Hey! Keep Your Hands Out Of My Abstraction Layer!

Posted: 05-15-2006, 05:37 AM

unoriginal_username@yahoo.com

Posts: n/a

I'm reading the specification for 802.11, and I cannot help but wonder
why so many network standards seem to enjoy transgressing the
boundaries of their abstraction layers. For instance, 802.11 keeps
hinting that they are helping to solve the mobility problem, but also
keeps issuing disclaimers throughout the document saying essentially,
"We don't specifiy how its actually done."

I wonder...is there a more appropriate to look at the networking stack?
Do the wireless options that we have available now do too much in ways
that are inappropriate or misleading? For example, 802.11 has an ESS
feature that implies that its wireless LANs can grow arbitrarily large.
Has anyone use this in this way? Has anyone tried to implement
mobility over a massive interconnection of 802.11 LANs?

Then there is Bluetooth, whose specification I have not read, but had a
glimpse of it a few years ago. It gave me the impression that someone
showed little restraint in feature provision. I was so impressed that
I waited for it to port my luggage off the aircraft.

Zigbee? I got the same impression. Not horrifically complicated, but
not exactly bare-metal.

Perhaps that's the problem. Perhaps we should not be putting so many
"services" in the hardware.

How about a wireless transceiver that does as well as it can at layers
1 & 2, then ***STOPS***. No security (beyond link-access-control).
Power-management facilities available but minimally specified.
Link-layer addresses *only*. No "services". No mention of printers,
PDA's, kiosks, users, clouds, networks. No notion of a world-wide
network. The ideal link-layer device would get data from interface A
to interface B and get out of the way.

I think if each layer were approached with this mindset, we'd actually
do better than we have done so far.

-Le Chaud Lapin-

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Responses to "Hey! Keep Your Hands Out Of My Abstraction Layer!"

Don Taylor

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Re: Hey! Keep Your Hands Out Of My Abstraction Layer!

Posted: 05-15-2006, 07:30 AM

unoriginal_username@yahoo.com writes:
>I'm reading the specification for 802.11, and I cannot help but wonder
>why so many network standards seem to enjoy transgressing the
>boundaries of their abstraction layers.
....
>Perhaps that's the problem. Perhaps we should not be putting so many
>"services" in the hardware.
....
>I think if each layer were approached with this mindset, we'd actually
>do better than we have done so far.

Try being a member of a standards committee sometime.
Or perhaps it is better to never be a member of one of those.
It can be a very frustrating time.

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Le Chaud Lapin

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Re: Hey! Keep Your Hands Out Of My Abstraction Layer!

Posted: 05-15-2006, 07:28 PM

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> I presume a "massive interconnection of 802.11 LANs" means a mesh
> network. Sure. There are lots of mesh networks. If this is not what
> you're thinking, could you be a bit more specific?

That's just it. The 802.11 spec seems like it could theoretically
support an unlimited-size mesh network that solves the mobility
problem, but in truth it does not. The result is that the imprudent
reviewer ends up thinking that the solution to the mobility problem is
best handled using 802.11-like technology. IMO, they never should have
hinted at anything. They should have said, "This is what we provide,
this is all you get, and if you want more, figure it out yourselves.."
At least this way there is no potential for confusion.

> Yep. An elephant is a horse designed by the 4,000 members of the
> Bluetooth SIG. However, there is hope. The next generation of
> Bluetooth will be based on the abandoned IEEE 802.15.3a UWB effort.
> Hopefully, initial implementations will be limited to short range
> video, but I doubt it. My guess is that it UWB will attempt to grab
> market share from Wi-Fi and duplicate many of its features and
> applications. Sigh.
>

>
> Services implies something a user would have access to. What services
> are you finding in the 802.11/Bluetooth/Zigbee stack that you find
> superfluous? Before you answer, please consider that all these specs
> only define layers 1 and 2 (PHY and MAC). You will not find any layer
> 3 (NET) features (i.e. routing) in any of these. Now, which services
> that are defined in layers 1 and 2 do you find superfluous?

I'm going to have to take another look at Bluetooth, but when I was
reading the spec before, I thought I saw something about printing. I
would rather my link-layer spec never mention the word "printer"
anywhere.

> >No security (beyond link-access-control).
> >Power-management facilities available but minimally specified.
>
> No way. All the problems with wireless security are a result of a
> failure to properly implement wireless security at the MAC layer. You
> can do encryption at any layer, but methinks it's best done at the
> lowest layer to prevent spoofing.

I guess. I think that maintaining link integrity (as in
interface-to-interface) is enough. End-to-end security is probably
best handled at Network Layer and above.

> >Link-layer addresses *only*. No "services". No mention of printers,
> >PDA's, kiosks, users, clouds, networks. No notion of a world-wide
> >network. The ideal link-layer device would get data from interface A
> >to interface B and get out of the way.
>
> None of these services are mentioned in any of the specs you
> mentioned. They're all applications layer and are implemented by
> applications vendors, not standards committees. You're complaining to
> the wrong people.

I vaguely remember "services" from the Bluetooth spec. I'll check
again.

-Le Chaud Lapin-

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Le Chaud Lapin

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Re: Hey! Keep Your Hands Out Of My Abstraction Layer!

Posted: 05-16-2006, 05:55 PM

John Navas wrote:
>
> Not necessarily -- there are many real-world cases when stretching things
> makes sense.

You think so? Like what?

I guess if there is a paucity of resources (RAM, bandwidth, power),
some reaching might be necessary. But to see little tiny radios
talking about printing, video...it's just too much. It also kills
reusability. I shudder to think of so much energy being put into
creating (numerous) veritical applications.

Someone should...

2. Do the physical-layer and link-layer and *stop*.

3. Do the protocol stack from network layer up to whatever layer
presents a regular interface for application programmers, then *stop.*
Note that this is the hardest part. IMO, people who dream in
quadrature should not be dibbling and dabbling in PKI infrastructures.
There are exceptions of course, but lets face it...historically, we
have got most of the upper layers not-quite-right, so we should
distribute the mental effort.

4. Application developers should write their RPC-like applications,
and stop. They should not have to reinvent the world of security, but
the facility by which they control security should be present.

The results would be a lot clearer, cleaner, and portable.

-Le Chaud Lapin-

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John Navas

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Re: Hey! Keep Your Hands Out Of My Abstraction Layer!

Posted: 05-16-2006, 06:28 PM

[POSTED TO alt.internet.wireless - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <1147798538.564284.98660@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups. com> on 16 May 2006
09:55:38 -0700, "Le Chaud Lapin" <unoriginal_username@yahoo.com> wrote:

>John Navas wrote:
>>
>> Not necessarily -- there are many real-world cases when stretching things
>> makes sense.

>[SNIP]
>The results would be a lot clearer, cleaner, and portable.

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR ALT.INTERNET.WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FAQ_for_alt.internet.wireless>

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Rich Grise

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Re: Hey! Keep Your Hands Out Of My Abstraction Layer!

Posted: 05-17-2006, 09:02 PM

On Tue, 16 May 2006 09:55:38 -0700, Le Chaud Lapin wrote:

> The results would be a lot clearer, cleaner, and portable.
>

So, do you intend to hold everyone at gunpoint, to ensure that they follow
your standards?

Thanks,
Rich

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Bill Kearney

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Re: Hey! Keep Your Hands Out Of My Abstraction Layer!

Posted: 05-18-2006, 01:16 AM

> I think if each layer were approached with this mindset, we'd actually
> do better than we have done so far.

First off, pick a relevant newsgroup and don't shotgun it to a bunch of
them.

We had what you're talking about in the earliest days of networking. And as
a result we had a boatload of incompatible methods for speaking on the wire.
I'd venture we don't want to go back to those days. Especially not when
wireless is a considerably more limited medium. It's one thing to be
wasteful on the wire, over the air it's expensive (carrier fees, wattage,
speed, etc).

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Le Chaud Lapin

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Re: Hey! Keep Your Hands Out Of My Abstraction Layer!

Posted: 05-18-2006, 02:04 AM

Rich Grise wrote:
> So, do you intend to hold everyone at gunpoint, to ensure that they follow
> your standards?

On the contrary, I would let the standards fight for best of breed.

That's essentially what happens now with computers. Many CPU's, many
architectures, C is doing just great against Lisp (for example).

I would love to see a new, programmable, USB-based RF transceiver.
It's job would be to simply transmit and receive frames, perhaps with
link-layer addresses encoded, much like Ethernet is done on the wire.
I would keep the collision-avoidance technology, but beyond that, I
would do nothing else.

I am almost certain that if someone were to do this, the network-layer
people would figure out how to use it.

-Le Chaud Lapin-

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John Navas

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Re: Hey! Keep Your Hands Out Of My Abstraction Layer!

Posted: 05-18-2006, 02:11 AM

[POSTED TO alt.internet.wireless - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <1147914276.670023.94920@j55g2000cwa.googlegroups. com> on 17 May 2006
18:04:36 -0700, "Le Chaud Lapin" <unoriginal_username@yahoo.com> wrote:

>I would love to see a new, programmable, USB-based RF transceiver.
>It's job would be to simply transmit and receive frames, perhaps with
>link-layer addresses encoded, much like Ethernet is done on the wire.
>I would keep the collision-avoidance technology, but beyond that, I
>would do nothing else.
>
>I am almost certain that if someone were to do this, the network-layer
>people would figure out how to use it.

Probably no real demand; else it would exist.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR ALT.INTERNET.WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FAQ_for_alt.internet.wireless>

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Le Chaud Lapin

Posts: n/a

Re: Hey! Keep Your Hands Out Of My Abstraction Layer!

Posted: 05-18-2006, 04:31 AM

John Navas wrote:
> >I would love to see a new, programmable, USB-based RF transceiver.
> >It's job would be to simply transmit and receive frames, perhaps with
> >link-layer addresses encoded, much like Ethernet is done on the wire.
> >I would keep the collision-avoidance technology, but beyond that, I
> >would do nothing else.
> >
> >I am almost certain that if someone were to do this, the network-layer
> >people would figure out how to use it.
>
> Probably no real demand; else it would exist.

God forbid that a doctor would ever utter these words to a patient with
terminal illness.

There is a real demand to fix major problems with computer networking.

There is a real demand for a generalized solution to the mobility
problem. But no solution exists. There is real demand for integrated
security for network programming. But no solution exists. There is
real demand for a naming system that is far better than DNS. But no
solution exists. There is real demand for large-scale multicasting.
There is real demand for a "socket" model that is not as horrific as
sockets.

There is real demand for many things, but no solutions exist because
those who would provide the solutions simply are not.

The fact that $300 million has been ear-marked to do what IPv6 failed
to do is testament to the demand:

http://www.geni.net/index.php

-Le Chaud Lapin-

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