Paper Review:
TCP Congestion Control with a Misbehaving Router

Reviewer: Robert Dugas

Problem

The problem addressed is that of malicious hosts in a trust-based congestion control framework.

Contribution

This paper serves to identify and mitigate the significant risks posed by malicious hosts (receivers) in current TCP deployments.

Main Ideas

Critique

Significance:4
This paper seems to represent the first recognition of trouble with the trust based congestion control mechanisms utilized by TCP. Not only does it underscore the significance of these such attacks, but also describes the general shift toward the deployment of adversarial rather than trust-based schema.

Methodology:
The primary methodology used by the paper is do enumerate various points in the tcp congestion control protocol at which vulnerabilities can be exploited. Testing is then conducted to show the drastic nature of the flaws, and nmap probing reveals the extent to which vulnerabilities exist.

Limitation:
The applicability of the problems and solutions in this paper are limited only by users' inclinations to play by the rules. That is to say, there are virtually no limitations.

Lessons:
The primary take-away from this paper I believe is to recognize the sea change in thinking about transactions on the internet. No longer can cooperation be safely considered the norm, instead one must assume malious users and design accordingly.