Page History

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Actual Attendees

Wajahat, Saqib, Umar, Les, Bebo, Taha (Skype ID nightwingduck, email taha.ali@seecs.edu.pk)Taha 

Others

Administration

• Membership of pinger-my is in https://groups.google.com.
• Bebo pointed out that the International Web Conference will be in San Francisco in 2019 (see http://www.wikicfp.com/cfp/servlet/event.showcfp?eventid=77195&copyownerid=85335).  Thereare a whole range of topics. He would love to see something submitted related to PingER.
  • Maybe something on Android PingER and potential uses.
• Bebo, possible interest in an MA in Jordan - 10/9/2018.
  • It is a university of Science and Technology.
  • He Bebo is looking to send the Home page: http://www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger/, plus  Remote Host site invitation letter template, Monitor Host site invitation letter template:(txt, doc), form to register a host to the contact. 
  • Bebo will look into inviting them to our next meeting on Nov 6th.

Action Items from previous meeting

• Future meetings are moved to Tuesdays Pacific time.
• Figure out how to move forward with the Android PingER project, in particular, schedule a meeting. 
  • Trying to set a date.
• Les: invited Dr. Taha to join the pinger-my email list.  Dr Taha joined 9/9/2018. Completed
• Wajahat: will provide a list of working or potentially working (e.g. being worked on) Pakistani MAs to Les. They are working on nodes as of email 10/6/2018.
• Saqib and Les: worked on being able to gather data from  2001:da8:270:2018:f816:3eff:fef3:bd3 IPv6 node in Beijing working again.
  • Les and Saqib added a lot of debugging capability, appears to be successfully working since 9/11/2018. - Completed
• Umar: update his section on the comparison IPv6 vs IPv4 ping RTTs and TCP vs ICMP/ping RTTs. Les sent reminder 10/3/2018., see below
• Johari: enter Umar and Dr. Taha into http://pinger.unimas.my/pinger/contact.php, Les sent reminder email 10/3/2018.
• Charnsak: We need to get the latest pinger2.pl measurement agent script installed at Ubru so we can get better logging and see why the other hosts are not being monitored. Les believes the current logging is sufficient. It would not hurt, in fact, provide a slight improvement, if it is updated. Completed.

...

• Amity MA is unreliable so using it for a case study does not appear fruitful. Les is working with Amity to try and understand this unreliability (emails 10/6/2018), they say "There is an internet problem we are taking care of it and will get back soon".
• The Android version of the PingER MA,is described with  comments at  ePingER on Android Native - Amity project (this a proposal/description from Aayush Jain)

  • It describes a multipurpose, stand-alone device that can be widely distributed, something that we have brainstormed about for a long time. 

    • We agreed to request Amity to share the App and instructions with us; we will look at installing on a jailbroken Android phone at the San Francisco end and try it out.

    •  They are working on a paper. They sent a  1st draft they have sent to Bebo and Les that we responded to 10/6/2018, a 2nd draft was responded to by Bebo and Les 10/13/2018. It has been submitted to EasyChair.

    • They will be attaching the android app for review after testing it again.

      • Topher  feels that the Android app (when completed and vetted by his team) could easily be installed as a default service on his rainforest monitors (certainly future ones, not devices already in place). Merging the service data that he already collects with that unique to PingER has the potential to lead to some interesting results.

    • Also August 16th and again September 3rd, then  October 6th and October 13th proposed a meeting between: Bebo, Umar and Les and the Amity folks.

    • The paper has an interesting suggestion for a way forward - TOPIC to discuss
      • Firebase Application: The need for a proxy server can be completely eliminated by shifting to a cloud-based architecture for managing files. Instead of SLAC pulling in the generated txt files from MAs around the world, the MAs can themselves push these files to a centralized application server hosted on the cloud; which makes it easier for SLAC to access files as per their need.
        Considering the great degree of integration capabilities Google offers with its products, the flexibility arising from using the Google Cloud Platform would be pronounced. Google’s Firebase is a mobile and web application development platform that provides developers with a variety of tools and services to help develop high-quality apps, that can scale easily as per changing demands, and which delivers 99.99% uptime. The Firebase SDK allows mobile app developers to quickly add critical and reliable functionality to their applications in a short time. The recommended option here would be to leverage the Cloud Storage for Firebase that allows robust uploads and downloads onto the Google Cloud Storage buckets. Apart from the user authentication module that comes bundled with Firebase, developers can also declare file security parameters so as to allow only certain file types to be uploaded. Having all user uploaded files in one place will then enable SLAC to access and process files as and when needed. Server-side processing can be done on the Google Cloud Platform as well, thereby eliminating any need for SLAC to maintain its own physical infrastructure. This form of implementation can be highly beneficial in any kind of region of the world, also including remote places, like deep inside tropical rainforests, or places that have recently been hit by a natural calamity. As this implementation model is not dependent on any local measuring agent, the android mobile apps can directly deliver data to SLAC over any form on internet connection in minimal time with high reliability.

  Thailand (No update 8/9/2018, No update 9/6/2018)

  • • • • • Bebo agrees it is another reduction on independence from SLAC. 
          • It is unclear whether it would work for China since Google services are not available there.
          • Is it only free for low utilization. 
            • Might work for a cache for the latest data, but not for all archived PingER data (hundreds of GB). 
          • It was developed for Android applications, might be good for Android/PingER
          • There may be traffic limits.
          • Umar suggests try for one node and see how it works out in practice

  Thailand (No update 8/9/2018, No update 9/6/2018)

  Looking at http://pinger6.cs.ubru.ac.th/cgi-bin/ping_dataLooking at http://pinger6.cs.ubru.ac.th/cgi-bin/ping_data.pl?admin_func=pinger_xml the IPv6 monitoring site pinger6.ubru.cs.ac.th has a pinger.xml configuration file with over 160 IPv6 targets. An example is:

  ...

  We need to think about how to handle these hosts with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. I am Les is leaning towards moving to the future and simply changing the IPv4 addresses to IPv6 addresses. In a few cases we few cases, we may be able to find two hosts at a site, using an IPv4 address on one and an IPv6 on the other. This is the simplest solution. Doing this loses having a historical record of a target with both an IPv4 and IPv6 address. Umar and Les have some scripts that enable comparisons to be made between access to a host via its IPV4 and its IPv6 address without using the PingER data. An alternative would be to also have a pseudo name for such ambiguous hosts, another would be to modify the database schema. Both of the latter two would require changes to the code in several places. Another alternative might be to create a second record using either the IPv4 or IPv6 address as the name. This requires no changes to the code but is pretty unpleasant. If one could find a CNAME as well as the regular name then one could use the CNAME for one of the addresses and the regular name for the other address.

  Charnsak is looking at a host in Champasak University, Chan Parsa province in Laos as a potential site for a PingER MA. Charnsak just got approved to make contact with the Champasak University. He expects to Charnsak is looking at a host in Champasak University, Chan Parsa province in Laos as a potential site for a PingER MA. Charnsak just got approved to make contact with the Champasak University. He expects to set up the MA in the next 4-5 months (say towards end 2018). It also depends on the partner university, and there may be a lot of paperwork.

  ...

  Les has sent Adib updates to Figs 3, 4, 5 to extend out to 2018. This is for the paper  Socio-economic Development Indices and Their Reflection on Internet Performance in ASEAN Countries

  Adib will submit the paper to World Development: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/world-development

  NUST:

  the paper  Socio-economic Development Indices and Their Reflection on Internet Performance in ASEAN Countries

  Adib will submit the paper to World Development: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/world-development

  NUST:

  Wajahat proposes to get a list of the new Universities in Pakistan and contact them encouraging them to participate in PingER and set up MA. They have made a list of new university sites, communications networks, Labs in different regions of Pakistan (especially the remote regions) and will make contact. 

  • The list of new universities is ready. Just need resources to engage them. 
  • Les pointed out that several Pakistani MAs have been disabled, i.e. the data is no longer gathered from them.  
    • Wajahat will provide a list of working or potentially working Pakistani MAs to Les, and if they are not enabled, Les will enter or re-enable the gathering of data from these MAs.
  • From Wajahat 10/6/2018. "We are working on the nodes you have mentioned. The intern is new and trying hard to understand the programs. Hopefully within a week he will start repairing the nodes."

  Wajahat proposes to get a list of the new Universities in Pakistan and contact them encouraging them to participate in PingER and set up MA. They have made a list of new university sites, communications networks, Labs in different regions of Pakistan (especially the remote regions) and will make contact. 

• The list of new universities is ready. Just need resources to engage them. 
• Les pointed out that several Pakistani MAs have been disabled, i.e. the data is no longer gathered from them.  
  • Wajahat will provide a list of working or potentially working Pakistani MAs to Les, and if they are not enabled, Les will enter or re-enable the gathering of data from these MAs.
From Wajahat 10/6/2018. "We are working on the nodes you have mentioned. The intern is new and trying hard to understand the programs. Hopefully within a week he will start repairing the nodes."


Wajahat says (7/10/2018): "I was discussing the blockchain related email that you sent earlier with Dr. Taha (security researcher at SEECS NUST). He was excited about it. He wanted to try a few things and had a few queries which I was not able to answer.  He might join us in our future meetings." DrTaha joined us for the previous meeting and the discussion follows:

• DrTaha joined this meeting. He has been working with BlockChain (BC) for 3-4 years and recently heard of Pinger
• He wondered about our interest in BC since there does not appear to be a strong security interest.  It appears to be mainly a storage issue. BC may be a hinderance since the data will be replicated.
• Bebo said the interest is more in the way of a decentralized system to reduce the dependence on SLAC.
• The proof of work is nothing like as complex as it is for the cryptocurrency.
• There are file storage technologies that are distributed but all the data is not at all the sites. In particular, the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterPlanetary_File_System) was mentioned. There is a draft paper.
• Saqib recently presented a paper (to be published) that used the IPFS and BC to handle issues in the current PingER architecture. Saqib's mobile connection was very poor so he provided the overview below:
  • 1. In this paper, we proposed nearly the same idea as you mentioned in our last skype meeting. We proposed to store the metadata of PingER measurements on the Blockchain whereas actual data is stored off-chain using IPFS file system. 
    2. For redundancy, we stored the data of each MA at 3 different locations (links of them are stored in BC)  so that it can be successfully retrieved in case the target MA is offline.
    3. We already have a set of 50+ MAs, we are thinking of utilizing them as a peer in BC network.
    4. We are more inclined towards the use of permissioned blockchain (currently our focus is Hyperledger Fabric) where consensus is not computational expensive as peers are pre-authenticated.

  •  This is just an initial idea. I am looking forward to having your comments and feedback.

• MIT has been working on a system using IPFS together with a revocation capability (e.g. for student degrees/diplomas).

• PingER does not have a need for revocation or editing of data.
•