On Community-Oriented Internet Measurement

Abstract

In this paper we describe a new measurement framework that researchers can use to abstract away some of the mundane logistic details that tend to dog every measurement project. The measurement community has outlined the need for better ways to gather assessments from a multitude of vantage points and our system is designed to be an open community-oriented response to this desire. While many previous efforts have approached this problem with heavyweight systems that ultimately fizzle due to logistical issues (e.g., hosts breaking and no money to replace them) we take the opposite approach and attempt to use the lightest possible weight framework that allows researchers to get their work done. In particular, we take the approach of designing a system without any sort of central “core” component and therefore the system has no single point of failure. In addition, our proposed system is community-oriented in that there is no central control and we build just enough mechanism for the community to get their work done and police the infrastructure. In addition, our proposed system works in an open fashion such that results from the community’s infrastructure are immediately provided to the community through publicly available “live feeds”.