4 ms·
I finally made it to the blog, and I'm still not at all clear on what you're claiming SuperTCP does. Is this TCP window scaling? Linux can already do this, not
by SwellJoe 12y ago
I finally made it to the blog, and I'm still not at all clear on what you're claiming SuperTCP does.
Is this TCP window scaling? Linux can already do this, not sure about Windows or Mac OS X, though I'd be surprised if they don't.
Is it larger initial window sizes (i.e. WSCALE with larger than normal buffers)? Again, Linux has this RFC implemented, and I'm pretty sure all the other major OSes do, as well. But, I guess this app could be increasing buffer sizes to allow WSCALE to negotiate larger windows.
I have a vague feeling this is snake oil. Possibly a GUI for adjusting some buffer sizes and enabling some options that aren't enabled, by default (because they can cause problems in some environments for some use cases).
If there were something other than hand-waving in the "how it works" and the "technical" blog posts, I might be less suspicious. But, there is nothing but unbacked assertions, seemingly random speed claims, and a pretty slick website.
I don't want to seem overly harsh here...I'm interested in what you're doing, if it is novel. But, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and you've made truly extraordinary claims. 4x speed up, without compression and without introducing new specifications that have to be implemented on both sides, would be absolutely revolutionary.
So, in the absence of evidence, I am inclined to call, "bullshit!".
- supertcp 12y agoThanks for checking us out SwellJoe! I think what I've discovered is that the Hacker News community is more tech-savvy than originally thought. Sorry about that! Obviously we're missing some of the technical details of what we're trying to do. I'm going to work on a blog post to help clarify things, but for now you may be interested to know that SuperTCP is essentially a kernel-based TCP proxy. This allows us to–with only changes to one side of the connection–tweak every aspect of the data transmission as long as we stay within TCP's defined restrictions. Yes, we tweak initial window sizes and lots of other things that can be easily changed on most operating systems, but our main differentiator is how we detect and utilize the available bandwidth, or really how we react to congestion when we see it. SuperTCP tries to be better than the other congestion control algorithms (CUBIC, Reno, NewReno, etc.) most operating systems support. That's where we're better.
- SwellJoe 12y agoI think what I've discovered is that the Hacker News community is more tech-savvy than originally thought. Understatement of the year.
- Vendan 12y agoYou try to beat other congestion algorithms, but those are all pretty poor compared to RemyCC. http://web.mit.edu/remy/ http://web.mit.edu/remy/ How does SuperTCP stand up against it?
- supertcp 12y agoRemyCC is new to me but looks fascinating. I'll try to take a look and see how we compare!
- dang 12y agoAnother thing you need to know about Hacker News is that anything like sockpuppetry, astroturfing, and voting for your own posts is not ok here.