Internet DRAFT - draft-arkko-arch-infrastructure-centralisation

draft-arkko-arch-infrastructure-centralisation







Network Working Group                                           J. Arkko
Internet-Draft                                                  Ericsson
Intended status: Informational                         November 05, 2019
Expires: May 8, 2020


          Centralised Architectures in Internet Infrastructure
           draft-arkko-arch-infrastructure-centralisation-00

Abstract

   Centralised deployment models for Internet services and Internet
   business consolidation are well-known Internet trends, at least when
   it comes to popular and user-visible service.  This memo discusses
   the impacts of similar trends within the Internet infrastructure, on
   functions such as DNS resolution.

Status of This Memo

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Issues with Centralisation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.1.  Single point of failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.2.  Surveillance  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.3.  Concentration of information  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.4.  Effect scope  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.5.  Interaction with other issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.6.  The effect of differing expectations and jurisdictions  .   5
   4.  Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   5.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Appendix A.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7

1.  Introduction

   Centralised deployment models for Internet services and Internet
   business consolidation are well-known Internet trends, at least when
   it comes to popular and user-visible service [ISOC]
   [I-D.arkko-iab-internet-consolidation] [I-D.arkko-arch-dedr-report].
   This memo discusses the impacts of similar trends within the Internet
   infrastructure, on functions such as DNS resolution.

   This memo has been inspired by recent attempts to move DNS resolution
   from large number of local servers to a more centralized
   arrangements, but the principles outlined in this document apply more
   generally to other basic Internet services.

   Section 2 introduces the context of the memo, Section 3 discusses
   some potential issues, and Section 4 makes a recommendation.

2.  Context

   For the purposes of this discussion, "Internet Infrastructure" is
   defined as those parts of the technical Internet infrastructure that
   are needed to form a communication substrate for applications to run
   on.  Applications are not a part of the infrastructure, they run on
   it.  But packet forwarding, routing, naming as well as higher level
   functions such as certificate authorities are included; anything that
   is needed to establish an end-to-end HTTPS connection between host is
   part of the infrastructure.  This also includes all Internet
   technology that is needed for these part to work.

   The DNS [RFC1035] is a complex system with many different security
   issues, challenges, deployment models and usage patterns.  While
   there are many parts of the DNS system and they are all part of the



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   infrastructure that is needed for the Internet to function, perhaps
   the most relevant for applications to connect is DNS resolution.
   Systems are typically configured with a single DNS recursive
   resolver, or a set of primary and alternate recursive resolvers.
   Recursive resolver services are offered by organisations such as
   enterprises, ISPs, and global providers.

3.  Issues with Centralisation

   The three primary issues are reliance on single points of failure,
   the creation of too attractive surveillance targets, and the
   concentration of information in a way that may affect other services.

3.1.  Single point of failure

   The first issue is having a concentrated point may become a single
   point of accidental failure, or an attack target.  For instance, a
   single root for an Internet security system or a single trust anchor
   for a routing system increases the risk of something bad happening
   which affects everything.  This seems a bad practice.  Note that the
   issue is not necessarily a single physical node that somehow in
   control; even a distributed system that is under one administration
   is a weak point, as there are typically single management systems and
   internal components that, based on experience, can cause large parts
   of the distributed system to stop functioning.  Or, legal or
   commercial structures cause an undesirable effect, such as ability to
   access private data across borders [MSCVUS].

   Similarly, reliance on single piece of software can cause a single
   point of failure.

   Weaknesses of single centralised designs is not limited to technical
   components.  Even an administrative or governance system can become
   weak through too much power or imagined power concentratred in one
   place.  For instance, the IANA system, when there was still a
   perception of US government tie to its management, was used as
   argument in various debates.  Without such a central tie-in, there
   would have not been any reason for tying IANA's important, but
   essentially clerical duties to political issues.

3.2.  Surveillance

   The surveillance problem relates to putting too much information or
   control in a single entity.

   For instance, the DNS resolvers will learn the Internet usage
   patterns of their clients.  A client might decide to trust a
   particular recursive resolver with information about DNS queries.



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   However, it is difficult or impossible to provide any guarantees
   about data handling practices in the general case.  And even if a
   service can be trusted to respect privacy with respect to handling of
   query data, legal and commercial pressures or surveillance activity
   could result in misuse of data.  Similarly, outside attacks may occur
   towards any DNS services.  For a service with many clients, these
   risks are particularly undesirable.

3.3.  Concentration of information

   The concentration of information problem is about generating
   information (or providing control opportunities) in basic Internet
   communications service that may assist whoever gets that information
   to be more capable in providing other services on top of the
   Internet, in a manner that is not possible for competing other
   service providers.  This problem appears in particular where there
   are machine-learning opportunities in the data being collected.

3.4.  Effect scope

   When a particular application, such as a social media system, reaches
   a dominant position in the market, this position still affects only
   that application.  However, when Internet infrastructure changes,
   this has wide-encompassing effects across all users and all types of
   traffic.

   Most things in the Internet are of course changeable or configurable,
   but while users move from some set of applications to other ones over
   time quite easily, normal users rarely configure their Internet
   connectivity parameters in any fashion.  As a result, the impact of
   defaults, operating system and browser settings are wide-ranging.

3.5.  Interaction with other issues

   The above issues do not, of course, appear in isolation, but are
   mixed with other potential developments and deployment models.  For
   instance, the DNS resolver centralisation problem is growing, as some
   web browsers are choosing to deploy encrypted DNS query protocols
   such as DNS-over-HTTPS (DOH) [RFC8484], and are doing it with default
   servers being centralised ones.

   One of the dilemmas in deploying some of these new technologies is
   the ability to both make improvements at a quick pace and find
   suitable other partners to interact with at the same quick pace.







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3.6.  The effect of differing expectations and jurisdictions

   Many of the centralisation issues are also made more difficult
   through differing expectations in different user populations.  Some
   gladly rely on a particular content provider, for instance, while
   others may fear what data collection and leaks may result.  It should
   also be noted that legal and contractual situations throughout the
   world differ, for instance in terms of expectations on user privacy.

4.  Recommendations

   For background, the current consolidation in ownership of and control
   over the Internet infrastructure was not foreseen [Clark], and
   arguably the loss of decentralized control goes against its design
   objectives.  For instance, [RFC1958] says:

   This allows for uniform and relatively seamless operations in a
   competitive, multi-vendor, multi-provider public network.

   and

   Heterogeneity is inevitable and must be supported by design.

   And [RFC3935] says:

   We embrace technical concepts such as decentralized control, edge-
   user empowerment and sharing of resources, because those concepts
   resonate with the core values of the IETF community.

   Given this background, and given the issues listed in Section 3, it
   seems prudent to recommend that whenever it comes to Internet
   infrastructure services, centralised designs should be avoided where
   possible.  It is still important to deploy other important features,
   such as protected signaling or encryption, and use the most
   trustworthy services, but it needs to be done in a fashion that
   ensures no single points of failure are created, and no centralised
   storage of information are created in the process.

   Where such centralised points are created, they will eventually fail,
   or they will be misused through surveillance or legal actions
   regardless of the best efforts of the Internet community.  The best
   defense to data leak is to avoid creating that data store to begin
   with.

   This memo is not an attempt to specify how specific issues can be
   solved in a distributed manner, but historically, the Internet
   community has been successful in doing this in a manner that does not




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   rely on a single service, be it about DNS root services, certificate
   authorities, mail service, and so on.

5.  Informative References

   [Clark]    Clark, D., "The Design Philosophy of the DARPA Internet
              Protocols", In Symposium Proceedings on Communications
              Architectures and Protocols, 106-114. SIGCOMM '88. New
              York, NY, USA, ACM https://doi.org/10.1145/52324.52336 ,
              1988.

   [I-D.arkko-abcd-distributed-resolver-selection]
              Arkko, J., Thomson, M., and T. Hardie, "Selecting
              Resolvers from a Set of Distributed DNS Resolvers",
              Internet Draft draft-arkko-abcd-distributed-resolver-
              section-00.txt (Work In Progress), IETF , November 2019.

   [I-D.arkko-arch-dedr-report]
              Arkko, J. and T. Hardie, "Report from the IAB workshop on
              Design Expectations vs. Deployment Reality in Protocol
              Development", Internet Draft draft-arkko-arch-dedr-report-
              00.txt (Work In Progress), IETF , November 2019.

   [I-D.arkko-iab-internet-consolidation]
              Arkko, J., Trammell, B., Nottingham, M., Huitema, C.,
              Thomson, M., Tantsura, J., and N. Oever, "Considerations
              on Internet Consolidation and the Internet Architecture",
              draft-arkko-iab-internet-consolidation-02 (work in
              progress), July 2019.

   [ISOC]     "Consolidation in the Internet economy", Internet Society,
              https://future.internetsociety.org/2019/ , 2019.

   [MSCVUS]   Wikipedia, ., "Microsoft Corp. v. United States",
              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
              Microsoft_Corp._v._United_States , n.d..

   [RFC1035]  Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and
              specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, DOI 10.17487/RFC1035,
              November 1987, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1035>.

   [RFC1958]  Carpenter, B., Ed., "Architectural Principles of the
              Internet", RFC 1958, DOI 10.17487/RFC1958, June 1996,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1958>.

   [RFC3935]  Alvestrand, H., "A Mission Statement for the IETF",
              BCP 95, RFC 3935, DOI 10.17487/RFC3935, October 2004,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3935>.



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   [RFC8484]  Hoffman, P. and P. McManus, "DNS Queries over HTTPS
              (DoH)", RFC 8484, DOI 10.17487/RFC8484, October 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8484>.

Appendix A.  Acknowledgements

   The author would like to thank Christian Huitema, Mark Nottingham,
   Stephen Farrell, Gonzalo Camarillo, Mirja Kuehlewind, Ted Hardie,
   Alissa Cooper, Martin Thomson, Daniel Migault, Goran AP Eriksson,
   Joel Halpern, and many others for interesting discussions in this
   problem space.

Author's Address

   Jari Arkko
   Ericsson

   Email: jari.arkko@piuha.net

































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