Re: Draft finding - "Transitioning the Web to HTTPS"

On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 7:37 PM, David Sheets <kosmo.zb@gmail.com> wrote:
> Pervasive low-bandwidth and power/CPU constrained edge networks are
> going to become very common.

The case where a caching proxy helps in theory is when the uplink is
constrained compared to the edge network from the proxy to the end
point. If the edge network is itself slow, the case for proxy caches
is weak even on theoretical grounds.

> Smarter hub nodes with
> minimal/intermittent uplink could profitably serve signed/hashed
> resources in a proxy context

Why would these "things" all be requesting the same large resources?
(Surely the "things" aren't all requesting currently-popular movies on
the same edge network.)

> for use cases where confidentiality is
> not necessary and direct HTTPS authority is too heavy.

What are these use cases? Isn't the expectation that the "things" on
the Internet of Things will be even closer to people and, therefore,
be even more privacy-sensitive than what we have now?

> Is the Web going to be part of the "Internet of Things"?

I think debating that question requires agreement on what the Web is.
See https://www.mnot.net/blog/2014/12/04/what_is_the_web

If you assume the proxy to be near the "thing" in the Internet of
things, it implies the "thing" would be a client--i.e. a Web browser.
The W3C has already been through an era when it was claimed that
limited browsers on underpowered devices were important. Writing specs
with that assumption turned out to be a mistake: The Web really took
off on mobile once the devices became powerful enough to run the kind
of browser engine desktop browser also use.

As for the "thing" in the Internet of things being a Web server,
there's less relevance to proxies on the edge network where the
"thing" resides.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@hsivonen.fi
https://hsivonen.fi/

Received on Thursday, 15 January 2015 16:00:27 UTC