How I wrote a Python client for HTTP/3 proxies
- Room:
- Wicklow Hall 1
- Start (Dublin time):
- Start (your time):
- Duration:
- 30 minutes
Abstract
MASQUE (Multiplexed Application Substrate over QUIC Encryption) is a draft of a new protocol that allows running proxy or VPN services indistinguishable from HTTPS servers. Akamai built a managed proxy service based on the MASQUE protocol to provide egress proxy for iCloud Private Relay.
While working on the proxy at Akamai, I wrote a Python client for testing the proxy service. The MASQUE protocol can tunnel traffic through HTTP/3 or HTTP/2, but common Python libraries only support HTTP/1.1. The tunneled traffic can use any protocol on top of TCP or UDP, including all HTTP versions, so MASQUE can be proxied through MASQUE for onion routing.
In this talk, I will show that the MASQUE proxy design is simple and yet client implementations are complex. To put everything into context, I will recap how HTTP proxies operate and how HTTP versions differ. I will highlight lessons learned from designing a low-level HTTP client using Python asyncio.
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