clan-master-thesis/Chapters/Motivation.tex

\chapter{Motivation} % Main chapter title

\label{Motivation}

Peer-to-peer architectures promise censorship-resistant, fault-tolerant
infrastructure by eliminating single points of failure \cite{shukla_towards_2021}.
These architectures underpin a growing range of systems---from IoT edge computing
and content delivery networks to blockchain platforms like Ethereum.
Yet realizing these benefits requires distributing nodes across
genuinely diverse hosting entities.

In practice, this diversity remains illusory.
Amazon, Hetzner, and OVH collectively host 70\% of all Ethereum nodes
(see Figure~\ref{fig:ethernodes_hosting}),
concentrating nominally decentralized infrastructure
within a handful of cloud providers.
More concerning, these providers operate under overlapping regulatory jurisdictions,
predominantly the United States and the European Union.
This concentration undermines technical sovereignty:
a single governmental action could compel service termination,
data disclosure, or traffic manipulation across a majority of the network.

\begin{figure}[H]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=1\textwidth]{Figures/ethernodes_hosting.png}
  \caption{Distribution of Ethereum nodes hosted by various providers
  \cite{noauthor_isps_nodate}}
  \label{fig:ethernodes_hosting}
\end{figure}

Why does this centralization persist despite the explicit goals of decentralization?
The answer lies in the practical barriers to self-hosting.
Cloud providers offer static IP addresses and publicly routable endpoints,
eliminating the networking complexity that plagues residential and
small-office deployments.
Most internet-connected devices sit behind Network Address Translation (NAT),
which prevents incoming connections without explicit port forwarding
or relay infrastructure.
Combined with dynamic IP assignments from ISPs, maintaining stable peer connectivity
from self-hosted infrastructure traditionally required significant technical expertise.

Overlay VPNs offer a solution to this fundamental barrier.
By establishing encrypted tunnels that traverse NAT boundaries,
mesh VPNs enable direct peer-to-peer connectivity without requiring
static IP addresses or manual firewall configuration.
Each node receives a stable virtual address within the overlay network,
regardless of its underlying network topology.
This capability is transformative:
it allows a device behind consumer-grade NAT to participate
as a first-class peer in a distributed system,
removing the primary technical advantage that cloud providers hold.

The Clan deployment framework builds on this foundation.
Clan leverages Nix and NixOS to eliminate entire classes of
configuration errors prevalent in contemporary infrastructure deployment,
reducing operational overhead to a degree where a single administrator
can reliably self-host complex distributed services.
Overlay VPNs are central to Clan's architecture,
providing the secure peer connectivity that enables nodes
to form cohesive networks regardless of their physical location or NAT situation.
As illustrated in Figure~\ref{fig:vision-stages}, Clan envisions
a web interface that enables users to design and deploy private P2P networks
with minimal configuration, assisted by an integrated LLM
for contextual guidance and troubleshooting.

During the development of Clan, a recurring challenge became apparent:
practitioners held divergent preferences for mesh VPN solutions,
each citing different edge cases where their chosen VPN
proved unreliable or lacked essential features.
These discussions were largely grounded in anecdotal evidence
rather than systematic evaluation.
This observation revealed a clear need for rigorous,
evidence-based comparison of peer-to-peer overlay VPN implementations.

Existing research on this topic remains sparse.
One notable work from 2024, ``Full-mesh VPN performance evaluation
for a secure edge-cloud continuum'' \cite{kjorveziroski_full-mesh_2024},
benchmarks a subset of mesh VPNs but focuses primarily
on solutions with a central point of failure.
In contrast, this thesis evaluates more widely adopted mesh VPNs
with an emphasis on fully decentralized architectures.
Furthermore, that study relied exclusively on iperf3 for performance measurement,
whereas our benchmark suite includes real-world workloads
to better reflect practical usage patterns.

A further motivation was to create a fully automated benchmarking framework
capable of generating a public leaderboard,
similar in spirit to the js-framework-benchmark
(see Figure~\ref{fig:js-framework-benchmark}).
By providing an accessible web interface with regularly updated results,
we hope to encourage P2P VPN developers to optimize their implementations
in pursuit of top rankings.

\begin{figure}[H]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=1\textwidth]{Figures/krause-js-framework.png}
  \caption{js-framework-benchmark results for Chrome 144.0
  \cite{krause_krausestjs-framework-benchmark_2026}}
  \label{fig:js-framework-benchmark}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}[h]
  \centering

  % Row 1
  \begin{subfigure}{0.45\textwidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{Figures/vision/stage1.png}
    \caption{Stage 1}
  \end{subfigure}
  \hfill
  \begin{subfigure}{0.45\textwidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{Figures/vision/stage2.png}
    \caption{Stage 2}
  \end{subfigure}

  \vspace{1em} % Add spacing between rows

  % Row 2
  \begin{subfigure}{0.45\textwidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{Figures/vision/stage3.png}
    \caption{Stage 3}
  \end{subfigure}
  \hfill
  \begin{subfigure}{0.45\textwidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{Figures/vision/stage4.png}
    \caption{Stage 4}
  \end{subfigure}

  \vspace{1em} % Add spacing between rows

  % Row 3
  \begin{subfigure}{0.45\textwidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{Figures/vision/stage5.png}
    \caption{Stage 5}
  \end{subfigure}
  \hfill
  \begin{subfigure}{0.45\textwidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{Figures/vision/stage6.png}
    \caption{Stage 6}
  \end{subfigure}

  \vspace{1em} % Add spacing between rows

  % Row 4
  \begin{subfigure}{0.45\textwidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{Figures/vision/stage7.png}
    \caption{Stage 7}
  \end{subfigure}
  \hfill
  \begin{subfigure}{0.45\textwidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{Figures/vision/stage8.png}
    \caption{Stage 8}
  \end{subfigure}

  \caption{Visionary Webinterface to Setup a Clan Family Network}
  \label{fig:vision-stages}
\end{figure}