We are the Network Architecture Lab, and we work on fundamental questions regarding network system design:
- Can we infer network behavior from external observations? We proved the feasibility of network neutrality inference [ paper ]. Earlier, we relaxed the assumption of link independence in network performance inference [ paper ].
- Can we improve Internet transparency? We showed how Internet service providers can produce verifiable traffic receipts—report their own performance in a way that prevents them from lying [ paper ].
- Is Internet transparency compatible with user privacy? We started exploring the trade-off between Internet transparency and Tor anonymity [ paper ]. Georgia won an IRTF Applied Networking Research Prize for this work!
- How should we write packet-processing software, such that we can reason about its semantics? We presented the first formally verified NAT written in C [ project page, paper ], then the first framework for verifying software network functions with no verification expertise [ project page, paper ].
- How should we write packet-processing software, such that we can reason about its performance? We proposed the idea of performance contracts and showed how to compute such contracts for packet-processing functions [ project page, paper ].