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Re: Last call comments: draft-farrell-perpass-attack

2013-12-14 18:00:04
Hi Sam,
At 15:49 13-12-2013, Sam Hartman wrote:
Please, whatever you do, remove section 3 on the process note.
As it stands, it reads as follows:

* We're unable to find a way for the IESG and IAB to publish a document
  together

* We really wish the IESG and IAB could publish a document together bbut
  reluctantly being unable to do that we'll settle for a community
  consensus document.

If you must say something how about:
In the past, architectural statements of this sort have been published
as joint  products of the IESG and IAB.  This document represents the
community consensus of the IETF and was published in accordance with the
processes in affect at time of publication.

The above text sounds better than a process note.

In particular, I think a community statement of the whole community is
stronger than a joint IAB/IESG work product.  I'd hope that the IESG and
IAB would support the team and say that "Hey, we're part of the
community, and a community consensus is how we present really strong
statements."

Yes.

I'm also still sputtering at the idea that our leadership cannot find a
way within the current process for the IESG and IAB to publish a
document together ifg they wanted to.  I don't think that would be
desirable in this instance.  We've changed and there's more focus on the
community than there was in the RFC 1984 days.  However, I hope that if
it were the right thing to do our leadership could work together and
publish a joint document.  The current text really sounds like you
believe you couldn't.  Let's try and be better team players than that.

The text doesn't add much value to the document. If the IAB feels strongly about being mentioned in the draft, it could suggest text for an IAB statement. That statement could be added if the community agrees to it.

I understand the desire to figure out whether we have consensus that
pervasive monitoring is a threat quickly.  If we find that we have some
open issues to resolve like the ones I bring up, but that we have
consensus on the basic point, we have a quick way forward.  Jari could
announce that the consensus of the IETF 88 plenary has been confirmed on
the list and we could move forward.  It's rare that the IETF acts in
plenary, but not rare that we make consensus calls about the big points
in documents while details are still open.

There is a belief that a decision was taken at the IETF 88 plenary. I would describe the events as follows:

  (a) There was a talk about the tens of thousands of documents
     recently obtained from [removed].

  (b) Security Considerations up to now have the following implicit
      consideration:

        "Surveillance issues are not addressed in this memo"

  (c) The crowd was ready to vote "yes" (see title of draft).

  (d) The IAB Chair asked the question and the expected response was received.

  (e) There was a discussion in perpass.  That discussion was nuanced [1].

  (f) The IETF Chair suggested writing a RFC.

  (g) There were objections about the hums on the IETF discussion list.

(h) There is currently a Last Call about an intended BCP relating to privacy.

The lesser effort is to publish a statement of intent as a RFC. The problem with a statement of intent is: "what do you really mean when you say X?", or in other words, "how will this affect my draft or my business"? This raises questions pertaining to architecture (re. message from Sam Hartman at http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg84955.html ). It's a balancing act. It isn't a significant problem if a working group can provide a rationale for its decisions.

Regards,
-sm

1. a subtle difference in or shade of meaning