The Technical Sessions are Thursday - Saturday and include:

• Keynote (Thursday morning)
• General Refereed Paper Track (Thursday - Saturday)
• Invited Talks Track (Thursday - Saturday)
• FREENIX Refereed Paper Track (Thursday - Saturday)
• Guru Is In Track (Thursday - Saturday)
• Work-in-Progress Reports (Friday, 2pm)
• Closing Session (Saturday, 4pm)

Keynote Address: The Internet's Coming Silent Spring
Lawrence Lessig, Stanford University

The innovation of the Internet grew out of the network's unique design. Its 'architecture' was built to enable neutral and unrestrained innovation. In this talk, Lawrence Lessig shows how this ecology of innovation is now being undermined by those who were threatened by the original network architecture. Changes to this architecture, and the legal environment within which it lives, will in turn undermine the network's potential.

Professor Lessig, the nation's leading scholar of law and cyberspace, recently formed the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. The Center aims to examine the relationship between the architecture of cyberspace and the basic constitutional and public policy values that define our democracy.

File Systems
Session Chair: Greg Ganger, Carnegie Mellon University

Awarded Best Paper!
Structure and Performance of the Direct Access File System (DAFS)
Kostas Magoutis, Salimah Addetia, Alexandra Fedorova, and Margo Seltzer, Harvard; Jeff Chase, Drew Gallatin, Richard Kisley, and Rajiv Wickremesinghe, Duke; and Eran Gabber, Lucent

Conquest: Better Performance Through a Disk/Persistent-RAM Hybrid File System
An-I Wang, Peter Reiher, and Gerald Popek, UCLA; and Geoffrey H. Kuenning, Harvey Mudd College

Exploiting Gray-Box Knowledge of Buffer-Cache Management
Nathan C. Burnett, John Bent, Andrea C. Arpaci-Dusseau, and Remzi H. Arpaci-Dusseau, University of Wisconsin

The IETF, or, Where Do All Those RFCs Come from, Anyway?
Steve Bellovin, AT&T Labs—Research

What are Internet standards, and where do they come from? What is the real meaning of an RFC? Did a black helicopter really land on the White House lawn? The last topic won't be covered, but you'll hear all you need to know about the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) and what it does. More important, you'll hear why you should care, and perhaps even participate.

View this talk in HTML.

Building Applications
Session Chair: Chris Demetriou, Broadcom Corp.

Interactive 3D Graphics Applications for Tcl
Oliver Kersting and Jürgen Döllner, Hasso-Plattner-Institute, University of Potsdam

The AGFL Grammar Work Lab
Cornelis H.A. Koster and Erik Verbruggen, KUN

Awarded Best Student Paper!
SWILL: A Simple Embedded Web Server Library
Sotiria Lampoudi and David M. Beazley, University of Chicago

Linux on Laptop/PDA
Bdale Garbee, HP Linux Systems Operation

Bdale currently works at HP helping to making sure Linux will work well on future HP systems. He has worked on both UNIX internals and embedded systems for many years. He helped jump-start ports of Debian GNU/Linux to 5 architectures other than i386, and keeps an impressive number of oddball systems running Linux in his basement just for fun. When he's not busy trying to keep his compute farm running, Bdale's other big hobby is amateur radio, specifically building amateur satellites.

Operating Systems (and Dancing Bears)
Session Chair: Frank Bellosa, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg

The JX Operating System
Michael Golm, Meik Felser, Christian Wawersich, and Jürgen Kleinoeder, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg

Design Evolution of the EROS Single-Level Store
Jonathan S. Shapiro, Johns Hopkins University; and Jonathan Adams, University of Pennsylvania

Think: A Software Framework for Component-based Operating System Kernels
Jean-Philippe Fassino, France Telecom R&D; Jean-Bernard Stefani, INRIA; Julia Lawall, DIKU; and Gilles Muller, INRIA

Introduction to Air Traffic Management Systems
Ron Reisman and James Murphy, NASA Ames Research Center, and Rob Savoye, Seneca Software

This introduction to air traffic control systems summarizes the operational characteristics of the principal Air Traffic Management (ATM) domains (i.e., en route, terminal area, surface control, and strategic traffic flow management) and the challenges of designing ATM decision support tools. The Traffic Flow Automation System (TFAS), a version of the Center TRACON Automation System (CTAS), will be examined. TFAS achieves portability across platforms (Solaris, HP/UX, and Linux) by adherence to software standards (ANSI, ISO, POSIX). Software engineering issues related to design, code reuse, portability, performance, and implementation are discussed.

Network Performance
Session Chair: Craig Metz, Extreme Networks

Linux NFS Client Write Performance
Chuck Lever, Network Appliance; and Peter Honeyman, CITI, University of Michigan

A Study of the Relative Costs of Network Security Protocols
Stefan Miltchev and Sotiris Ioannidis, University of Pennsylvania; and Angelos Keromytis, Columbia University

Congestion Control in Linux TCP
Pasi Sarolahti, University of Helsinki; and Alexey Kuznetsov, Institute for Nuclear Research at Moscow

Large Data/Clusters/Resilient Computing
Andrew Hume, AT&T Labs—Research

Andrew Hume has worked at Bell Labs and AT&T for 21 years. Most recently, he has been working on solving very large-scale data problems, using data feeds from legacy systems, on a Linux cluster using resilient computing techniques.

Building Services
Session Chair: Jason Nieh, Columbia University

Ninja: A Framework for Network Services
J. Robert von Behren, Eric A. Brewer, Nikita Borisov, Michael Chen, Matt Welsh, Josh MacDonald, Jeremy Lau, Steve Gribble, and David Culler, University of California at Berkeley

Using Cohort Scheduling to Enhance Server Performance
James R. Larus and Michael Parkes, Microsoft Research

Adventures in DNS
Bill Manning, ISI

The Internet Domain Name System is poised for explosive growth in several areas: * adding support for IPv6; * DNS security; * support for alternate character encoding methods. The existing DNS root structure was constructed with some presumptions about the underlying transport protocol that have dictated how the DNS root structure and context have evolved. Our project has constructed and deployed a root context that supports the IPv4 data but introduces new features and protocol support. We have augmented the system with IPv6 and DNSSec records and are discussing how to test alternate encodings. I'll review some preliminary findings and possible ramifications.

Xtreme Xcitement
Keith Packard, XFree86 Core Team & SuSE, Inc.

The Future Is Coming: Where the X Window System Should Go
James Gettys, Compaq Computer Corp.

XCL: An Xlib Compatibility Layer for XCB
Jamey Sharp and Bart Massey, Portland State University

Biglook: A Widget Library for the Scheme Programming Language
Erick Gallesio, University of Nice; and Manuel Serrano, INRIA

SAMBA—Ins and Outs
Gerald Carter, SAMBA Team / Hewlett-Packard

Gerald Carter has been a member of the SAMBA Team since 1998 and is employed by Hewlett-Packard as a Software Engineer, where he works on Samba-based print appliances. He is currently working on a guide to LDAP for system administrators with O'Reilly Publishing. Gerald holds a master's degree in computer science from Auburn University, where he was also previously employed as a network and system administrator.

Network Performance
Session Chair: Vern Paxton, ACIRI

Awarded Best Student Paper!
EtE: Passive End-to-End Internet Service Performance Monitoring
Yun Fu, Duke University; Ludmila Cherkasova and Wenting Tang, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories; and Amin Vahdat, Duke University

The Performance of Remote Display Mechanisms for Thin-Client Computing
S. Jae Yang, Jason Nieh, Matt Selsky, and Nikhil Tiwari, Columbia University

A Mechanism for TCP-Friendly Transport-Level Protocol Coordination
David Ott and Ketan Mayer-Patel, University of North Carolina

The Joy of Breaking Things
Pat Parseghian, Transmeta

When Transmeta launched the Crusoe microprocessor, how did we assure its compatibility with the x86 architecture? The CPU's layered design poses unique challenges, from the silicon's underlying proprietary architecture through the multiple stages of the Code Morphing Software which executes x86 instructions. This talk will share a testing philosophy and set of practices that can be applied to software products as well as systems or devices.

Hacking in the Kernel
Session Chair: Chuck Cranor, AT&T Labs—Research

An Implementation of Scheduler Activations on the NetBSD Operating System
Nathan J. Williams, Wasabi Systems Inc.

Authorization and Charging in Public WLANs Using FreeBSD and 802.1x
Pekka Nikander, Ericsson Research NomadicLab

ACPI Implementation on FreeBSD
Takanori Watanabe, Kobe University; and Michael Smith, The FreeBSD Project

Developing Portable Applications
Nick Stoughton, MSB Consultants

Nick is a principal with MSB Associates, a small Bay Area consulting firm. He is the USENIX standards liaison, and has been working on developing standards for portable applications (most notably POSIX and LSB) for 10 years. He is head of delegation for the UK to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG15, Secretary to the IEEE Portable Applications Standards Committee, and Technical Editor for the Itanium Architecture Specific Linix Standards Base document. While not developing standards for portabilty, he is writing portable applications for his clients.

Storage Systems
Elizabeth Shriver, Bell Labs

My Cache or Yours? Making Storage More Exclusive
Theodore Wong, Carnegie Mellon University; and John Wilkes, Hewlett-Packard Labs

Bridging the Information Gap in Storage Protocol Stacks
Timothy E. Denehy, Andrea C. Arpaci-Dusseau, and Remzi H. Arpaci-Dusseau, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Maximizing Throughput in Replicated Disk Striping of Variable Bit-Rate Streams
Stergios V. Anastasiadis, Duke University; and Kenneth C. Sevcik and Michael Stumm, University of Toronto

Technology, Liberty, and Washington
Alan Davidson, Center for Democracy and Technology

The open, distributed, end-to-end architecture of today's Internet is becoming a favorite target of policymakers in the U.S. and around the world. For example, in the wake of the September 11 attacks, new laws and regulations have been proposed in the U.S. to enable greater government monitoring of Internet activity. Concerns about copyright have prompted some to propose government-mandated digital-rights-management security standards. These and other initiatives could directly impact both the architecture of the Internet and the rights of Internet users. This talk will report on the latest Internet security and policy initiatives in Washington and examine their impact on the Internet's architecture and individual liberty.

Analyzing Applications
Session Chair: Jim McGinness, Consultant

Gscope: A Visualization Tool for Time-Sensitive Software
Ashvin Goel and Jonathan Walpole, Oregon Graduate Institute, Portland

Inferring Scheduling Behavior with Hourglass
John Regehr, University of Utah

A Decoupled Architecture for Application-Specific File Prefetching
Chuan-Kai Yang, Tulika Mitra, Tzi-Cker Chiueh, Stony Brook University

Automated System Administration
Steve Traugott, TerraLuna, LLC

Steve helped pioneer the term "Infrastructure Architecture" and has worked toward industry acceptance of this SysAdmin++ career track for the last several years. He is a consulting Infrastructure Architect and publishes tools and techniques for automated system administration. His deployments have ranged from financial trading floors and NASA supercomputers to Web farms and growing startups.

Work-in-Progress Reports
Session Chair: Amin Vahdat, Duke University

Short, pithy, and fun, Work-in-Progress reports introduce interesting new or on-going work, and the USENIX audience provides valuable discussion and feedback. A schedule of presentations will be posted at the conference.

CNN.com: Facing a World Crisis
William LeFebvre, CNN Internet Technologies

On September 11, 2001, Net users flocked to news sites. The unexpected and unprecedented demand quickly drove nearly every news site into the ground, and CNN.com was no exception. What brought our site back up was a tremendous effort of teamwork, fast thinking, and troubleshooting. On September 11, with only 85% availability, we nearly equaled our site's all-time high. Next day, we shattered previous site records. This talk tells the story of the CNN.com team that met an unbelievable user demand.

Work-in-Progress Reports
Session Chair: Amin Vahdat, Duke University

See the General Track (column 1) for a description of this shared session.

Tools
Session Chair: Christopher Small, Sun Microsystems

Simple and General Statistical Profiling with PCT
Charles L. Blake and Steven Bauer, LCS MIT

Engineering a Differencing and Compression Data Format
Phong Vo and David Korn, AT&T Labs

Taking an Open Source Project to Market
Eric Allman, Sendmail, Inc.

What happens when a long-time open source project is converted to a commercial model? Some effects are business-oriented and expected: for example, marketing and sales departments appear. Some are less obvious, involving the way engineering is done. Open source sendmail has been the major MTA since 1982. In 1998, as sendmail neared a "success disaster," a commercial company was formed to develop and support sendmail. The focus of this talk will be on engineering, but business issues will also crop up.

Access Control
Session Chair: Robert Watson, NAI Labs & The FreeBSD Project

Design and Performance of the OpenBSD Stateful Packet Filter (pf)
Daniel Hartmeier, Systor AG

Enhancing NFS Cross-Administrative Domain Access
Joseph Spadavecchia and Erez Zadok, Stony Brook University

Network Management, System Performance Tuning
Jeff R. Allen, Tellme Networks, Inc.

Jeff has been working in the Sysadmin field since 1992. He finds himself drawn to running large, complex systems that serve people who don't want to know they are using a computer (therein lies the complexity). He developed tools for the NOC at WebTV Networks, then moved to Tellme Networks, where today he acts as a bridge between engineering and the NOC, interfaces with the European operations team, and solves tricky problems as they arise.

Where in the Net . . .
Session Chair: Patrick McDaniel, AT&T Research

A Precise and Efficient Evaluation of the Proximity Between Web Clients and Their Local DNS Servers
Zhuoqing Mao, UC Berkeley; and Charles Cranor, Fred Douglis, Michael Rabinovich, Oliver Spatscheck, and Jia Wang, AT&T Labs

Geographic Properties of Internet Routing
Lakshminarayanan Subramanian, UC Berkeley; Venkata N. Padmanabhan, Microsoft Research; and Randy H. Katz, UC Berkeley

Providing Process Origin Information to Aid in Network Traceback
Florian Buchholz, Purdue University; and Clay Shields, Georgetown University

Information Visualization for Systems People
Tamara Munzner, University of British Columbia

By interacting with a carefully designed visual representation of data, people form mental models that help them carry out a specific task more effectively. To meet the daunting design challenge of finding a cognitively useful spatial mapping for an abstract dataset, information visualization draws on ideas from several intellectual traditions, including computer graphics, human-computer interaction, cognitive psychology, semiotics, graphic design, cartography, and art. I will present a survey of information visualization techniques and methods, concentrating on solutions relevant to problems faced by computer systems people.

Engineering Open Source Software
Session Chair: Niels Provos, University of Michigan

Ningaui: A Linux Cluster for Business
Andrew Hume, AT&T Labs—Research; and Scott Daniels, EDS

Awarded Best Paper!
CPCMS: A Configuration Management System Based on Cryptographic Names
Jonathan S. Shapiro, Johns Hopkins University

X Meets Z: Verifying Correctness in the Presence of POSIX Threads
Bart Massey, Portland State University; and Robert T. Bauer, Rational Software Corp.

Internet Security, Intranet Security, Mapping Networks
Bill Cheswick, Lumeta Corporation

Ches used to be a programmer from Bell Labs. Now he is a programmer for a Bell Labs startup. He is working hard on the second edition of his book.

Programming
Session Chair: Darrell Anderson, Duke University

Cyclone: A Safe Dialect of C
Trevor Jim, AT&T Labs—Research; and Greg Morrisett, Dan Grossman, Michael Hicks, James Cheney, and Yanling Wang, Cornell

Cooperative Task Management Without Manual Stack Management
Atul Adya, Jon Howell, Marvin Theimer, Bill Bolosky, and John Douceur, Microsoft Research

Improving Wait-Free Algorithms for Interprocess Communication in Embedded Real-Time Systems
Hai Huang, Padmanabhan Pillai, and Kang G. Shin, University of Michigan

Fixing Network Security by Hacking the Business Climate (PDF)
Bruce Schneier, Counterpane Internet Security

Network security has long been considered an engineering problem, which companies try to solve by applying technologies. The technologies are failing, and the problem is worsening. What we need are security processes, such as detection, response, and deterrence. However, the only way to get corporate management to adequately address security is to change the risk-management equation. This can be achieved by enforcing penalties for liabilities and giving corporate management the means to reduce or insure against those liabilities. It's only after we do all of these things that the Internet will be a safe and secure place.

File Systems
Session Chair: Erez Zadok, Stony Brook University

Planned Extensions to the Linux Ext2/Ext3 Filesystem
Theodore Ts'o, IBM; and Stephen Tweedie, Red Hat

Recent Filesystem Optimisations on FreeBSD
Ian Dowse, Trinity College; and David Malone, Dublin Institute of Technology;

Filesystem Performance and Scalability in Linux 2.4.17
Ray Bryant, SGI; Ruth Forester, IBM; and John Hawkes, SGI

General/Random
Jim Gettys, Compaq

Jim helped develop the X Window System. He also edited the HTTP/1.1 spec, and is now messing with Linux handhelds.

Mobility
Session Chair: Mary Baker, Stanford University

Robust Positioning Algorithms for Distributed Ad-Hoc Wireless Sensor Networks
Chris Savarese, UC Berkeley; Koen Langendoen, Delft University of Technology; and Jan Rabaey, UC Berkeley

Application-specific Network Management for Energy-aware Streaming of Popular Multimedia Formats
Surendar Chandra, University of Georgia; and Amin Vahdat, Duke University

Characterizing and Analyzing Alert and Browse Services of Mobile Clients
Atul Adya, Paramvir Bahl, and Lili Qiu, Microsoft Research

Life in an Open Source Startup
Daryll Strauss, Consultant

Development is very different for open source companies. Strangers look at your code. You give away large parts of your intellectual property. Demands are made by your users. You're expected to explain your plans and actions. Outsiders contribute code without necessarily understanding the material in depth. The benefits are a better product that better meets the requirements of your users. The development of OpenGL for Linux, a very large and very visible open source project, was a roller coaster ride with a startup company, acquisition, and finally a split, but the project lives on. This talk will debunk some of the myths about open source development and will draw conclusions in the hope of improving experiences for future open source companies.

Things to Think About
Session Chair: Toon Moene, GNU Fortran Team

Speeding Up the Kernel Scheduler by Reducing Cache Misses
Shuji Yamamura, Akira Hirai, Mitsuru Sato, Masao Yamamoto, Akira Naruse, and Kouichi Kumon, Fujitsu Laboratories, LTD

Overhauling Amd for the '00s: A Case Study of GNU Autotools
Erez Zadok, Stony Brook University

Simple Memory Protection for Embedded Operating System Kernels
Frank Miller, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Sysadmin Management/General
David Parter, University of Wisconsin, Madison

David has been a system administrator at the University of Wisconsin Computer Science Department for 10 years, serving as Associate Director for the past six. David has been the senior system administrator, guiding a staff of 8 fulltime sysdamins, and supervising up to 12 student sysadmins at a time. His experiences in this capacity include working with other groups on campus; providing technical leadership to the group; managing the budget; dealing with vendors; dealing with faculty; and training students. As a consultant, he has dealt with a variety of technical and management challenges. David has also been active in SAGE, serving on several program committees and chairing LISA '99. He currently serves as SAGE President.

Special Closing Session: How Flies Fly?
Michael H. Dickinson, Williams Professor, UC Berkeley

Join Professor Dickinson as he shares his fascinating exploration into the flight behavior and aerodynamics of flies. In his research Professor Dickinson uses virtual technology to reconstruct what a fly 'sees' and determine the means by which the fly's nervous system integrates visual and olfactory input to modify aerodynamic forces. This clever fusion of olfactory and visual information produces a robust and efficient search algorithm and should serve as a useful model for control systems in autonomous vehicles.