[mat-wg] Proposal for public HTTP measurements

hi Robert, all,

This seems, in general, like a good balance of the tradeoff in utility and security with respect to research questions.

> On 05 Jan 2015, at 13:59, Robert Kisteleki <robert at ripe.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> Dear RIPE Atlas users,
> 
> The topic of publicly available HTTP measurements in RIPE Atlas comes up
> from time to time. There were a number of discussions about pros and cons
> for this feature over the years (including exposing probe hosts to
> unnecessary risks of other users "measuring" just about any kind of HTTP
> content out there), with no firm outcome.
> 
> While we understand that this feature would come handy for some of our
> users, it does not benefit everyone. Therefore our proposal is the following:
> 
> 1. We'll enable HTTP measurements to be performed by all atlas users, from
> any probes.
> 
> 2. The targets of such measurements can only be RIPE Atlas anchors (these
> already run HTTP servers, see https://atlas.ripe.net/docs/anchors/).

Since the target will be an anchor which has known expected content, will these measurements include some indication of whether application-layer rewriting was detected?

Thanks, cheers,

Brian

> 3. Parameters like costs, minimum frequency, maximum number of probes
> involved, etc. will be set by the development team, just as with the other
> measurements.
> 
> 4. The RIPE NCC will still be able to support other, vetted HTTP
> measurements as long as it benefits the community, as well as other HTTP
> measurements that we deem operationally useful. These will be evaluated on a
> case by case basis.
> 
> 
> Please speak up at the MAT working group list (mat-wg at ripe.net) if you
> support / don't support this proposal, of if you have any other opinion
> about it.
> 
> Regards,
> Robert Kisteleki
> RIPE NCC R&D manager, for the RIPE Atlas team