On Inferring Autonomous System Relationships in the Internet

This paper proposes a method to explore relationships between ASes, which were described in the previous paper. These relationships can provide insights into network traffic and optimal interdomain routing policy. The author suggests that BGP routing table entries can be used to generate graphs that accurately represent AS relationships. The communication subsystem is only one among several possible sources of error for the described mechanism. Since the file transfer application must perform an extensive end-to-end check even in the presence of low-level reliability measures, the communication subsystem should not implement expensive functionality to guarantee reliability. The degree of low-level reliability to strive for should be carefully determined based on the performance tradeoff. Low-level functionality may be efficient for applications that can perfectly leverage the provided reliability measures; on the other hand, it may force applications to bear the burden regardless of whether they actually require the reliability measures.

Even though this paper was an interesting read, it isn't quite as fundamental to the Internet as the previous papers. Reading this immediately after the Interdomain Internet Routing is a great idea for two reasons - the author elaborates on aspects of AS routing policy that may have been previously unclear and the reader already has a basic understanding of the topic before trying to delve into the proposed algorithm and method for generating graphs that depict AS relationships. I'm not sure if this is vital for the syllabus.