Adaptive and Selective Packet Marking in Communication Networks

We propose a novel traceback approach that marks IP traffic by applying selective marking and reducing load mechanisms. Our technique is adaptive and is exploiting any specific properties that help characterizing an activity in communication traffic. It helps reducing problems such as processing overhead, bandwidth overload, detecting security attacks, and handling encrypted traffic. The selective character of our method reduces tremendously the performance cost observed with other marking approaches. The approach is applied to TCP traffic, for which an IP traceback has been implemented and integrated into what is called "Click software router". Finally, a comparative study is made with the Deterministic Packet Marking technique. Key-Words: IP traceback, selective marking, mark, SYN traffic, Three-way TCP Handshake, Click.