2013-10-16Stop the Silos: The road to federated RTCPresented by Robin RaymondChief Architect,Hookflash / OpenPeer.org

AgendaCase Study: Open Peers FederationWhy is Federation Important?Features Needed For FederationWhen Alice met BobChallenges aheadThe World of RTC Today

The World of RTC Today

100 Year Old Technology Still Works Best!(anyone can call anywhere on the planet at any time)

Legacy / RTC Interactions(bridging often happens to the legacy network in an attempt at universal access)

Big SocialCan we play in your sandbox?

Silo Apps(with varying degrees of interoperability but for the most part still islands of users)

Protocols(promise a universal standard for RTC but isnt solving federated access well)

WebRTC the future is now!

When Alice met Bob

Alice calls BobThis is how Alice and Bob are seen in RTC.

But who are Alice and Bob anyway?

Alice isnt just a characterShes a real person.

She has a career, friends, interests,+shes online.

Alice is known at work by

Alice is in communication with friends

Alice has interests

And so does Bob

Why is Federation Important?

Unless Alice and Bob are logged into a common website they cant talk!?

Alice and Bob Live in Communication Silos

While Alice and Bob use different websites They are friends! So why cant they talk?

Alice should be able to be one person behind the scenes

Federation is important!(Your website is not a silo)Why cant they talk together?foo.combar.com

?How does Alice contact Bob online?

when Alice and Bob have so many different online identities?

WebRTC enable every website! correct?!?

Buzzzt! Nope.

How does a user on one website talk to a user on another?(no magic solution)?

Welcome to browser tab hellWhos going to put up with the inevitable:

PopupsBouncing tabsTab per website identityBackground ding sounds with no clear indicatorBadly integrated communication interfaces

Maintaining an active identity connected to each website is not practice on mobileImagine switching apps constantly to talk between friends while draining your battery because of constant per site keep-alives.

Is single sign-on the solution?not quite...

allows you to login to "generic website with another sites credentialsoffers limited and non uniform control over other sites

Big Social Solution?This is where we are going today

Top social websites and services fight for communication dominanceUnless you are in that group, this is bad for building your own communitySpecial interest social websites cant play in this sandboxNeglects online social migration that occurs over time

Your Telco's Solution:450-555-1212Every website is reduced to a telephone number behind the scenes:

Are Common Backend Protocols the Solution?Part of the solution, but not the answer

Where is the address book of friends from all the various websites?How does a user coordinate a between websites?How does Alice find Bob using the unknown backend protocol account?Does Alice have to friend twice because of protocol demands?Must Alice and Bob create a single communication account and register it with each website or does each site maintain its own communication account?

What Features / Services are needed to support Federation?

A device or web app must be able to represent all identities across federated domains(thus no need for the user to maintain an open application per identity)

A single communication service provider may be used for all identities(thus no need for application to maintain an active session to a service provider per identity)

Login once, associate all other identities(to be able to associate all web facing identities behind the scenes to a single person)

Login into any identity on another device, represent all identities(do we really want to force a user to login to each identity again per device they own?)

Collect identity contact lists from various sources.(have up to date lists of all of your contacts)Social ContactsAddress BooksOther sources (e.g. LDAP)

Lookup Identity mapping to Communication Service Providers(thus never losing touch with all of your contacts even you or they migrate across services)

Connect Across Communication Service Providers(shouldnt matter who is providing the backend service)

Case Study: How Federation works in Open Peer

What is Open Peer?Open sourced protocol for federated secure peer-to-peer RTC

Philosophy Ever person owns their own private / public key pairAB4C59DEF38584FFE32AABC12Contact ID

Domain + Contact ID =Everything you need to contact a user in Open Peerpeer://provider.com/AB4C59DEF385Contact ID

Server Philosophy they are (dumb) facilitatorsApps use servers like an army knife of tools but all communication is peer to peer.(they assist in finding identities and connecting peers and go then go away)

Identity ServiceLogin / Authorization (web extension API supports OAuth, persona, 3rd party custom login, etc) Registration register public key, service provider and contact IDValidation (signature proof of an identity belonging to communication account)

Identity Lookup Service(resolves each identity public key, contact ID and service provider)

Identity Lockbox ServiceIdentity Lockbox remembers identity associations, stores keying material and/or other data(but encrypted in ways it cannot decrypt)

Finder ServiceGiven a public key, contact ID and a domain, find + handshake peers to talk directlyfoo.com(service)bar.com(service)AB4C59DEF38584FFE32AABC12(find peer across federated domains)

Rolodex Extension Service(for simple contact lists, helps clients download delta changes in contacts from identity providers)

Put it together = Federated Open PeerIdentityRolodexAliceLookupFinderfoo.combar.comFinderLockboxBob

Challenges ahead

Competing Communication StandardsEach will play a role, can they be bridged? which will dominate long term?

VersioningRapid technology progress could introduce incompatibilities and growing pains between federated domainsTHENNOW

WebRTC will make more silos(unless developers care)?

Legacy is a benefit and a curseWill RTC federation get reduced to the lowest common dominator for another 100 years?

Resourceshttp://openpeer.org/

http://about.me/robinraymond

*three examples will use as building blocks to make a web video chat appexamples will be less about API specifics and more about concepts since API is still under flux********************People like to make fun of the telephone network as archaic (myself included) but its survived 100 years and allows any user to contact any other userYou could bring about a revolution in communications and replace the telephone networkWont happen if we continue to treat out websites as silos and dont get communication across websitesPlenty of room to innovate and be the best at whatever you do without penning your users away from he rest of the world************************************