On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 11:28 AM John C Klensin <john-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote:
The attack scenario would be: suppose EvilCo [1] wants to get,
not only two people on the Nomcom but, if possible, two of their
most skilled committee-manipulators. In that case, they put
_many_ people into the Nomcom candidate pool, enough to create,
not only high odds of getting two positions in the top ten but
good odds of getting several of slots 11-15 as well. Then those
who are selected stop down in favor of of the preferred
manipulators. Note that redoing the random draw would not
effect that scenario and the likelihood that more people in the
pool would yield more top slots (as sell as more bottom slots of
course)-- it would just reshuffle the deck.
I don't believe this analysis is correct. For EvilCo's plan to work, the two preferred people have to be in positions N+1 and N+2 on the list, which is exceedingly unlikely. If the secondary people withdraw, it's as if they had never been on the list in terms of positioning.
What is possible is for EvilCo to increase the probability of getting someone onto the NomCom, and if more than two people are drawn, for EvilCo to pick which two actually serve. This eliminates the disincentive for more staff from a single entity to volunteer, because they might bump someone more senior or capable. That may or may not be a problem! But adding dummy volunteers doesn't get you any closer to getting a certain person on, IIUC.
