- B checks its current link undertakings (bulk, r/t, total b/w vs b/w availability etc), and offers to A something like:
- I can ACK your request not before 13 minutes, (presumably due to current link contracts);
I will hold open this offer for you, for 10 seconds, i.e. I will not enter new link contracts before $NOW + 10s.
Such protocols lead to information exposure (i.e. privacy bugs), since if stalker node S "the snake" makes a request of node B during this 10s window, and gets an "unusual response latency", then S can gather than B may be holding back additional contracts due to the above phone call "headroom link" proto. This may not be a lot of information, and may ultimately not be useful ("exploitable"), but we must keep such "protocol level" exposures in mind. If there are various reasons, including say "arbitrarily random" request-response latency occurrences, we may either mitigate, or completely eliminate, such information exposures.