WatchTower: Fast, Secure Mobile Page Loads Using Remote Dependency Resolution
Author(s)
Netravali, Ravi; Sivaraman, Anirudh; Mickens, James; Balakrishnan, Hari; Balakrishnan, Hari
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Remote dependency resolution (RDR) is a proxy-driven scheme for reducing mobile page load times; a proxy loads a requested page using a local browser, fetching the page’s resources over fast proxy-origin links instead of a client’s slow last-mile links. In this paper, we describe two fundamental challenges to efficient RDR proxying: the increasing popularity of encrypted HTTPS content, and the fact that, due to time-dependent network conditions and page properties, RDR proxying can actually increase load times. We solve these problems by introducing a new, secure proxying scheme for HTTPS traffic, and by implementing WatchTower, a selective proxying system that uses dynamic models of network conditions and page structures to only enable RDR when it is predicted to help. WatchTower loads pages 21.2%–41.3% faster than state-of-the-art proxies and server push systems, while preserving end-to-end HTTPS security.
Date issued
2019-06Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence LaboratoryJournal
Proceedings of the 17th Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Citation
Netravali, Ravi et al. "WatchTower: Fast, Secure Mobile Page Loads Using Remote Dependency Resolution." Proceedings of the 17th Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services, June 2019, Seoul, Korea, Association for Computing Machinery, June 2019. © 2019 The Author(s)
Version: Author's final manuscript
ISBN
9781450366618