The Thread Internet-of-Things stack

Posted Jul 30, 2015 14:13 UTC (Thu) by rriggs (guest, #11598)
In reply to: The Thread Internet-of-Things stack by marcH
Parent article: The Thread Internet-of-Things stack

Auto-configuring networks are fine and dandy if they are local-only. The key thing missing from all of those examples that you cite is the ability to form an "internet".

The Thread Internet-of-Things stack

Posted Jul 30, 2015 14:43 UTC (Thu) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (4 responses)

You missed the "broadened our horizon" clause.

> Auto-configuring networks are fine and dandy if they are local-only.

You seem to be implying some mutual exclusion? There is none; just this: https://xkcd.com/927/

The Thread Internet-of-Things stack

Posted Jul 30, 2015 16:11 UTC (Thu) by ortalo (guest, #4654) [Link] (3 responses)

I don't really agree. Routable IPv4 is pretty easy to configure.

Problem is that in mid-90s, no more IPv4 networks were available for end users so most never experienced the nirvana of being *in* the internet (and not simply, *connected* to him).
Then we had the NAT config fix up moments until DHCP ruled them all and HTTP replaced IP in the heart of all followers... (sob)

BTW, is the autoconfiguration capability of those IoT architectures coming from IPv6 or from specific things?

The Thread Internet-of-Things stack

Posted Jul 30, 2015 16:53 UTC (Thu) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (2 responses)

The most basic auto-configuration and user-friendliness test is this: plug two systems back to back and ping one from the other. With the *name* you gave to the target system, not using some random digits! If this were working, Apple wouldn't have had to implement Zeroconf (among other attempts). And we would see users doing it all the time - as opposed to almost never. IPv4 deprived us of this most basic feature for three decades.

For the second most basic test try the same with wireless; good luck.

Bluetooth understood at least this.

Agreed that NATs and firewalls came and made it all even worse. Best firewall quote: https://lwn.net/Articles/596156/
> "If you take a step back and think about it, it makes about as much sense as checking file system permissions by observing I/O requests sent to the disk controller."

The Thread Internet-of-Things stack

Posted Jul 30, 2015 18:45 UTC (Thu) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link] (1 responses)

> "If you take a step back and think about it, it makes about as much sense as checking file system permissions by observing I/O requests sent to the disk controller."

IMO a fair apples-to-apples comparison there would be the security modules subsystem. Both those and iptables seem to be implementations of "increasing a system's complexity until there are no obvious deficiencies".

SELinux digression

Posted Jul 30, 2015 19:35 UTC (Thu) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

I just can't stop thinking about this simple fact: SELinux was sponsored by the NSA. It's like the perfect backdoor, with "perfect" as in "perfect crime"; so complex that you don't even need to plant any actual backdoor: you just let naive users shoot themselves in the foot and misconfigure policies. And the usual complexity bonus: they've been distracted away from other measures.

The bigger the lie...?