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Re: Future Handling of Blue Sheets

2012-04-23 14:40:54
Hi,
According to the proposal, the (scanned and proceedings-attached) blue
sheets contain non machine-interpretable data (handwritten names).
Assuming this, I think our desire for transparency ought to outweigh our
desire for privacy.  It will still require a lot of manual work to
generate a maechine-interpretable version of the bluesheets suitable for
automatic processing, alleviating at least some of the privacy concerns.
OTOH, I consider it rather helpful to be able to go back a few years and
see who was attending a certain WG at a certain time, and who was not.
(Can be helpful for all kinds of things beyond facilities planning and
litigation, for example verifying statements found in resumes, refreshing
one's memory of the who-is-who in a certain WG at a certain time, and so
on.)
My view would probably be different with respect to blue sheet publication
if the content were machine-interpretable.
Email addresses so meaningless nowadays in the sense that everyone who is
careful, or already has bad intentions, can get his/her own use-once email
with only minimal planning and effort.  So let's save some time to
participants when filling out the blue sheet, and remove them from the
blue sheets as proposed.
Stephan



On 4.23.2012 12:23 , "James M. Polk" <jmpolk(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com> wrote:

At 01:31 PM 4/23/2012, Michael StJohns wrote:
At 01:26 PM 4/23/2012, Andy Bierman wrote:
On 04/23/2012 10:13 AM, Michael StJohns wrote:


At 12:22 PM 4/23/2012, Melinda Shore wrote:
On 4/23/12 6:58 AM, Scott O Bradner wrote:
see rfc 2418 - they are to keep a record as who is taking part
in a WG's activities
keeping track of attendees is a basic part of any standards
development organization's process

The tension here appears to be between transparency of process and an
individual right to privacy.  I think that the IETF has a
considerable
stake in the former, not just because of the frequency with which
some
little pisher or other threatens to sue over what they perceive to be
trust/collusion issues, but because openness is an IETF institutional
value.  I think it should continue to be.  I understand the privacy
issues (although I won't necessary lump them as an instance of
revealing
PII) but tend to think that the information being revealed is pretty
sparse and the privacy concerns here probably aren't substantial
enough
to counterbalance the organizational interest in keeping processes as
open as possible.

Melinda


And to put a further point on it - the last sentence of the "NOTE
WELL" notice (http://www.ietf.org/about/note-well.html) that
applies to each and every IETF meeting and working group session
and IETF activity is very clear that written, audio and video
records can and will be kept.  A person attending an IETF meeting
has no reasonable expectation of privacy for those things we define
as "IETF activities".

So if someone demands "privacy", the price is non-participation
in the IETF.

Not exactly -- the NOTE WELL applies to contributions.
Is just showing up and observing the meeting considered a contribution?

The NOTE WELL implicates any "statements", oral, written or
electronic as well as "submissions".

The last sentence of the NOTE WELL says "A participant in any IETF
activity acknowledges that written, audio and video records of
meetings may be made and may be available to the public." - and that
puts paid to the concept that an attendee has a "privacy"
expectation during the meeting.

How can anyone have the expectations for privacy to a meeting they
have already publicly signed up and paid for - likely with a credit
card that can also be tracked. To then be concerned about individual
meeting attendance tied to a certain room during a certain time
*after the fact* (sometimes by weeks or more) is just silly, and a
waste of time.

Scan the bluesheets, keep the email addresses for a better record of
who is who at a certain meeting, destroy the blue sheets after the scan.

James


Personally, I don't think the blue sheets should even be filled out,
let alone published.  The WG chairs can convey the meeting room
size requirements
without passing around clipboards and (hopefully) everybody
writing down their name.

There is no correlation between the blue sheets and IETF contributions.
I don't see what purpose they serve anymore.


AFAIK, you're not a patent troll.  I have met them during IETF
meetings.  One of my RFC's was patented - without my knowledge or
consent.  (cf  RFC2786 vs US Patent No. 7290142)  Fortunately, the
record was clear that the RFC and the drafts preceded the applicants
"spark".  However, it might have been more interesting had there
been need to a) prove when the first public disclosure was made and
b) implicate a specific person, company or entity in being present
when that disclosure was made.  Hence the blue sheets.

So they do serve a purpose.

Mike



Mike


Andy