SCION#

Adrian Perrig — ETH Zurich

• Why: SCION is the most serious sustained attempt at a clean-slate, security-first internet architecture that has reached actual deployment discussions, and it speaks directly to the PM's network-security and interdomain-routing interests. Having its chief architect present at an operator event means the talk is aimed at people who run networks, not academics.
• What: SCION (Scalability, Control, and Isolation on Next-Generation Networks) is a path-aware internetworking architecture: instead of letting BGP's path selection decide transit opaque to endpoints, receivers and senders hold visible, cryptographically authenticated path choices. The program publishes no description for this session, so the specific content (architecture overview vs. deployment status vs. operator onboarding) is unknown — but any of those would be valuable. (from abstract only; no description published)
• How: SCION organizes the internet into Isolation Domains containing ASes, and lets endpoints select among authenticated AS-level path segments — enabling path failure isolation, protection against route hijacks, and control-plane attacks that today's BGP can't defend against. The Swiss financial sector has run SCION pilots over an exchange infrastructure, making this relevant to IX/peering operators like the host.
• Where applicable: Interdomain/WAN transit and any environment with strict integrity or availability guarantees (finance, critical infrastructure). Not a DC-fabric or LAN technique — it's about the internet core and inter-AS paths. Deployment is still early; treat it as a signal of where interdomain security is heading rather than something to adopt next quarter.