ietf-openproxy
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Re: WG Review: Open Pluggable Edge Services (opes)

2001-06-19 16:14:21

Has everyone who has a reallyreallyreally strong opinion on this matter actually read the charter? Right there near the top, it says:

Intermediary services provided in this way are not transparent: Either the content requestor or provider will be aware that a tranformation has been performed.

OK, so the spelling is not so great, but it sure is clear. What some people seem to be up in arms about is that the IETF would even think of helping someone change the content in HTTP. Data mungers are doing that already, and it is bad, and it is untraceable. So what should the IETF do?

- Bury our head in the sand and at the same time keep yelling "end-to-end", thereby getting sand in our mouths and having the other people on the beach laugh at our collective and rapidly-aging rear ends

- Let some other group create a standard, even though that group probably cares much less about both end-to-end integrity or alerting one or both sides than the IETF does

- Create a standard that does a really good job of allowing one end (or, hopefully both ends) know what has been changed and why, in an interoperable fashion

If my data coming or going gets changed, I want to be notified; that cannot happen now.

As for the argument about "TLS everywhere", you have to ask who is going to pay for it. The end-user cannot demand it; only the server can. TLS is universally available today, and servers rarely use it for anything other than getting credit cards or passwords.

Data is already being changed, some of in ways that we should really be unhappy about, and there is no way for the folks changing it to tell either end. OPES gives them that capability. Post-OPES, data will still get changed silently without using OPES, but at least there can be pressure put on the changers to use OPES so that someone sees what is happening. Without OPES, they never will.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

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