Stop the Silos: The road to federated RTC Presented by Robin Raymond Chief Architect, Hookflash / OpenPeer.org

Agenda Stop the Silos: The road to federated RTC Case Study: Open Peers Federation Why is Federation Important? Features Needed For Federation When Alice met Bob Challenges ahead The World of RTC Today

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

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

Big Social The World of RTC Today Can we play in your sandbox?

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

Protocols The World of RTC Today (promise a universal standard for RTC but isnt solving federated access well)

WebRTC – the future is now! The World of RTC Today

When Alice met Bob… Who are Alice and Bob?

Alice calls Bob Who are Alice and Bob? This is how Alice and Bob are seen in RTC. But who are Alice and Bob anyway?

Alice isnt just a character Who are Alice and Bob? Shes a real person. She has a career, friends, interests, + shes online.

Alice is known at work by… Who are Alice and Bob?

Alice is in communication with friends… Who are Alice and Bob?

Alice has interests… Who are Alice and Bob?

And so does Bob… Who are Alice and Bob?

Why is Federation Important?

Unless Alice and Bob are logged into a common website they cant talk! Why is Federation Important? ? ?

Alice and Bob Live in Communication Silos Why is Federation Important?

While Alice and Bob use different websites… They are friends! So why cant they talk? Why is Federation Important?

Alice should be able to be one person behind the scenes… Why is Federation Important?

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

? ? How does Alice contact Bob online?

…when Alice and Bob have so many different online identities? How does Alice contact Bob online?

WebRTC enable every website! How does Alice contact Bob online? … correct?!?

Buzzzt! Nope. How does Alice contact Bob online?

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

Welcome to browser tab hell… How does Alice contact Bob online? Whos going to put up with the inevitable: Popups Bouncing tabs Tab per website identity Background ding sounds with no clear indicator Badly integrated communication interfaces

Maintaining an active identity connected to each website is not practice on mobile How does Alice contact Bob online? Imagine switching apps constantly to talk between friends while draining your battery because of constant per site keep-alives.

Is single sign-on the solution? What is the solution? …not quite... allows you to login to "generic website with another sites credentials offers limited and non uniform control over other sites

Big Social Solution? What is the solution? This is where we are going today… Top social websites and services fight for communication dominance Unless you are in that group, this is bad for building your own community Special interest social websites cant play in this sandbox Neglects online social migration that occurs over time

Your Telco's Solution: What is the solution? Every website is reduced to a telephone number behind the scenes:

Are Common Backend Protocols the Solution? What is 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 What Features / Services are needed to support Federation? (thus no need for the user to maintain an open application per identity)

A single communication service provider may be used for all identities What Features / Services are needed to support Federation? (thus no need for application to maintain an active session to a service provider per identity)

Login once, associate all other identities What Features / Services are needed to support Federation? (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 What Features / Services are needed to support Federation? (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. What Features / Services are needed to support Federation? (have up to date lists of all of your contacts) Social Contacts Address Books Other sources (e.g. LDAP)

Lookup Identity mapping to Communication Service Providers What Features / Services are needed to support Federation? (thus never losing touch with all of your contacts even you or they migrate across services)

Connect Across Communication Service Providers What Features / Services are needed to support Federation? (shouldnt matter who is providing the backend service)

Case Study: How Federation works in Open Peer

What is Open Peer? Case Study: How Federation works in Open Peer Open sourced protocol for federated secure peer-to-peer RTC

Philosophy – Ever person owns their own private / public key pair Case Study: How Federation works in Open Peer AB4C59DEF385…84FFE32AABC12… Contact ID

Domain + Contact ID = Everything you need to contact a user in Open Peer Case Study: How Federation works in Open Peer peer://provider.com/AB4C59DEF385… Contact ID

Server Philosophy – they are (dumb) facilitators Case Study: How Federation works in Open Peer Apps 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 Service Case Study: How Federation works in Open Peer Login / Authorization (web extension API supports OAuth, persona, 3rd party custom login, etc) Registration – register public key, service provider and contact ID Validation (signature proof of an identity belonging to communication account)

Identity Lookup Service Case Study: How Federation works in Open Peer (resolves each identity public key, contact ID and service provider)

Identity Lockbox Service Case Study: How Federation works in Open Peer Identity Lockbox remembers identity associations, stores keying material and/or other data (but encrypted in ways it cannot decrypt)

Finder Service Case Study: How Federation works in Open Peer Given a public key, contact ID and a domain, find + handshake peers to talk directly foo.com (service) bar.com (service) AB4C59DEF385… 84FFE32AABC12… (find peer across federated domains)

Rolodex Extension Service Case Study: How Federation works in Open Peer (for simple contact lists, helps clients download delta changes in contacts from identity providers)

Put it together = Federated Open Peer Case Study: How Federation works in Open Peer IdentityRolodex Alice Lookup Finder foo.combar.com Finder Lockbox Bob

Challenges ahead

Competing Communication Standards Challenges ahead Each will play a role, can they be bridged? which will dominate long term?

Versioning Challenges ahead Rapid technology progress could introduce incompatibilities and growing pains between federated domains THEN NOW

WebRTC will make more silos… Challenges ahead (unless developers care) ?

Legacy is a benefit and a curse Challenges ahead Will RTC federation get reduced to the lowest common dominator for another 100 years?

Resources Stop the Silos: The road to federated RTC