Shortcuts through Colocation Facilities

Network overlays, running on top of the existing Internet substrate, are of perennial value to Internet end-users in the context of, e.g., real-time applications. Such overlays can employ traffic relays to yield path latencies lower than the direct paths, a phenomenon known as Triangle Inequality Violation (TIV). Past studies identify the opportunities of reducing latency using TIVs. However, they do not investigate the gains of strategically selecting relays in Colocation Facilities (Colos). In this work, we answer the following questions: (i) how Colo-hosted relays compare with other relays as well as with the direct Internet, in terms of latency (RTT) reductions; (ii) what are the best locations for placing the relays to yield these reductions. To this end, we conduct a large-scale one-month measurement of inter-domain paths between RIPE Atlas (RA) nodes as endpoints, located at eyeball networks. We employ as relays Planetlab nodes, other RA nodes, and machines in Colos. We examine the RTTs of the overlay paths obtained via the selected relays, as well as the direct paths. We find that Colo-based relays perform the best and can achieve latency reductions against direct paths, ranging from a few to 100s of milliseconds, in 76% of the total cases; 75% (58% of total cases) of these reductions require only 10 relays in 6 large Colos.Comment: In Proceedings of the ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC '17), London, GB, 201

Unobtrusive and pervasive video-based eye-gaze tracking

Eye-gaze tracking has long been considered a desktop technology that finds its use inside the traditional office setting, where the operating conditions may be controlled. Nonetheless, recent advancements in mobile technology and a growing interest in capturing natural human behaviour have motivated an emerging interest in tracking eye movements within unconstrained real-life conditions, referred to as pervasive eye-gaze tracking. This critical review focuses on emerging passive and unobtrusive video-based eye-gaze tracking methods in recent literature, with the aim to identify different research avenues that are being followed in response to the challenges of pervasive eye-gaze tracking. Different eye-gaze tracking approaches are discussed in order to bring out their strengths and weaknesses, and to identify any limitations, within the context of pervasive eye-gaze tracking, that have yet to be considered by the computer vision community.peer-reviewe

A Market-Oriented Analysis of the \u27Terminating Access Monopoly\u27 Concept

Policymakers have long invoked the concept of a “terminating access monopoly” to inform communications policy. Roughly speaking, the concept holds that a consumer-facing network provider, no matter how small or how subject to retail competition, generally possesses monopoly power vis-à-vis third-party senders of communications traffic to its customers. Regulators and advocates have routinely cited that concern to justify regulatory intervention in a variety of contexts where the regulated party may or may not have possessed market power in any relevant retail market. Despite the centrality of the terminating access monopoly to modern communications policy, there is surprisingly little academic literature on that concept as it applies to current regulatory debates. This paper seeks to fill that gap by exploring the various settings in which the concept does, or does not, help explain market dynamics in the communications sector. We conclude that the terminating access monopoly phenomenon, strictly understood, does not itself generally threaten market failures except in very limited circumstances. As the paper explains, the phenomenon could threaten inefficient outcomes only where, because of the underlying market context, the interconnecting provider or its customer has a particularized need to reach the customer set of the terminating access provider, and even then, market forces might correct any problem without regulatory intervention

A Market-Oriented Analysis of the \u27Terminating Access Monopoly\u27 Concept

Policymakers have long invoked the concept of a “terminating access monopoly” to inform communications policy. Roughly speaking, the concept holds that a consumer-facing network provider, no matter how small or how subject to retail competition, generally possesses monopoly power vis-à-vis third-party senders of communications traffic to its customers. Regulators and advocates have routinely cited that concern to justify regulatory intervention in a variety of contexts where the regulated party may or may not have possessed market power in any relevant retail market. Despite the centrality of the terminating access monopoly to modern communications policy, there is surprisingly little academic literature on that concept as it applies to current regulatory debates. This paper seeks to fill that gap by exploring the various settings in which the concept does, or does not, help explain market dynamics in the communications sector. We conclude that the terminating access monopoly phenomenon, strictly understood, does not itself generally threaten market failures except in very limited circumstances. As the paper explains, the phenomenon could threaten inefficient outcomes only where, because of the underlying market context, the interconnecting provider or its customer has a particularized need to reach the customer set of the terminating access provider, and even then, market forces might correct any problem without regulatory intervention

A Review and Analysis of Eye-Gaze Estimation Systems, Algorithms and Performance Evaluation Methods in Consumer Platforms

In this paper a review is presented of the research on eye gaze estimation techniques and applications, that has progressed in diverse ways over the past two decades. Several generic eye gaze use-cases are identified: desktop, TV, head-mounted, automotive and handheld devices. Analysis of the literature leads to the identification of several platform specific factors that influence gaze tracking accuracy. A key outcome from this review is the realization of a need to develop standardized methodologies for performance evaluation of gaze tracking systems and achieve consistency in their specification and comparative evaluation. To address this need, the concept of a methodological framework for practical evaluation of different gaze tracking systems is proposed.Comment: 25 pages, 13 figures, Accepted for publication in IEEE Access in July 201

Bilateral negotiations, vertical contracting, and firm behaviors in network

In the last two decades, the internet industry has changed dramatically, especially for interconnection relationships. With the booming video-streaming services, internet service providers (ISPs) have been trying hard to deliver the enormous data that are needed to support video streaming. As a result, it gradually becomes a huge burden for ISPs, and they want to change the peering relationship from settlement-free peering to paid peering. This creates a widely discussed topic among all parties involved. In the first two chapters of my dissertation, I will discover what happens to end users, content providers, and ISPs if ISPs decide to use paid peering in the settings of two-sided markets. In the first chapter, we will be looking at a two-by-two model where relatively major ISPs will move first then the other will follow. We also allow for re-negotiations and those IPSs can re-consider the details of their contracts after seeing the contracts from others. In the second chapter, we assume that all ISPs move all at once and negotiate once for the optimal contracts. And we don’t allow for re-negotiation here. From the first two chapters, we find that access ISPs will compensate for the traffic in the system, and with Nash Peering relationships more content providers are drawn into the system and social welfare will be increasing; Internet-based companies are growing rapidly in recent decades and video-sharing websites like YouTube or Twitch are also earning huge profits, mainly from advertisement revenue. However, in the last decade, more and more profits are generated through the subscription service, where end-users are offered the option of paying a fixed subscription fee to avoid watching advertisements. For example, from 2015 to 2021, Youtube’s annual subscribers increased from 1.5 million to 50 million, while the total number of its users just doubled. Apparently, subscribers are growing much faster than the total users. These video-sharing companies are conducting second-degree price discrimination since they cannot distinguish different groups of end-users, who choose whether or not to subscribe. Therefore, many people are concerned that these websites will deliberately add more advertisements to the content to push some consumers into paying a subscription fee to avoid watching advertisements. This paper presents a model to study how a monopoly firm chooses the density of advertisements and subscription price and how end-users react to it. I will show that when offering the subscription service, the firm has an incentive to add more advertisements for non-subscribers and hence reduce the quality of the service; non-subscribers will spend less time on the website than they originally did, which results in a welfare loss for all end-users. However, social welfare will increase with the subscription service and this increase will be enlarged if the fee is regulated to be lower than the monopoly price.Ph.D

NetServ Framework Design and Implementation 1.0

Eyeball ISPs today are under-utilizing an important asset: edge routers. We present NetServ, a programmable node architecture aimed at turning edge routers into distributed service hosting platforms. This allows ISPs to allocate router resources to content publishers and application service pro\-vi\-ders motivated to deploy content and services at the network edge. This model provides important benefits over currently available solutions like CDN. Content and services can be brought closer to end users by dynamically installing and removing custom modules as needed throughout the network. Unlike previous programmable router proposals which focused on customizing features of a router, NetServ focuses on deploying content and services. All our design decisions reflect this change in focus. We set three main design goals: a wide-area deployment, a multi-user execution environment, and a clear economic benefit. We built a prototype using Linux, NSIS signaling, and the Java OSGi framework. We also implemented four prototype applications: ActiveCDN provides publisher-specific content distribution and processing; KeepAlive Responder and Media Relay reduce the infrastructure needs of telephony providers; and Overload Control makes it possible to deploy more flexible algorithms to handle excessive traffic

The State of Network Neutrality Regulation

The Network Neutrality (NN) debate refers to the battle over the design of a regulatory framework for preserving the Internet as a public network and open innovation platform. Fueled by concerns that broadband access service providers might abuse network management to discriminate against third party providers (e.g., content or application providers), policymakers have struggled with designing rules that would protect the Internet from unreasonable network management practices. In this article, we provide an overview of the history of the debate in the U.S. and the EU and highlight the challenges that will confront network engineers designing and operating networks as the debate continues to evolve.BMBF, 16DII111, Verbundprojekt: Weizenbaum-Institut für die vernetzte Gesellschaft - Das Deutsche Internet-Institut; Teilvorhaben: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB)EC/H2020/679158/EU/Resolving the Tussle in the Internet: Mapping, Architecture, and Policy Making/ResolutioNe