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

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.