Do you know what you are generating

Software-based traffic generators are commonly used in ex-perimental research on computer networks. However, there are no much studies focusing on how such instruments are accurate. Here we start a discussion reviewing the prob-lem of using software-based traffic generators over common hardware/software, highlighting interesting issues that pose some threats to common beliefs. We started comparing the operator-requested traffic profile against the real behavior of commonly used software-based traffic generators. We aim at performing tests under different conditions and looking both at packet/bit rate and inter-packet time distribution. Prelimi-nary results show notable differences in some cases, opening the way to interesting discussions and further investigations