Safety Issues : Active Networks

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Asia Pacific Advanced Network 21st 24th
January 2003 Fukuoka, Japan
Safety Issues Active Networks
Devi Krishnan University Science Malaysia
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Safety Issues Active Networks
Abstract

• Safety and security are two most
• important properties of a system
• A safe system provides protection
• against error of trusted users
• A secure system protects against error
• introduced by untrusted users
• High requirement - development of
• programmable network infrastructure

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Safety Issues Active Networks
The concept of active networks represents a new
approach to computer networking The ability
on customization of network infrastructure
properties is called active networks
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Safety Issues Active Networks
Motivation

• Reduce the difficulty of integrating new
• technologies and standards into a shared
• network infrastructure.
• Example IPv6 Implementation ie those
• follows the deployment and development
• of IPv6 will realizes how extremely
• difficult such a project is in todays
• heavily used internet

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Safety Issues Active Networks

• Focuses also has been given how to upgrade
• network devices at run time or on upgrades
• which support end systems applications for
• example congestion control for real time data
• streams or on a combination of both.

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Safety Issues Active Networks
Problem Statement

• There are five main scope can be discussed
• on active networks -
• Flexibility because it is a measure of the
• system to perform a variety of tasks.
• Usability
• Performance, some quantitative measures by
• which it is evaluated such as throughput,
  delay
• and delay variation
• Safety - protection against error of trusted
• users

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Safety Issues Active Networks
Introduction to Active Network

• Active networks allow individual user, or
• groups of users, to inject customized programs
  
• into the nodes of the network.
• Enable a massive increase in the complexity
• and customization of the computation that
• is performed within the network for example,
• that is interposed between the communicating
• end points.

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Safety Issues Active Networks
Introduction to Active Network

• In an active network, packets are not just
• forwarded by a router as in the current
  Internet
• instead, a router in an active network has the
  
• capability of processing the payload contained
  
• in a packet in an arbitrary,
  application-specific
• way.
• In this case, service provider or user could
• modify their network according to their need
• by using the application specific code.

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Safety Issues Active Networks
Safety Issues Involved

• Since active networks are much more
• flexible than passive, the number of safety
• and security issues that need to be addressed
• are tremendously increased.
• In this case, service provider or user could
• modify their network according to their need
• by using the application specific code.

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Safety Issues Active Networks
Safety Issues Involved
Why do we need to consider this issue ?

• In current situation, only memory required
• to store packet temporarily and CPU will
• find the the location.
• Strict resource control not critical
• Active network, packet consume many
• resources at faster rate
• ? resource management

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Safety Issues Active Networks
Safety Issues Involved

• There are few way where active packets can be
• misused by active nodes, network resources or
• other active packets-
• Damage - active packet can destroy services or
• resources by reconfiguring, modifying or
  erasing
• them from the memory.
• Denial of Service - packet could overload
• resource or service.

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Safety Issues Active Networks
Safety Issues Involved

• There are few way where active packets can be
• misused by active nodes, network resources or
• other active packets-
• Theft - active packet may access and steal
• private information from a node
• Compound attack attacked towards a goal

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Safety Issues Active Networks
Current Techniques

• One of the techniques used currently to protect
• an active node for example -
• An Architecture for Active Networking.
• Proof Carrying Code (PCC) using a pair of
• program to check and proof the validity of an
• active packet. Difficulty is creation of the
  proof.

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Safety Issues Active Networks
Method Towards Protection

• Some techniques that may be used to protect
• the active nodes -
• Authentication of Active Packets - all active
• packets should have authentication produced by
• an algorithm example, public key signature.
• Monitoring and control - monitor may be used
• to restrict the information, system resources
  and
• services that active packets are allowed to
  access
• and use

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Safety Issues Active Networks
Method Towards Protection

• Some techniques that may be used to protect
• the active nodes -
• Limitation Techniques - amount of time
• an active packet may be allowed to be
  executed.
• Failure tolerance techniques Duplicate, Store,
• redirect. Minus point - memory and bandwidth
• if possible the most important active packets
• should be given this priority.

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Safety Issues Active Networks
Method Towards Protection

• Some techniques that may be used to protect
• the active nodes -
• Encryption - active packets do not consist of
• clear text code and data.
• Combination of encryption and fault tolerance
• may give a better solution towards protecting
• active nodes and packets.

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Safety Issues Active Networks
Thank You