Re: the iab & net neutrality

Traditionally, it was sufficient for the IETF to publish an RFC 
specifying requirements or behavior; the purchasing process, through 
RFIs and RFPs, then cited the long list of RFCs, essentially creating 
the protocol police force that the IETF doesn't have.
That list-of-RFC-numbers approach is clearly not workable for consumer 
gear. The consumer wireless providers recognized that a while ago. Thus, 
802.11b became "WiFi" and an easily recognizable logo, with 
interoperability testing. Same for BlueTooth.
Trying to devise ever more elaborate NAT traversal mechanisms that 
include sending keep-alives every few seconds and various "let's try 
this and then that" algorithms clearly don't scale if we want to get to 
consumer-grade reliability, not just interesting toys that try to stay 
one step ahead of the next stupid NAT trick.
Thus, I think we need a separate organization (or work with a separate 
organization) that does branding and certification. It's hard to buy a 
non-WiFi device in stores today; the equivalent consumer assurance needs 
to be true for core consumer and small-business network devices, and 
possibly services.
Henning

Spencer Dawkins wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> My apologies for not being clearer - my intention was not to criticize 
> WG or IAB actions in the past, but to point out that we are now in an 
> escalating game of whack-a-mole with our applications as the moles that 
> NATs and FWs are finding new ways to frustrate.
> The security guys have taught us that holding the mallet and waiting for 
> the next mole to pop up is not fun; I think the NAT/FW guys are teaching 
> us that being the mole is just as bad ("gee, this used to work, until 
> someone decided that yet another normal operation was a security threat 
> and configured their FW to block it, or someone just installed a NAT 
> that is broken in some new and exciting way").
> Thanks,
>
> Spencer
>
> p.s. I apologize for the use of culture-specific analogies. For an 
> explanation of "Whack-a-mole", see 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whack_a_mole or http://whacamole.com/ ("the 
> official website" - now, that's scary).
> > From Wikipedia:
> "Colloquial usage: The term Whac-a-Mole, or Whack-a-mole, has been used 
> in the computer and networking industry to describe the phenomenon of 
> fending off recurring spammers, vandals or miscreants. The connotation 
> is that of a repetitious and futile task: each time the attacker is 
> "whacked" or kicked off of a service, he only pops up again from another 
> direction. Also used in the military to refer to opposing troops who 
> keep re-appearing: Whack the mole here and it dies, but another pops up 
> in a different spot."
> From: "Melinda Shore" <mshore(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com>
>
>
> > On 3/25/06 7:47 PM, "Spencer Dawkins" <spencer(_at_)mcsr-labs(_dot_)org> wrote:
> > > So my point was, I'd really like to take a chance on some IAB statements
> > > about things that need to be stated about our architecture. They 
> > > might be
> > > ignored. Would the result be any worse?
> > This is a somewhat bothersome case, because the IAB *did* issue
> > an RFC explaining what many of the problems were with "Unilateral
> > Network Self-Address Fixing" (i.e. STUN).  They included a list
> > of conditions they felt that an UNSAF protocol had to meet in order to
> > be published, including a description of a transition mechanism away
> > from itself and towards something more robust.  I don't know what
> > more the IAB could have done in order to kill what I think is
> > a clearly pathological approach to NAT traversal (and I chaired the
> > working group that standardized it, so I accept a great deal of
> > responsibility for this mess), but if putting out a document that
> > says "These are the reasons that this isn't a good protocol" isn't
> > enough, well, I'm not sure.  But it seems to me that trying to
> > fix it this late in the process (my other .sig is "software longa,
> > hardware brevis") has less to do with architecture and more to do
> > with oncology.
> >
> > At any rate, I do think that in this case the IAB did do their job
> > and it was the rest of us louts who messed up.  And I'll tell you
> > where I think it happened: when we accepted the idea that something
> > might be transitional and would eventually go away.
> >
> > Melinda
>
>
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