Daniel Karrenberg wrote on 5/16/13 1:13 AM:
I know that you intend to limit the risk by restricting source addresses and of course by getting consent of the probe hosts. I am just afraid that even asking the question will make some hosts doubt that we will not harm their networks and their connectivity.
I understand this concern. But IMO the trust in Atlas probes comes from the way classes of the experiments (and their capabilities) are vetted and agreed, its transparency in particular. I don't think we have a problem here. The evilness of IP-spoofing comes from the ability to spoof traffic to mount a reflector attack. Not sure how "illegal" IP-spoofing is per se. In this respect I don't see how a controlled spoofer test is much different from a ping test. Probably, it is a bit more homeopathic.
All I am asking is that we not blindly charge ahead with an experiment that we all find exciting and useful before we have fully considered the risks and we have a clear consensus that the result is worth the risk. For this we need to evaluate the potential result too. For instance it is important to know the distribution of probes that are not NATed. We also have to consider alternative, less risky methods the achieve the result.
Without credible data I don't see how we can increase peer pressure and accountability. And without that - how to address the problem. So I think the value of such data collection is high. But the devil is in the details. Perhaps we can start describing the experiment in more concrete terms. What would be the best way to do this? Andrei