QPEP: An Actionable Approach to Secure and Performant Broadband From Geostationary Orbit

Abstract

Satellite broadband services are critical infrastructures, bringing connectivity to the most remote regions of the globe. However, due to performance concerns, many geostationary satellite broadband services are unencrypted and vulnerable to long-range eavesdropping attacks. This paper delves into the underlying cause of these issues, presenting the case that the widespread use of Performance Enhancing Proxies (PEPs) for TCP optimization has created a security/performance trade-off. A review of previous mitigation proposals finds limited real-world adoption due to a variety of factors ranging from misaligned commercial incentives to the prevalence of unverified "black-box" encryption products. To address these shortcomings, we design and implement a fully open-source and encrypted-by-default PEP/VPN hybrid, called QPEP. Built around the QUIC standard, QPEP enables individuals to encrypt satellite traffic without ISP involvement. Additionally, we present an open and replicable Docker-based testbed for benchmarking QPEP, and other PEP applications, through simulation. These experiments show that QPEP enables satellite customers to encrypt their TCP traffic with up to 72% faster page load times (PLTs) compared to traditional VPN encryption. Even relative to other unencrypted PEPs, QPEP offers up to 54% faster PLTs while also protecting communications in transit. We briefly discuss how QPEP might leverage bespoke modifications to the QUIC protocol for further optimization. Ultimately, our experiments suggest that QPEP's hybrid architecture represents a promising new technique for bringing both security and performance to satellite broadband while avoiding costly alterations to status-quo networks.

Exploring Proxying QUIC and HTTP/3 for Satellite Communication

“…In order to determine a typical one-way delay for LEO orbits, we perform ∼600k RTT measurements from a vantage point in Central Europe over a period of one week using Starlink [1], where we find a median first hop RTT of ∼32ms (mean ∼33ms). While we acknowledge that the first hop RTT in LEO constellations changes due to the movement of the satellites, we observe relatively constant RTTs for at least 30 consecutive seconds, which is in line with the observations of Kassing et al [25] and Pavur et al [14]. As our measurements do not exceed a duration of 20s, we set the SATCOM LEO one-way delay to a static value of 16ms (1/2 RTT).…”

“…Lastly, the attenuation is configured with 0dB, i.e., no signal damping, and the packet loss rate is chosen from 0, 0.01, 0.1, and 1%. While the transport layer loss is considered to range from nearly 0% (where almost all errors are corrected by the link-layer) up to 0.01% in real world satellite conditions [14], we include 0.1 and 1% loss conditions in order to evaluate edge cases.…”

“…We take a different approach to examine the impact of transport-layer optimizations on the performance of QUIC over GEO and LEO links by developing a proof-of-concept QUIC-PEP. Previous work on intermediaries with QUIC for SATCOM is sparse and the closest related work is from Pavur et al [14] on QPEP, who multiplex TCP connections over a single QUIC connection between ground terminals and thereby significantly reduce Page Load Times. They, however, study a long-standing QUIC connection and therefore exclude the connection setup.…”

The Effects of a Performance Enhancing Proxy on TCP Congestion Control over a Satellite Network

“…Pavur et al [22] design and implement QPEP, an opensource PEP/VPN hybrid based on the QUIC standard that has the potential to encrypt all traffic over a satellite link. Their experiments show QPEP provides up to 72% faster page load times compared to traditional VPN encryption.…”

Securing Public Safety Communications on Commercial and Tactical 5G Networks: A Survey and Future Research Directions

“…For the regular bubble, it would be possible to rely on transport/application layer security measures listed in Table V, but this still leaves open security threats that may be unacceptable to MC users. An alternative approach based on the QUIC protocol and specifically designed for the GEO satellite links, QPEP, has been proposed recently [146]. However, more work is needed, to verify its compatibility with the MC services and requirements.…”