modred team mailing list archive

[Scott Lawrence <bytbox@xxxxxxxxx>]

I want clients to be used for computation, and I want maximum
privacy+security given that restriction.  Some ideas:

With a large network, two computers can perform the same computation.
Furthermore, a smart modred hub can give fake problems to clients,
just to make sure that they're operating correctly.  A client that
isn't operating correctly gets cut. (No second chances! A program
could exploit that!)

If a user specifies a certain bit of data (SSN, for instance) as
highly sensitive, modred should know not to hand off that computation
to a client. (If it does by accident, it certainly should never hand
off the data.) privacy++

In all cases, computations should be anonymous. privacy++

Other ideas?


On 12/27/09, Frederic Koehler <fkfire@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> The idea for client-side computation implies that we have highly-trusted
> clients... (we know they won't provide invalid answers) Otherwise,
> client-side computation requires verifying answers and so is only useful for
> a few NP-ish problems. In addition (assuming trusted clients).
>
> Also, it means that, since computations can contain sensitive data, the
> abillity to spread the computation is limited - unless we know the
> computation is not user-sensitive, it can only try to use the user's
> client(s). This way we also know that the client has no interest in
> sabatoging answers to mess with other users (except to exploit server-side
> weaknesses, which is inevitable).
>
> On Sat, Dec 26, 2009 at 10:28 PM, Scott Lawrence <bytbox@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Here is what, as I envision it, will make modred unique (and hard):
>>
>>  * Support for clients who can come and leave, lending CPU time and
>> using CPU time as they choose.  There are some clusters that support
>> this, but not very many.
>>  * Support for computers participating across the internet.  This goes
>> along with the previous part, but remember we need security to make
>> this worth anything. This also means that user data could potentially
>> be passed to untrusted computers - we need a way to prevent this.
>>  * The ability for clients to run on any OS, using perl, python, java,
>> or (on unix systems) C and C++ (servers and the hub will need to run
>> on linux or at least another unix, or a dedicated OS which we may
>> decide to write)
>>  * Modred has great ease of use because it acts as a single unified
>> computer - a special client program exists that allows one to log in,
>> access and edit files, etc...  This is very close to unique - google
>> has it, though
>>
>> Because of that last point, many OS design issues should come up when
>> we code modred. (I think Freddy pointed this out?) Thus, we have a
>> chance to fix flaws in standard unix, incorporating plan 9-type stuff
>> (google it and read about it - Plan 9 from Bell Labs, the way the
>> future of unix was) while also creating an actually usable user
>> interface. (No offense, but to a newbie non-super-technical user,
>> linux is a bit harsh...)
>>
>> Some implementation questions and ideas:
>>
>>  - how will updates be handled?  Remember we've got 200 computers
>> potentially, some of which might be clients that want to participate
>> in multiple clusters.
>>
>>  - maybe we should have programs not include front ends.  Instead, the
>> modred software creates a front-end from the program's self
>> description.  This would enforce a consistent user interface if we
>> could implement it well
>>
>>  - how can we keep users from being able to snoop on each others' data?
>>
>> That's just a sample to get people thinking.
>>
>>
>> On 12/26/09, David Tolnay <dtolnay@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> > Before diving in to specifics about the implementation I think we need
>> > to decide how we want modred to be different from (read: better than)
>> > existing bootable cluster environments. Here is a short list to check
>> > out:
>> >
>> > Bootable Cluster CD (http://bccd.net/) - folks presented this at SC09
>> > in portland, it was pretty neat stuff. Packed with education /
>> > debugging / visualization features
>> >
>> > Oscar (http://svn.oscar.openclustergroup.org/trac/oscar) - very
>> > trivially simple way to transform an existing unix lab into a cluster
>> > resource
>> >
>> > Lnx-bbc (http://www.lnx-bbc.com/) - includes cowsay!
>> >
>> > Perceus/warewulf (http://www.perceus.org/portal/) - a lot of other
>> > sites made reference to this, haven't read too much about it
>> >
>> > What specifically do you want to improve over any of these?
>> >
>> >
>> > On 12/25/09, Frederic Koehler <fkfire@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> So, as far as I understand this project, the idea is to build
>> >> both a client library and a program using the library to do clustering
>> >> stuff, along with matching server/hub foo (the library might be the
>> >> same
>> >> or
>> >> whatever, not important).
>> >>
>> >> So from this understanding, it seems that the system should provide
>> >> some
>> >> basic pseudo-operating system stuff and programs can build on that,
>> >> just
>> >> like they would normally build on their local libc/kernel and stuff.
>> >>
>> >> So (I sure like the word "so" today...) if we want the type of general
>> >> os-like stuff it seems their needs to be support for:
>> >>    * A simpe message passing model - abstract away all the TCP-foo,
>>  maybe
>> >> use existing foo here (obviously needs fleshing out)
>> >>    * Permanent storage IO (clone the unix write(), read(), open() and
>> >> sync()
>> >> model,  or maybe just use one of the existing database-ish nosql things
>> >> out
>> >> there)
>> >>            - Unix-ish model - you create your data hunk, say you want
>> all
>> >> this stuff in it, then after sync() we know it's actually somewhere
>> >> written
>> >> on a hard-drive, and other things can read it too
>> >>            - Unless this isn't in fact needed (but I assume it is)
>> >>            - Also need to figure out if it's filesystem-ish foo
>> >> (hierarchial) we want or more relational database-ish stuff
>> >>
>> >>    * A task delegation model - some type of map/reduce-ish stuff
>> >>           - Servers have a few built-in computations, and client
>> utilizes
>> >> them?
>> >>           - Or more complex, servers run sandboxed computational code?
>> >>    * A security system?
>> >>         - Needs fleshing out
>> >>         - Presumably what the "hub" manages - it's the trusted thing
>> >>         - Obviously, not everybody is allowed to use the cluster for
>> >> computation, not everybody can find out what everybody else is doing,
>> etc.
>> >>       - But also, is their a limit on storage, are some things
>> prioritized
>> >> over others, ?
>> >>
>> >> Theroretically, server's are written to provide the io backend and to
>> >> allow
>> >> for task delegation, clients use the api, although hub has it's work
>> >> cut
>> >> out
>> >> delegating all the file io and figuring out what the state of that is.
>> >>
>> >> On top of some mixture of this, one could build a simple unix-ish
>> >> pseudo-cli, theroretically, as well as real software.
>> >>
>> >> Anyway, before actually doing anything, people should read about PVM
>> >> (Parallel Virtual Machine) and the like (maybe also Hadoop and other
>> >> foo-ish
>> >> stuff) so Modred isn't just a bad clone of it
>> >>
>> >> Anyway, (yes, twice in a row!), I figured _someone_ had to respond to
>> >> Scott,
>> >> otherwise he'd feel all lonely and sad :P Now he can have a warm fuzzy
>> >> feeling of deep confusion and uncertainty instead :P
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Fri, Dec 25, 2009 at 11:06 PM, Scott Lawrence <bytbox@xxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>> >> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> >> > From: Scott Lawrence <bytbox@xxxxxxxxx>
>> >> > Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2009 19:20:13 -0500
>> >> > Subject: Design Overview
>> >> > To: modred <modred@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> >> >
>> >> > I'm going to assume that everyone understands the basic concepts for
>> >> > modred: a set of networked computers (by 'networked' I mean, they're
>> >> > all on the internet), divided for the sake of discussion into three
>> >> > classes: the 'hub' (the dude in charge, who compupters who want to
>> >> > join connect to), the 'servers' (dedicated computers that can be
>> >> > pretty much relied on not to go down, although redundancy is always
>> >> > nice), and the 'clients' (computers that send in requests and can be
>> >> > used for spare CPU cycles.
>> >> >
>> >> > Ok, so much for assumptions... :-)
>> >> >
>> >> > Things *I* think any design should emphasize:
>> >> >  * security.
>> >> >  * relative ease of use, while retaining significant power.
>> >> > Challenging.  In particular, it should be possible to set up a modred
>> >> > network in under an hour, provided the computers are already set up.
>> >> >  * along with the previous bullet point, having an interface that
>> >> > lets
>> >> > one use the entire network like a single computer.  This is sort of
>> >> > like the way google docs works, except the cloud is private
>> >> >  * therefore, it should be a multi-user system with well-designed
>> >> > privileges etc...
>> >> >
>> >> > I'm not going to discuss my implementation ideas, let's hear others
>> >> > first.
>> >> >
>> >> > --
>> >> > Scott Lawrence
>> >> >
>> >> > Webmaster
>> >> > The Blair Robot Project
>> >> > Montgomery Blair High School
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > --
>> >> > Scott Lawrence
>> >> >
>> >> > Webmaster
>> >> > The Blair Robot Project
>> >> > Montgomery Blair High School
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
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>> >>
>> >
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Scott Lawrence
>>
>> Webmaster
>> The Blair Robot Project
>> Montgomery Blair High School
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>


-- 
Scott Lawrence

Webmaster
The Blair Robot Project
Montgomery Blair High School