Hi John, On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 01:02:24PM -0500, John C Klensin wrote: > For all of the obvious reasons, I think reclassifying these > documents to historic is a good idea. _However_ if we are Glad to hear it. > really trying to say "don't use these, they are obsolete and > unsafe" rather than just "no current specification refers to > them but do what you like", I believe that it would be better to > publish a short RFC explaining the issues with them rather than > simply making a datatracker note that points to a "supporting > document", particularly one that doesn't actually say much of > anything. > > That should be especially easy because > draft-ietf-tls-oldversions-deprecate-09 already obsoletes 5469, > so why not simply add a sentence there, update the Last Call to > identify the move as "to Historic" as well as "Obsoleted", and > move on. I confess that I'm rather confused, given that my understanding of what your propose above matches exactly with what I believe we are doing. I note that current IESG procedures require the existence of a status-change document to effectuate a status change, even if there is also an associated RFC-to-be that describes the situation in more detail. References to the status-change document in the datatracker can then be replaced by references to the (then-)RFC when the RFC in question actually gets published. So, in the text at https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/status-change-tls-des-idea-ciphers-to-historic/, when we see: % Upon approval and its publication as an RFC, % draft-ietf-tls-oldversions-deprecate should replace this status change % document as the reference for the status change event. that is intended to indicate that references to the status change document here will eventually be replaced by references to RFC-ietf-tls-oldversions-deprecate. Likewise, in https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-tls-oldversions-deprecate-09#section-1.1 we see: The DES and IDEA cipher suites specified in [RFC5469] were specifically removed from TLSv1.2 by [RFC5246]; since the only versions of TLS for which their usage is defined are now Historic, RFC 5469 (will be|has been) moved to Historic as well. What am I missing? > Being clear about this seems especially important because RFC > 5246, published a five months before 5469, says > > "Removed IDEA and DES cipher suites. They are now > deprecated and will be documented in a separate > document." > > but gives no explanation. RFC 5469 is presumably the document > being promised, but there is no information in the RFC index > (or, AFAICT, other obvious RFC metadate) binding them together. > Under normal circumstances (which these obviously were not) it > would have been appropriate to publish 5469 as Historic since > the relevant protocols were already deprecated but, presumably > does not indicate that it updates 5246 (to provide the promised > information) because it was published as Informational rather > than Standards Track or BCP. > > So, a further suggestion is that > draft-ietf-tls-oldversions-deprecate-09 be further modified to > update 5246 (assuming we are not ready to obsolete it), stating > simply that 5469 is the document describing the IDEA and DES and > the reasons for removing them called for by 5246. That's an interesting idea, though it's not entirely clear to me how well it fits into the intended content of draft-ietf-tls-oldversions-deprecate, which is otherwise not modifying TLS 1.2 at all. It would be good to hear additional considered opinions on this matter. Thanks, Ben > The most common complaint I hear from outside the IETF community > about how we make and document standards is that it is nearly > impossible to ascertain what is and is not relevant to a given > specification and/or current. Why document an action that might > help clarify such situations by moving a document to Historic in > a way that might make the situation worse and leave loose ends > dangling? > > john > > > > On Nov 9, 2020, at 5:33 PM, The IESG <iesg-secretary@xxxxxxxx> > wrote: > > > > The IESG has received a request from an individual > > participant to make the following status changes: > > > > - RFC5469 from Informational to Historic > > (DES and IDEA Cipher Suites for Transport Layer Security > > (TLS)) > > > > The supporting document for this request can be found here: > > > > https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/status-change-tls-des-idea-c > > iphers-to-historic/ > > > > The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and > > solicits final comments on this action. Please send > > substantive comments to the last-call@xxxxxxxx mailing lists > > by 2020-12-07. Exceptionally, comments may be sent to > > iesg@xxxxxxxx instead. In either case, please retain the > > beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting. > > > > The affected document can be obtained via > > https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc5469/ > > > > IESG discussion of this request can be tracked via > > https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/status-change-tls-des-idea-c > > iphers-to-historic/ballot/ > > > -- > last-call mailing list > last-call@xxxxxxxx > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/last-call -- last-call mailing list last-call@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/last-call
