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Re: AW: [Handle-info] CNRI Handle Extension for Firefox

Hi Eric,


I doubt that people notice how many Handles they can resolve
per second, but it gives a big negative feeling to see that
it takes minutes to resolve ONE Handle because of firewalls.

So my opinion is that the plugin default should be HTTP even
if that reduces maximum speed as estimated by you from 20 to
two Handles resolved per second...

I agree that individuals are unlikely to notice the difference, but the proxy sure notices :)

We've got a solution on the way that uses the best default for any network environment without introducing any inefficient defaults or obscure configuration settings. Robert will announce it when it is available.


Security is always improved using the native resolution protocol because
it avoids the possibility of DNS cache poisoning, DNS messages spoofing,
and general interference with the non-SSL hdl.handle.net or dx.doi.org 

Interesting point. How does performance of "signed native
protocol" compare to "HTTP via SSL" proxy based resolution?

From the client's point of view, most SSL/TLS connections take about 300-400ms to initiate, and then a smaller amount of time to actually exchange data. Secure handle resolution takes about 76ms. These are informal numbers that I've just tested with a browser and separate handle client. But the point is really that even a little bit of efficiency improvement on the client means huge improvements to the overall system, and especially the proxies.

You can let the proxy server name point to several servers
for load balancing and fail-over, and the plugin could know
a number of proxy servers to have alternatives if one fails.

I agree that the plugin could and should do this.

If there will be a config interface, it can also be used to
enable UDP resolution manually - or even in a scripted way
for those who do mass-installs of Firefox... Having config
interfaces, even GUI ones, is common for Firefox plugins.

I used to be a fan of configuration interfaces, but I think in this case the extension should automatically detect the right way to resolve handles. I doubt many people would know what to select if given the choice of UDP, TCP, HDL-over-HTTP and HTTP proxy :)

Cheers,
Sean


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