Using Self-interest to Prevent Malice Fixing the Denial of Service Flaw of the Internet
Bob Briscoe, Martlesham Heath · 2006
This paper describes the economic intent of a proposed change to the Internet protocol. Denial of service is the extreme of a spectrum of anti-social behaviour problems it aims to solve, but without unduly restricting unexpected new uses of the Internet. By internalising externalities and removing information asymmetries it should trigger evolutionary deployment of protections for Internet users. To be worthwhile architectural change must solve the last stages of the arms race, not just the next. So we work through the competitive process to show the solution will eventually block attacks that other researchers consider unsolvable, and that it creates the right incentives to drive its own deployment, from bootstrap through to completion. It also encourages deployment of complementary solutions, not just our own. Interestingly, small incentives in the lower layer infrastructure market amplify to ensure operators block attacks worth huge sums on the black market in the upper layers.