[Brown CS Talks] Brown CS IPP Seminar: Radia Perlman in Lubrano on February 21, at 4 pm.

[talks-admin@list.cs.brown.edu]

			     IPP SEMINAR

		  The Department of Computer Science
			   BROWN UNIVERSITY
			       
			       presents

			    Radia Perlman
			       
			Distinguished Engineer
			   Sun Microsystem

		    
		 Thursday, February 21, 2002 at 4 pm

	       Lubrano Conference Room (CIT 4th Floor)

	       Refreshments will be served at 3:45 pm


	``Myths, Missteps, and Folklore in Network Protocols''
 
			       
			       Abstract

Network protocol design is not a nice, clean science, where what gets
deployed is the best possible design. Instead, designs are influenced
by issues such as politics, general confusion, and backward
compatibility. Statements get made, and repeated, until it never
occurs to anyone to question whether they're true.  Mistakes get made,
and rather than backing up and fixing them, kludges are introduced to
make things sort of work.  This talk discusses how some of the odder
things we live with (e.g., bridges) came about, and interesting bad
protocol designs that have been standardized and/or deployed. Mistakes
include unscalable protocols (source route bridges), inappropriate
APIs (IP multicast), and unstable protocols (ARPANET link state
flooding, BGP).  The talk is intended to be provocative, making people
question the things they have always taken for granted.


Note: The speaker will be available to answer questions about the
company.


		    Host: Professor Michael Black