SocialVPN: Enabling wide-area collaboration with integrated social and overlay networks

• Published in: Computer networks (Amsterdam, Netherlands : 1999) Netherlands : 1999), 2010-08, Vol.54 (12), p.1926-1938
• Main Authors: Juste, Pierre St, Wolinsky, David, Oscar Boykin, P., Covington, Michael J., Figueiredo, Renato J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Architecture; Collaboration; Collaborative systems; Computer architecture; Computer networks; Construction; Cryptography; Decentralized; Infrastructure; Network security; Networks; Overlay networks; P2P networks; Peers; Prototypes; Socialvpn; Studies; Tunnels (transportation); Virtual networks; Virtual private networks; Wide area networks
• ISSN: 1389-1286; 1872-7069
• DOI: 10.1016/j.comnet.2009.11.019

Trusted collaborative systems require peers to be able to communicate over private, authenticated end-to-end channels. Network-layer approaches such as Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) exist, but require considerable setup and management which hinder the establishment of ad-hoc collaborative environments: trust needs to be established, cryptographic keys need to be exchanged, and private network tunnels need to be created and maintained among end users. In this paper, we propose a novel system architecture which leverages existing social infrastructures to enable ad-hoc VPNs which are self-configuring, self-managing, yet maintain security amongst trusted and untrusted third parties. The key principles of our approach are: (1) self-configuring virtual network overlays enable seamless bi-directional IP-layer connectivity to socially connected parties; (2) online social networking relationships facilitate the establishment of trust relationships among peers; and (3) both centralized and decentralized databases of social network relationships can be securely integrated into existing public-key cryptography (PKI) implementations to authenticate and encrypt end-to-end traffic flows. The main contribution of this paper is a new peer-to-peer overlay architecture that securely and autonomously creates VPN tunnels connecting social peers, where online identities and social networking relationships may be obtained from centralized infrastructures, or managed in a decentralized fashion by the peers themselves. This paper also reports on the design and performance of a prototype implementation that embodies the SocialVPN architecture. The SocialVPN router builds upon IP-over-P2P (IPOP) virtual networks and a PKI-based tunneling infrastructure, which integrates with both centralized and decentralized social networking systems including Facebook, the Drupal open-source content management system, and emailing systems with PGP support. We demonstrate our prototype’s ability to support existing, unmodified TCP/IP applications while transparently dealing with user connectivity behind Network Address Translators (NATs). We also present qualitative and quantitative analyses of functionality and performance based on wide-area network experiments using PlanetLab and Amazon EC2.