No abstract

In this paper, we seek to answer a simple question: "How prevalent are denial-of-service attacks in the Internet today?". Our motivation is to understand quantitatively the nature of the current threat as well as to enable longerterm analyses of trends and recurring patterns of attacks. We present a new technique, called "backscatter analysis", that provides an estimate of worldwide denial-ofservice activity. We use this approach on three week-long datasets to assess the number, duration and focus of attacks, and to characterize their behavior. During this period, we observe more than 12,000 attacks against more than 5,000 distinct targets, ranging from well known ecommerce companies such as Amazon and Hotmail to small foreign ISPs and dial-up connections. We believe that our work is the only publically available data quantifying denial-of-service activity in the Internet.

Abstract-The packet pair technique estimates the capacity of a path (bottleneck bandwidth) from the dispersion (spacing) experienced by two back-to-back packets [1][2][3]. We demonstrate that the dispersion of packet pairs in loaded paths follows a multimodal distribution, and discuss the queueing effects that cause the multiple modes. We show that the path capacity is often not the global mode, and so it cannot be estimated using standard statistical procedures. The effect of the size of the probing packets is also investigated, showing that the conventional wisdom of using maximum sized packet pairs is not optimal. We then study the dispersion of long packet trains. Increasing the length of the packet train reduces the measurement variance, but the estimates converge to a value, referred to as Asymptotic Dispersion Rate (ADR), that is lower than the capacity. We derive the effect of the cross traffic in the dispersion of long packet trains, showing that the ADR is not the available bandwidth in the path, as was assumed in previous work. Putting all the pieces together, we present a capacity estimation methodology that has been implemented in a tool called pathrate.

The phosphatidyl ethanolamine-binding protein (PEBP) gene family is present in all eukaryote kingdoms, with three subfamilies identified in angiosperms (FLOWERING LOCUS T [FT], MOTHER OF FT AND TFL1 [MFT], and TERMINAL FLOWER1 [TFL1] like). In angiosperms, PEBP genes have been shown to function both as promoters and suppressors of flowering and to control plant architecture. In this study, we focus on previously uncharacterized PEBP genes from gymnosperms. Extensive database searches suggest that gymnosperms possess only two types of PEBP genes, MFT-like and a group that occupies an intermediate phylogenetic position between the FT-like and TFL1-like (FT/TFL1-like). Overexpression of Picea abies PEBP genes in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) suggests that the FT/TFL1-like genes (PaFTL1 and PaFTL2) code for proteins with a TFL1-like function. However, PaFTL1 and PaFTL2 also show highly divergent expression patterns. While the expression of PaFTL2 is correlated with annual growth rhythm and mainly confined to needles and vegetative and reproductive buds, the expression of PaFTL1 is largely restricted to microsporophylls of male cones. The P. abies MFT-like genes (PaMFT1 and PaMFT2) show a predominant expression during embryo development, a pattern that is also found for many MFT-like genes from angiosperms. P. abies PEBP gene expression is primarily detected in tissues undergoing physiological changes related to growth arrest and dormancy. A first duplication event resulting in two families of plant PEBP genes (MFTlike and FT/TFL1-like) seems to coincide with the evolution of seed plants, in which independent control of bud and seed dormancy was required, and the second duplication resulting in the FT-like and TFL1-like clades probably coincided with the evolution of angiosperms.