRTC and IMS integration using open source tools

WebRTC, or Web Real-time Communications, is a collection of web standards that detail the mechanisms, architectures and protocols that work together to deliver real-time multimedia services to the web browser. It represents a significant shift from the historical approach of using browser plugins, which over time, have proven cumbersome and problematic. Furthermore, it adopts various Internet standards in areas such as identity management, peer-to-peer connectivity, data exchange and media encoding, to provide a system that is truly open and interoperable. Given that WebRTC enables the delivery of multimedia content to any Internet Protocol (IP)-enabled device capable of hosting a web browser, this technology could potentially be used and deployed over millions of smartphones, tablets and personal computers worldwide. This service and device convergence remains an important goal of telecommunication network operators who seek to enable it through a converged network that is based on the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). IMS is an IP-based subsystem that sits at the core of a modern telecommunication network and acts as the main routing substrate for media services and applications such as those that WebRTC realises. The combination of WebRTC and IMS represents an attractive coupling, and as such, a protracted investigation could help to answer important questions around the technical challenges that are involved in their integration, and the merits of various design alternatives that present themselves. This thesis is the result of such an investigation and culminates in the presentation of a detailed architectural model that is validated with a prototypical implementation in an open source testbed. The model is built on six requirements which emerge from an analysis of the literature, including previous interventions in IMS networks and a key technical report on design alternatives. Furthermore, this thesis argues that the client architecture requires support for web-oriented signalling, identity and call handling techniques leading to a potential for IMS networks to natively support these techniques as operator networks continue to grow and develop. The proposed model advocates the use of SIP over WebSockets for signalling and DTLS-SRTP for media to enable one-to-one communication and can be extended through additional functions resulting in a modular architecture. The model was implemented using open source tools which were assembled to create an experimental network testbed, and tests were conducted demonstrating successful cross domain communications under various conditions. The thesis has a strong focus on enabling ordinary software developers to assemble a prototypical network such as the one that was assembled and aims to enable experimentation in application use cases for integrated environments