Good cop, Bad Cop: Forcing Middleboxes to Cooperate

In this paper we discuss two fundamentally different directions in which we can improve address the status quo. Our first proposal is a “good cop”: we present an API endpoints can use to understand the contract offered by the network, and discusses how one might implement this API. We find a few win-win scenarios where both the mobile and the operator gain from collaborating, but it is arguable whether these are enough for this API (or one similar) to be deployed. Our second proposal is a “bad cop” and proposes that all apps use a multitude of tunnels at all times: it treats middleboxes as adversaries and tries to render ineffective any policing they do, while still offering efficient communication. We believe that our good cop-bad cop approach can force network operators to setup their middleboxes such they behave better to the endpoints in the near future….

Costin Raiciu, Vladimir Olteanu and Radu Stoenescu – position paper in the IAB Workshop on Stack Evolution in a Middlebox Internet (SEMI) 2015, Zurich, Switzerland.