Internet Research: Comments on Formulating the Problem

This note contains a discussion about formulating the research problem for Internet research. The goal of this note is to further the discussion of implicit and explicit assumptions in network research. In particular, this note tries to articulate one such set of assumptions for Internet research. Each of these assumptions is shared by some subset of the network research community, though perhaps none of these assumptions are shared universally. The goal of this paper is not to argue the validity of the assumptions, but to articulate them, to invite discussion of conflicting or shared sets of assumptions, and to consider the implications of these assumptions in formulating problems in Internet research. This process would aim for both a greater convergence of underlying assumptions, and a more explicit and examined discussion of those assumptions. In some sense, this note is in the tradition of Shenker et al.' s paper on ”Pricing in Computer Networks: Reshaping the Research Agenda” [Shenker96], which is a discussion about formulating the research problem for the specific area of network pricing. This note does not address questions about how to design good protocols or write good papers; many of these questions are addressed elsewhere [ADVICE, Lampson84]. This note simply addresses the question of how to formulate the research problem. The first part of the paper briefly describes some underlying assumptions. The second part discusses implications of these assumptions in formulating research problems in various areas of Internet research.