Networking
Papers
Fresh from arXiv, typeset properly. Highlighted words trade on the market.
Saturday 22 August
Deep learning has achieved strong performance in encrypted traffic classification (ETC), yet its computational cost limits deployment on resource-constrained network devices such as routers and middleboxes. Existing compression methods mainly operate on weights, channels, hidden representations, or predictions, but do not explicitly determine which protocol fields and structural contexts should remain. We propose Pruned Traffic Trees (PTT), a three-level protocol-structured model family that treats native protocol structures as compression units. PTT-Full learns protocol-structured representations and field salience from complete Protocol Tree Graphs (PTGs), with flow-level self-supervised learning and protocol-presence-aware sparse execution. The learned salience and TopK+$k$ closure construct Distilled PTGs (PTG-Ds) for PTT-Distilled, while PTT-Lite inherits this topology and reduces width through structure-aligned transfer and flow-level logits distillation. Under flow-disjoint and Strong Information Information (SII)-masked settings, PTT-Full achieves Macro-F1 scores of 0.9519 and 0.9416 on CSTNET-TLS1.3 and CipherSpectrum, while PTT-Lite retains 0.9325 and 0.9136 with 80.3% and 61.3% fewer parameters, 98.85% and 98.78% lower effective GFLOPs, and 8.75$\times$ and 8.46$\times$ CPU inference speedups. These results demonstrate that treating protocol structure itself as the compression object enables effective performance-efficiency trade-offs for lightweight ETC.
Networking
Reliability-Aware Scheduling for Digital Twin Maintenance
In Industrial Internet of Things systems, learning-enabled Digital Twins (DTs) support remote monitoring by using data reported by distributed devices to maintain digital representations of physical processes. When uplink resources are limited, a base station cannot collect new observations from every device at every communication slot and must decide which devices should transmit. This decision becomes challenging when the physical process changes after the DT models have already been trained. In such cases, recent observations alone may not keep the DT accurate, because the learned model may no longer match the underlying process. This paper studies how to schedule observation requests so that the DT maintained at the base station remains close to the true physical process. We define the Ensemble Disagreement Indicator (EDI) as an uncertainty measure computed at the base station from the spread among estimates produced by independently trained DT predictors. Building on EDI, we propose R-VoU, a reliability-aware value-of-update scheduler that prioritizes the observations expected to most improve the DT by reducing a cost based on uncertainty and predicted DT error. The DT is further adjusted online using the difference between received observations and current predictions. Experiments on process manufacturing data show that, under limited communication budgets, R-VoU achieves the lowest combined cost and DT estimation error among the compared schedulers that use only information available before each scheduling decision.
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Networking
Building A CSFQ-Inspired Transport for Switched CXL Memory Pooling
Emerging switched CXL memory pooling systems, albeit promising, suffer from significant performance interference due to the shared but performance-uncontrolled data path among concurrent memory streams between a host core and a remote DIMM. We systematically characterize a memory pooling appliance based on XConn's Apollo CXL switch and identify three issues: intra-host contention, in-fabric congestion, and unmanaged host-remote DIMM interaction. This paper presents a new transport layer, MemChannel, which provides the mchannel abstraction to manage end-to-end fabric bandwidth among competing memory flows and enable application-specific traffic for switched CXL memory pooling. Our key idea is to build a sender-driven, fabric-informed transport protocol, inspired by Core-Stateless Fair Queueing (CSFQ), that admits just the right amount of CXL requests to each mchannel based on the estimated core-to-CXL-DIMM bandwidth availability. To address CXL-induced idiosyncrasies, MemChannel introduces time-based rate control, host-side admission control, cross-host bookkeeping, new congestion signals, rate estimation based on the fluid model, and delay-based link-capacity adjustment. We build MemChannel from scratch and support unmodified applications. Evaluations over switched memory pooling demonstrate its effectiveness from performance-isolation, scalability, and multi-tenancy perspectives.
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Friday 21 August
Networking
Sea-State-Induced Performance Transition in Maritime Networks: A Roughness-Aware Stochastic Geometry Framework
Analytical studies of maritime wireless networks commonly assume a deterministic smooth sea surface, leaving unclear how realistic ocean conditions reshape network-level reliability. Unlike conventional intuition that sea roughness always deteriorates propagation, this work reveals a non-monotonic sea-state-induced performance transition caused by the competition between interference-null mitigation and coherent reflection loss. This paper develops a physically grounded, sea-state-aware stochastic geometry framework for maritime networks by incorporating sea surface roughness into propagation modeling. Specifically, we derive an effective reflection coefficient based on the classical Rayleigh roughness criterion, where the significant wave height explicitly characterizes the attenuation of the coherent specular reflection component caused by surface roughness. By integrating the proposed channel model into a stochastic geometry framework, we derive tractable expressions for uplink coverage probability under different sea states. Our analysis reveals a non-monotonic impact of sea roughness on network performance under the considered propagation model: moderate roughness can improve reliability-oriented coverage by mitigating destructive interference nulls, whereas stronger roughness attenuates coherent reflected energy and degrades high-SINR performance. Measurement comparisons support the underlying roughness-sensitive reflection mechanism, while rough-sea VHF results are interpreted as wavelength-specific model predictions rather than direct empirical validation.
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Networking
ZD-AOMDV: A New Routing Algorithm for Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks
A common characteristic of all popular multi-path routing algorithms in mobile ad-hoc networks, such as AOMDV, is that the end to end delay is reduced by utilization of parallel paths. The competition between the neighboring nodes for obtaining a common channel in those parallel paths is the reason for end to end delay increment. In fact, due to medium access mechanism in wireless networks, such as CSMA/CA, data transmissions even through two node-disjoint paths are not completely independent and each path will affect the other one. In this paper we have modified the AODV protocol which results in selection of zone-disjoint paths, to the extent feasible, and as a result we achieve less end to end delay. The efficiency of the proposed protocol has been evaluated on different scenarios and there has been a noticeable improvement in the packet delivery ratio and also in the reduction of end-to-end delay comparing to AOMDV.
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Networking
Adaptive Channel Hopping for IEEE 802.15.4 TSCH-Based Networks: A Dynamic Bernoulli Bandit Approach
In IEEE 802.15.4 standard for low-power low-range wireless communications, only one channel is employed for transmission which can result in increased energy consumption, high network delay and poor packet delivery ratio (PDR). In the subsequent IEEE 802.15.4-2015 standard, a Time-slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) mechanism has been developed which allows for a periodic yet fixed frequency hopping pattern over 16 different channels. Unfortunately, however, most of these channels are susceptible to high-power coexisting Wi-Fi signal interference and to possibly some other ISM-band transmissions. This interference manifests itself in the form of the presence/absence of other devices with either or both static and dynamic channel selection policies. In order to isolate channels with undesirable conditions, blacklisting mechanisms are defined to adapt the channel hopping process. However, the existing solutions which form blacklists unrealistically assume that the statistical model of the external interference remains fixed, and do not vary over time. In this paper, we realistically assume that the impact of external interferes on 802.15.4 may generally follow a non-stationary pattern, and accordingly formulate the adaptive channel hopping problem as a Dynamic Multi-Armed Bernoulli Bandit (Dynamic MABB) process from the machine learning theory. We then propose an online learning algorithm with track-ability properties for computing an adaptive hopping policy. Simulations confirm that when the statistics of the external interference has a switching regime, the proposed solution outperforms the previous schemes in terms of both energy efficiency as well as two important KPIs for TSCH-based networks, i.e., PDR and latency.
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Networking · Cross-listed from quant-ph
Scalable Quantum Key Distribution via GHZ Entanglement and Qubit Reuse
Conventional Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) requires the transmission of qubits proportional to or exceeding the length of the key, as protocols such as BB84 transmit more qubits than the final key size due to basis sifting and privacy amplification. Since quantum networks are still in their infancy and have limited capacity, this overhead puts significant pressure on network resources. To address this issue, we propose a Multi-Qubit Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) State-based QKD scheme that reduces the number of qubits transmitted over the quantum channel. The proposed method transmits one GHZ qubit between endpoints and reuses the resulting entanglement to convey multiple classical key bits with the help of Quantum Non-Demolition (QND) measurements. Under the stated assumptions on authenticated classical communication, local reset verification, and bounded-error QND discrimination, one can transfer $L$ classical bits by generating an (L+1)-qubit GHZ state and transferring one qubit to the remote party. We verify correctness using the NetSquid quantum network simulator: the protocol achieves 100% raw-key fidelity for keys of length up to 12 bits under both ideal conditions and depolarizing noise up to p = 0.005 per round. We further show that the proposed QKD algorithm can be extended to multi-party QKD and server-client deployment. The proposed scheme offers a transmitted-qubit-efficient, noise-tolerant alternative for bandwidth-limited quantum networks.
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Networking
Age-Optimal Target Wake Time: Provably Good Wake Schedules for Energy-Constrained Wi-Fi Status Updating
Target Wake Time (TWT), introduced in IEEE 802.11ax, lets an access point schedule exactly when each station wakes, transmits, and dozes. Existing TWT schedulers optimize energy or throughput, treating information freshness at best as a constraint and offering no performance guarantees. We design the wake schedule itself for freshness: minimize the weighted average Age of Information (AoI) over stations subject to per-station energy budgets, where the decision variables are the TWT triples (wake interval, offset, service period duration). We derive a renewal-exact AoI model for TWT under per-SP block fading and validate it against packet-level 802.11ax simulation with ~1% mean error. We show that, unlike preemptive scheduling, non-preemptive TWT packing can be infeasible at schedule density 1, and identify the granularity condition under which a small-first best-fit packer provably succeeds. Around this we build Harmonic-Greedy, a scheduler combining a convex relaxation, anchor-optimized power-of-two rounding, and a best-of-uniform safeguard, and prove it is a constant-factor approximation: 4/ln 2 ~= 5.77 under a mild granularity assumption and 6/ln 2 ~= 8.66 unconditionally. We implement the complete system in ns-3 – a TWT wake/doze mechanism integrated with the power-save architecture, plus the scheduler – and show that it is the only scheduler that stays near a relaxation lower bound across all regimes: against a strong energy-greedy baseline it ties when per-station energy floors already pin the periods, and wins by 4-36% exactly where the schedule density is binding and must be redistributed by AoI weight or channel quality rather than by energy budget – the regime our analysis identifies.
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Networking · Cross-listed from cs.CR
Explainable Adaptive Zero Trust Framework for AWS with Adversarial Robustness Evaluation
Cloud environments built on Amazon Web Services face a structural security vulnerability: once a credential passes authentication, the resulting session is often treated as trusted for its entire duration. This assumption fails when credentials are stolen. We introduce the Explainable Adaptive Zero Trust Framework (EAZTF), a cloud-native security layer that continuously reevaluates the legitimacy of API actions throughout a session. EAZTF combines Isolation Forest and XGBoost to evaluate eight CloudTrail and IAM-derived behavioral features in real time and produce a Trust Risk Score (TRS) that determines whether a session continues, requires step-up MFA, or is restricted. Each decision is accompanied by a SHAP or LIME explanation, providing human-readable audit records for security analysis and compliance. The framework is also evaluated against four adversarial evasion strategies: credential theft, behavioral mimicry, API rate evasion, and privilege escalation. Experiments on an 8,500-record synthetic CloudTrail dataset show that Isolation Forest achieves 94.4% precision, 91.2% recall, and an F1 score of 0.928. Across the four adversarial scenarios, the mean detection rate is 91.0%, with behavioral mimicry being the most difficult at 83.9%. SHAP analysis identifies IP reputation, login-time deviation, and API call velocity as the three dominant features. A structured NIST SP 800-207 self-assessment gives EAZTF a mean compliance score of 93%, compared with 38% for a traditional perimeter baseline. Mean time to detect decreases from hours to under one minute. Because the evaluation uses synthetic data, these results should be interpreted as indicative rather than validated production performance.
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Networking · Cross-listed from cs.CR
$Z^2$-ACT: End-to-End Verifiable Agentic Intent Control for Open 6G RAN
With the progression in open and disaggregated 6G radio access networks, it is expected that the system will be able to host multi-vendors. In order to host multi-vendors, it is essential that AI-assisted control loops remain safe, verifiable, and auditable under concurrent operator intents and untrusted model inputs. The existing studies address the agentic coordination, formal intent constraints, zero-trust prompt verification and cryptographic accountability in isolation, which leaves pre-realization safety, continuous semantic verification and cross-domain audit incomplete when used individually. In this regard, we propose zero-knowledge auditable control and zero-trust verifiable agentic intent architecture ($Z^2$-ACT), which integrates the aforementioned four primitives across the non-real-time and near-real-time RICs. We encode the typed Intent Contracts as operator goals while the large language model inputs are only admitted after a practical adversarial intent check. The skill sequences in the proposed study are released only when a self-management gate is satisfied while every successful commit is recorded as a binding commitment with a zero-knowledge proof. Our experimental evaluation on public ColO-RAN measurements compares the full architecture against targeted ablations and a conventional reinforcement-learning baseline. A live large language model is used in the non-real-time path to translate operator intents into Intent Contracts; we report translation accuracy, the rate of invalid or hallucinated contracts, non-real-time latency, and behavior under adversarial or misleading intents. Near-real-time control remains trace-driven on the public KPM sequences. Results indicate improved actuation filtering and attack resilience at modest latency and signaling cost inside the near-real-time envelope.
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Networking · Cross-listed from cs.CL
Free-Text Evaluation of LLMs for 5G Domain Knowledge and Fault Analysis using LLM-as-Judge
Real-world fault analysis in 5G and emerging 6G networks demands domain expertise to analyze free-text diagnostics, including root-cause explanations and recommended actions. LLMs have emerged as a promising approach to automating this, yet whether lightweight, edge-deployable models are capable of performing in-depth free-text diagnostics remains an open question. While existing benchmarks rely on restrictive MCQs with fixed answer keys, this paper evaluates 5G domain understanding and fault analysis in a free-text generation format. Transitioning to this paradigm requires evaluating lightweight, edge-deployable AI models on open-ended diagnostic reasoning, alongside a dependable framework to validate these text outputs at scale. To address this we evaluate three lightweight LLMs, Claude-Haiku-4.5, GPT-5.4-Mini, and Gemini-3.1-Flash-Lite, on free-text 5G domain knowledge and fault-analysis tasks across three benchmarks, TeleQNA ORAN FT, 5G-Faults FT, and TeleInter FT. Three independent frontier judges score outputs, and pairwise inter-judge agreement is measured as an empirical test of the LLM-as-Judge methodology. All three models reach at least 90% accuracy on fault diagnosis, while zero-shot recall of 3GPP and O-RAN specifications remains the critical gap, with all models scoring below 60%. Mean inter-judge agreement is at least 0.90 across all runs, indicating that multi-judge LLM scoring produces consistent, reproducible grades for open-ended telecom responses. Operationally, Gemini-3.1-Flash-Lite offers the best efficiency trade-off, combining competitive accuracy with the lowest inference cost and latency, making it the most suitable candidate for production telecom deployments.
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Networking · Cross-listed from quant-ph
Tools for Reducing Service Time in Near-Term Quantum Networks
Architectures have been proposed to control entanglement generation in multi-user quantum networks. To allow time for local operations and classical communication at end nodes, these architectures insert fixed separations between consecutive batches of entanglement generation attempts. This reduces network utilization when attempts fail, leaving the network idle during the scheduled separation. To address this limitation, we propose a novel method to reclaim this idle time by shortening the scheduled separation between attempts while respecting hardware constraints. The method uses an analytical execution model to optimize the separation and reduce the total network service time of an application. Evaluations within the Arqon architecture show network service time reductions of up to 42 minutes (7.6%) for single applications and 16-29 minutes (26-30%) per application when co-scheduled. The approach applies broadly to quantum network architectures that share hardware between entanglement generation and local operations, and the method can be used online by network schedulers.
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Networking
Orchra: Stateful-aware Cross-slice Workload Migrations in the 6G Control Plane
Network slicing is a foundational capability of Fifth Generation (5G)-Advanced and emerging Sixth Generation (6G) networks, yet practical support for seamless runtime slice transitions remains limited. Standard cloud-native 5G architectures lack native support for stateful inter/intra-slice session migration, relying instead on high-overhead Non-Access Stratum (NAS) re-registrations, container redeployment etc., which disrupt userplane traffic for up to 245.50 ms. To address this limitation, we present Orchra, an intelligent orchestrator for stateful, low-latency context transfer. By externalizing critical user equipment state-including NAS context, security keys, and Protocol Data Unit (PDU) session information-into a transient staging layer, Orchra preserves session continuity across slice boundaries without requiring full re-registration. Experimental evaluation shows that Orchra reduces this userplane interruption by more than twice in comparison to conventional Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)-based approaches while incurring negligible security overhead. These results demonstrate a practical and reproducible approach for enabling seamless, state-preserving slice transitions in cloud-native 5G-Advanced networks.
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Networking
Mitigating Proxy-Induced Traffic Drift in Website Fingerprinting via Model-Agnostic Traffic Tailoring
Website fingerprinting (WF) based on deep learning can effectively identify websites from encrypted traffic. However, users often rely on proxy protocols to bypass censorship, and the diversity of these protocols poses a major challenge, as WF models trained on traffic from one set of protocols perform poorly when evaluated on that from unseen protocols. We attribute this issue to proxy-induced feature drift, where traffic patterns of the same website vary with the proxy protocol, leading to discrepancies that WF models fail to capture and severe performance degradation. To tackle this issue, we propose PA3, a model-agnostic preprocessing framework to analyze and mitigate the proxy-induced drift. PA3 first fingerprints the protocol-specific drift. These fingerprints are then used to tailor the proxied traffic for feature alignment, which mitigates the drift and considerably improves the generalization of WF models on traffic from unseen protocols. Extensive evaluations demonstrate that PA3 substantially enhances generalization on unseen protocols with an average improvement of 0.12 in F1-score (roughly 27% relative), achieving up to a 0.41 absolute gain across models, which narrows the performance gap introduced by the drift. In the best case, PA3 enables WF models to obtain F1-scores above 0.96 on traffic from unseen protocols.
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Networking
Fluid-Dynamic Interference Modeling for LEO Mega-Constellations: A Spatiotemporal Kinetic Field Approach
Low Earth orbit (LEO) mega-constellations create a highly non-stationary interference environment that cannot be accurately captured by static stochastic-geometry snapshots. This paper proposes a kinetic interference field framework that models the constellation as a compressible fluid shell evolving under orbital kinematics. By mapping satellite motion into a continuum flux field, we derive a hydrodynamic conservation law for the aggregate interference and obtain a closed-form expression for the time-varying outage probability via moment matching. The analysis reveals that high-latitude “interference surges” are a direct consequence of orbital compression and boundary flux, rather than random anomalies. Numerical validation against ephemeris-driven Monte Carlo simulations confirms the accuracy of the framework across time evolution, latitude, and design parameters. Leveraging the closed-form model, we further show that the conventional $90^{\circ}$ polar-orbit design is not universally outage-optimal. Instead, an inclination angle near $79^{\circ}$ at low altitude achieves a favorable trade-off between coverage continuity and geometric interference isolation. The proposed framework provides a tractable analytical tool for interference-aware 6G non-terrestrial network (NTN) design.
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Thursday 20 August
Networking
To Code or Not to Code: When and How to Use Network Coding in Energy Harvesting Wireless Multi-hop Networks
The broadcast nature of communication in transmission media has driven the rise of network coding's popularity in wireless networks. Numerous benefits arise from employing network coding in multi-hop wireless networks, including enhanced throughput, reduced energy consumption, and decreased end-to-end delay. These advantages are a direct outcome of the minimized transmission count. This paper introduces a comprehensive framework to employ network coding in these networks. It refines decision-making at coding and decoding nodes simultaneously. The coding-nodes employ optimal stopping theory to find optimal moments for packet transmission. Meanwhile, the decoding-nodes dynamically decide, through SMDP (Semi Markov Decision Process) problem formulation, whether to conserve energy by deactivating radio units or to stay active for improved coding by overhearing packets. The proposed framework, named ENCODE, enables nodes to learn how and when to use network coding over time. Simulation results compare its performance with existing approaches. Our simulation results shed new light on when and how to use network coding in wireless multi-hop networks more effectively.
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Networking
Making Time-Sensitive Networking Deployable: A Comprehensive Lifecycle Architecture
Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) provides deterministic guarantees and bounded latency for safety-critical applications across different domains. While the IEEE 802.1 TSN standards provide a comprehensive set of mechanisms for time synchronization, shaping, scheduling, resource reservation, and reliability, deploying TSN in real-world applications remains a complex, multi-step engineering task. Existing research primarily focuses on optimizing individual objectives, such as increasing schedulability, reducing latency, accelerating solution generation, or improving performance analysis. However, whether these extensively researched solutions can be deployed in real-world systems remains unanswered, as the assumptions made in these methodologies often differ from practical hardware constraints. Therefore, a broader, holistic view of end-to-end TSN deployment and management remains an open research question. Currently, there is a lack of a unified perspective, consensus, and coordinated research efforts focusing on a comprehensive end-to-end TSN deployment workflow. We present a comprehensive overview of the TSN deployment lifecycle, current challenges, limitations of existing tools, and future research directions for TSN deployment and management. Lastly, we identify key research gaps from a deployment perspective and provide guidance for the development of next-generation deployable TSN networks.
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Networking
Towards Traffic Modelling of Multi-Agent Systems: The Role of Coordination Topology
Multi-agent LLM systems are an emerging networked workload whose rapid deployment raises questions about the traffic patterns they generate. Compared to conventional applications, these systems generate requests internally: a single user task can induce a structured sequence of model calls whose timing is governed by coordination logic rather than by user arrival rate. It is not clear whether classical traffic models, designed for human-driven workloads, apply to this setting. We present an empirical characterisation of LLM-call interarrival time distributions across sequential, star, and full-mesh agentic coordination topologies, using a multi-layer measurement framework over 500 repeated runs per topology. We find that topology fundamentally shapes the arrival process of requests to the LLM backend: fan-out coordination introduces a structural bimodality absent in sequential execution, and the reasoningphase component is best described by a log-normal distribution, with the Poisson exponential null model decisively rejected across all topologies. These differences propagate to inference and network level metrics. The framework and analysis pipeline are released openly at https://github.com/dlamagna/agentraffic.
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Networking · Cross-listed from cs.DC
Design and Empirical Evaluation of a Network-Centric, On-Premises Architecture for Earth Observation Data Access
Earth observation (EO) programmes generate data at volumes that exceed the transfer and storage capacity of most institutional networks. Public cloud platforms address this for well-resourced organisations, but institutions across the Atlantic basin face constraints in connectivity, sovereignty and funding that make on-premises infrastructure the only viable path. Cloud-native data formats enable efficient partial reads, yet their performance depends on the bandwidth of the underlying network fabric, a dependency rarely measured in isolation. This paper presents a replicable, network-centric architecture for on-premises EO data access, evaluated at its first operational deployment: the AIR Data Centre, founding node of the Atlantic Cloud. The system comprises a MinIO object storage cluster on a 100 GbE fabric, a PostGIS metadata catalogue and an OGC API-EDR access layer. We characterise the fabric under sustained parallel load, evaluate object storage throughput for EO-representative workloads, and compare measured performance against throttled baselines on identical hardware, isolating network bandwidth as the sole variable. Multi-site replication benchmarks with partner institutions characterise the federation primitive the model depends on. Network bandwidth is the dominant constraint on storage throughput for bulk EO data access up to a threshold; beyond it, endpoint memory topology rather than capacity governs how much bandwidth a system can use. For this hardware class that threshold lies above 10 Gbps per server. Below it, network capacity alone sets what the facility can deliver; above it, the return on further network investment depends on endpoint memory provisioning, which can be deferred and bought later.
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Networking
Using Zone-Disjoint Multi-Path Routing Algorithm for Video Transmission over Ah-Hoc Networks
Finding multi-path routes in ad hoc networks due to their grid topology seems to be a trivial task, but because of CSMA/CA effects in these networks found paths are not completely disjoint unless an appropriate algorithm have taken into account. If such an algorithm provided and designed carefully it could improve multi-path video transmission over these kinds of networks. By using node-disjoint paths, it is expected that the end-to-end delay and BER in each case should be independent of each other. However, because of natural properties and medium access mechanisms in ad hoc networks the end-to-end delay and also BER between any source and destination depends on the pattern of communication in the neighborhood region. In this case some of the intermediate nodes should be silent to reverence their neighbors and this matter increases the end-to-end delay. To avoid this problem, multi-path routing algorithms can use zone-disjoint paths instead of node-disjoint paths. In this paper we demonstrated a new multi-path routing algorithm that selects zone-disjoint paths that in addition used for video multi-path transmission over ad hoc networks. It is shown that by using this new algorithm along with choosing an appropriate scheme for video transmission over discovered paths, our approach receives enhanced results comparing previously used algorithms.
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Networking
Proper Sea Surface Roughness Enhances the Performance of Near-Shore Maritime Networks
Accurate performance analysis for near-shore maritime wireless communication is essential for ensuring robust and reliable operations. However, existing analytical models often rely on oversimplified propagation assumptions, such as a perfectly smooth sea surface, which fail to capture the full dynamics of the maritime channel. In this paper, we develop a physically grounded analytical framework using stochastic geometry that bridges this gap. The spatial distribution of vessels is modeled as a non-homogeneous Poisson point process to reflect realistic near-port densities. We replace the idealized smooth-sea assumption by deriving a novel reflection coefficient from the classical Rayleigh criterion, which explicitly links the path loss to the significant wave height. Integrating this roughness-aware channel model into the stochastic geometry framework, we derive new analytical expressions for the uplink coverage probability and average ergodic rate, providing the first tractable characterization of aggregate interference under such dynamic conditions. The analysis reveals a sea-state-dependent reliability–capacity trade-off: roughness-induced attenuation of the coherent specular reflection can suppress destructive-interference nulls and improve reliability-oriented coverage, while reducing high-SINR and average-rate performance. Available measurements support the underlying roughness-sensitive reflection mechanism, but direct VHF validation under rough sea conditions remains unavailable; the corresponding rough-sea results are therefore interpreted as model-based predictions. A cross-frequency ablation further confirms the wavelength dependence of the roughness effect and shows that the reflection coefficient must be evaluated for the operating frequency.
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Networking
RFWM: Physics-Guided World Model for Dynamic Wireless Radiance Field Generation
Radio-frequency (RF) radiance-field modeling is essential for wireless network optimization and sensing, yet remains challenging in dynamic and unseen environments. Existing learning-based methods synthesize RF fields from sparse measurements, but most struggle to generalize to dynamic and unseen environments. To address this limitation, we propose RFWM, a physics-guided RF world model that maps multimodal physical conditions like visual dynamics and AP configurations to spatiotemporal RF fields. RFWM adopts a two-stage training strategy with physics-guided priors and constraints. In the first stage, RFWM adapts a pretrained visual diffusion backbone to RF trajectories to predict RF sequences from a few past RF inputs, while conditioning the backbone on a Friis-guided prior for coarse attenuation guidance. In the second stage, RFWM learns the physical-to-RF mapping by training a ControlNet from scratch and fine-tuning the RF-adapted backbone, while six physics-guided regularizers enforce fine-grained propagation consistency. Cross-height heads then jointly generate RF trajectories at queried receiver heights in one forward pass. We construct a new benchmark of 7,715 sequences averaging 33 frames across 115 environments for dynamic RF-field generation. Experimental results show that RFWM improves MSE by approximately 7 dB and 3 dB over the state of the art under in-distribution and out-of-distribution settings, respectively.
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Networking
Digital Tides: A Fluid-Dynamic Framework for Flux-Aware Infrastructure Provisioning in UAV Logistics Networks
The emergence of high-frequency pulsating logistics unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms gives rise to “Digital Tides”, i.e., complex traffic dynamics that challenge sustainable resource provisioning in mobile computing networks. Conventional infrastructure provisioning strategies, which typically rely on static snapshot-based analysis and localized density estimation, fail to capture the macroscopic advection of computational workloads. As a result, reactive resource activation suffers from inherent hysteresis, yielding nominal efficiency gains at the cost of mission-critical service loss at the advancing wavefront. To address this issue, we develop a fluid-based spatiotemporal framework by explicitly solving the continuity equation to characterize the macroscopic velocity field of the workload flow. Building on this framework, we propose a flux-aware asymmetric activation strategy that leverages the derived information flux vector as a kinematic precursor of demand propagation. Unlike symmetric thresholding, the proposed control logic decouples activation and deactivation dynamics. Theoretical analysis confirms the intrinsic spatial phase-lead of the flux signal and shows that the proposed strategy generates a proactive guard ring to compensate for service setup latency, including delays caused by mobile edge computing container cold-starts. We further derive closed-form expressions for instantaneous service availability and period-average energy efficiency. In addition, we formulate a quality-of-service-penalized metric to evaluate effective energy efficiency under strict outage constraints. Numerical results show that the proposed flux-driven strategy enables zero-latency tracking of the mobile wavefront and achieves a Pareto-optimal trade-off between service reliability and energy consumption, outperforming reactive baselines in dynamic logistics corridors.
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Networking
Vorticity Dissipation Based Routing: A Fluid-Kinetic Framework for Loop-Free Transport in Ultra-Dense Networks
Discrete routing protocols in ultra-dense wireless networks are constrained by signaling overhead and transient routing loops that degrade radio-resource efficiency. While continuum modeling provides a scalable alternative, existing scalar density approaches lack the vector geometric structure required to characterize these topological anomalies. This paper introduces a fluid-kinetic framework, vorticity dissipation-based routing (VDR), utilizing the Helmholtz-Hodge decomposition. We demonstrate that the macroscopic traffic flux can be orthogonally decoupled into a demand-driven irrotational component and a loop-induced solenoidal component representing routing vorticity. Building on this insight, we define network vorticity as a macroscopic metric to quantify topological inefficiency. Routing optimization is formulated as a gradient flow on an enstrophy functional, yielding a vorticity dissipation equation as the governing dynamic law. Lyapunov stability analysis proves that this mechanism ensures the monotonic decay of global enstrophy toward an asymptotically loop-free equilibrium. Numerical results validate that VDR suppresses realized forwarding loops, reduces end-to-end delay, maintains robust packet delivery, and exhibits near-linear scaling under fixed-area densification while explicitly accounting for the grid-dependent Poisson-solver cost.
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Networking · Cross-listed from cs.RO
The Verification Gap in Networked Physical AI: A Post-Semantic Communication Framework
A task-effective proposal is not yet a justified physical action. In networked Physical AI, a proposal may be understood while valid, timely, proposal-bound evidence or the authority required to finalize an action remains unavailable. We call this mismatch the verification gap and introduce a Post-Semantic Communication Framework for the systems interface between proposal formation and physical execution. The framework begins with application-declared evidence requirements, represents qualifying observations as evidence records, validates supporting and conflicting records through one path, and separates evidence sufficiency from authorized finalization and a downstream runtime gate. It further distinguishes evidence transfer, which can enlarge the record set reachable by a finalizer, from evidence coordination, which can suppress transmission around records already held at the finalization endpoint. Finite-state framework checks verify that the evaluator implements the declared distinctions consistently. Under the declared model, the controlled communication study exposes a finalizer-dependent asymmetry: sender-finalized Feedback uses evidence transfer to expand evidence reachability throughout the feasible plotted region, whereas receiver-finalized Feedback uses coordination to suppress redundant payload until loss, latency, freshness, and deadline costs shift selection to One-way. Finally, an episode-level reporting schema defines common denominators for future measured Physical-AI studies.
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Networking
Empirical Evaluation of Cross-Carrier MCPTT & OTT MCX Interoperability in High-Density Environments
Deploying broadband Mission-Critical Push-To-Talk (MCPTT) services over shared commercial infrastructures introduces resource contention during multi-agency responses in mass-crowd events. This study evaluates cross-carrier interoperability and standard versus prioritized quality of service (QoS) frameworks under real-world saturation constraints. We design an empirical multi-carrier field experiment utilizing twelve identical smartphones deployed across multiple physical sectors inside Texas A&M University's Kyle Field during a football game with 105,000+ attendees. Automated voice calls were monitored using Perceptual Objective Listening Quality Analysis (POLQA), packet delivery metrics, and connection rates. The results reveal that voice path failure is isolated to network infrastructure bottlenecks rather than device hardware limitations. Specifically, we identify a sharp, non-linear network failure model where transport-layer jitter exceeding a critical threshold de-jitter buffer underflows, causing structural audio degradation. Priority-managed channels effectively bypass this congestion. This study helps establish an operational insight for emergency planners to mandate network infrastructure, end-to-end network slicing and dedicated resource provisioning capable of keeping transport-layer jitter below the critical failure boundary.
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Wednesday 19 August
Networking · Cross-listed from cs.CR
Redactable blockchains and polynomial equations
We develop new tools for constructing redactable authenticated data structures with post-quantum security. In our construction, inverting the proposed one-way function means solving a polynomial equation (or a system of polynomial equations) in more than one variable. This is presently considered quantum-safe, i.e., there is no known quantum algorithm that could solve this problem efficiently if parameters are chosen wisely.
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Networking
Online Scheduling for Throughput Maximization of Time-varying Markovian Channels with Unknown Statistics
We consider a wireless scheduling problem in downlink wireless networks with unknown channel statistics, where a Base Station (BS) sends data to multiple users. The scheduling performance relies heavily on accurate Channel State Information (CSI), which is often costly to acquire. In this paper, CSI is obtained from ACK/NACK feedback, only after each scheduled transmission. Due to limited wireless channel resources, all users cannot be scheduled for transmission simultaneously. Hence, the most recently observed CSI can be outdated. The traditional approach to solve scheduling problems using outdated CSI is to utilize belief states, which are calculated using the time correlation statistics of channels. However, channel statistics are often unknown; consequently, belief states can be uncountable and this approach becomes infeasible. In this paper, we introduce a new sufficient statistics for the wireless scheduling problem. Towards this effort, we characterize the CSI staleness by the Age of Channel State Information (AoCSI) and show that the latest observed CSI and its AoCSI is a sufficient statistic of the history to make the scheduling decisions. Accordingly, we are able to reduce the state space for online learning. Our goal is to develop an online scheduling algorithm that maximizes the expected sum throughput of all users over a finite time-horizon while satisfying a channel resource constraint. The formulated problem is a Restless Multi-armed Bandit (RMAB). We develop an online Maximum Gain First (Online-MGF) policy, which achieves sub-linear regret on the number of episodes. For a special case of ON/OFF channels, we are able to prove indexability and derive a closed-form expression of the Whittle index. Numerical results demonstrate that the Online-MGF policy converges to MGF and Whittle index policies with known statistics within a very few episodes.
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Networking · Cross-listed from cs.CR
ABEAT: Efficient and Anonymous Encryption for ABE-based Dynamic Group Communication
Confidential communication among a dynamic group of participants that ensures flexible and efficient many-to- many communication is highly desired capability. We leverage attribute-based encryption (ABE) for confidential group communication and enhance it by a graph-based namespace to create an efficient framework that allows groups to be formed and changed dynamically. In this paper, we focus on the important additional need to maintain the anonymity of recipients of a message, when using ABE for group communication for a variety of usage scenarios (e.g., emergency response). We propose ABEAT, an efficient and anonymous dynamic group communication system that also minimizes overhead on receivers who are not the intended recipients of a message. In ABEAT, we propose a new anonymous KP-ABE approach to maintain recipient anonymity. ABEAT hides the clear attribute in the ciphertext of KP-ABE, and also prevents several attacks that seek to break anonymity. ABEAT provides fast recipient verification, dramatically lowering the decryption overhead for non-recipients by more than a factor of 90 versus the current state of the art such as hidden vector encryption (HVE). In fact, it is even 40% less than FABEO, which offers no anonymity.
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Networking · Cross-listed from cs.CR
SiNMULI: Novel Signed Network Approach for Malicious URL Identification
In today's era of rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, computer security and online safeguarding measures have undergone significant improvements. However, malicious websites continue to facilitate the spread of phishing schemes, fraudulent activities and unsolicited communications. Conventional methodologies in machine learning, deep learning and counterfeit website detection predominantly depend on static data analysis, which frequently proves ineffective against the evolving nature of malicious online entities. In response to these challenges, in this work, we propose a signed network-based approach for malicious URL identification, SiNMULI. We introduce an innovative framework that conceptualises the identification of harmful URLs as a signed network-based binary classification problem strongly rooted in the fundamental principles of social network analysis and social balance theory. In this approach, a signed network is constructed based on the backlinks, i.e., external hyperlinks of URLs, wherein each node symbolises a URL and the hyperlinks function as signed edges. Utilising a balance-theoretic inference mechanism, our methodology propagates edge signs and classifies unlabeled domains by employing a 51% majority rule across incoming links. Experimental results on this real-world dataset demonstrate that SiNMULI achieves 99.89% accuracy, 99.62% precision, and 99.80% F1-score, outperforming traditional ML and deep learning baseline models. Beyond high accuracy, SiNMULI offers interpretability, resilience against adversarial obfuscation, and independence from training data, making it a lightweight and scalable solution for real-world cyber defence.