On information hiding and network management

Abstract

No single administration controls the entire Internet. Instead, competing providers work together to enforce of a wide variety of network management policies, including policies that limit the flow of management information itself. In many cases these policies are designed to keep information about the state of the network from "leaking" outside the network. In this position paper, we consider the ramifications of such information-hiding policies for network management. We discuss mechanisms that might be used to enforce such policies, and argue for an open access policy. Copyright 2006 ACM.