None of my emails have been abusive. The IETF is not some random list that can
make up rules as it pleases. Nor is the IETF a popularity contest. Unlike
members of "joes barbecue list" or Nanog, or other such lists, IETF Participants
have an opportunity to participate and under the ISOC and IETF codes of conduct,
a right to be free of unwarranted personal attacks and threats. Valid,
justified, technical criticism is not a violation of any IETF rule. Nor is valid
criticism a disruption.
Kessens' fallacious complaint is just revenge in an attempt to squash valid
technical criticism of ISC's operation of F Root. Valid criticism of Root DNS
operation is an appropriate topic for the DNSOP list. I think that the IESG
ought to address the validity of my criticism of ISC Root DNS operation and
deployment of the Anycast Extension, and I think that the IESG should address
the abuse of WG Chair privileges by the Mr. Kessens, and consider the failures
of the WG chairs to properly criticize actual abuse. Kessens is not the only
abuser.
Kessens further claims falsely below that I "immediately followed up by sending
more abusive mails to the dnsop and ietf mail lists". Plainly, there is nothing
abusive about complaining about Kessens' threats, nor is there anything abusive
about defending my criticisms as being valid, justified, and appropriate to the
DNSOP list. Plainly, my complaint about Kessens' behavior to the IETF list is an
administrative issue, and so it is within the administrative purpose of the main
IETF list. There is nothing abusive about that.
However, this is not to say that abuse isn't happening. Besides Mr. Kessens'
instant abuse of his position, there is a history of unchecked abuse against
myself and others, including Dr. Dan Bernstein, who have been abused several
times on the IETF main list as well as a particular pattern of disruption on the
DNSOP and DNSEXT lists.
>From RFC 3683:
Notably, in a small number of cases, a participant has engaged in
what amounts to a "denial-of-service" attack to disrupt the
consensus-driven process. Typically, these attacks are made by
repeatedly posting messages that are off-topic, inflammatory, or
otherwise counter-productive. In contrast, good faith disagreement
is a healthy part of the consensus-driven process.
My activity hasn't been disruptive of any IETF activity. In fact, Mr. Kessens'
complaint is plainly meant to disrupt consideration of my (but not just mine)
valid technical criticism. The only possible disruption is to ISC financial
income from selling Anycast DNS Root services. But since the technical
contributions of myself, Dan Bernstein, Iljitsch van Beijnum and others is that
those services can't work in general, the IETF DNSOP WG has an obligation to
investigate and discuss that.
However, there has been much disruptive behavior by others especially on the
subject of the ISC Anycast Extension. Activity that is clearly intended to
disrupt or even deny email service. Here is a short list:
In 2002, after Dr. Bernstein reported on the DNSEXT list about the ISC Anycast
Extension described by ISC in a presentation to Nanog, his subscription address
was posted by Randy Bush (then DNSEXT WG chair) on several occasions to the
DNSEXT list. The enabled forged unsubscriptions of his email address,
disrupting Dr. Bernstein's email subscription. The posting of the unsubscription
address only happened to Dr. Bernstein. This eventually disrupted the discussion
of the ISC Anycast Extension, as discussion turned to the abuse of Dr.
Bernstein. This is plainly a violation of IETF rules on participation. Bush
stepped down as WG chair afterward, and many including myself thought that this
was a punishment. However, Harald Alvestrand informed me in his role as IETF
Chair that Bush was not punished. So no action was ever taken for this abuse.
Other incidents happened, generally involving Nanog participants and
ISC-friendly people. For example:
The 2002 Nanog Presentation on Anycast Extension was made by ISC Project Manager
Suzanne Woolf. In September, 2004, on the subject of the ISC Anycast Extension,
John Brown made a vicious personal attack on the DNSOP list against Dean
Anderson. A complaint was made to DNSOP and the IETF main list on September 30,
2004. In his attack, Brown claimed no affiliation with ISC:
"...I felt it important to reply as someone thats NOT in
any shape fashion or form, ISC or its staff" --John Brown.
It turned out that Brown was involved with Suzanne Woolf in at least
Chagres.net, at the time. The same Woolf who was in charge of the Anycast
Extension at ISC. Still, non-affiliation doesn't justify unwarranted personal
attacks, but affiliation and false claims of non-affiliation certainly makes
those attacks look more self-serving. No action was ever taken by the IETF or
by the DNSOP WG chair in response to this or ANY other complaints.
On May 9, 2004, I attempted to send the DNSOP Co-chair Rob Austein a note about
draft-ietf-dnsop-dontpublish-unreachable-03.txt. This message was rejected by
Mr. Austein, and I was told that Av8 Internets' IP addresses were Hijacked. Mr
Austein was also an ISC Employee. It turned out that Austein had been using a
counterfeit blacklist that was defaming Av8 Internet. These messages aren't just
sent to me, but to Av8 Internet's customers as well. This is defamation: that
is, a provably false statement made to a third party (Av8 Internet's customers):
a defamatory statement made by an IETF worker on official IETF business for
which the IETF and ISOC is legally responsible. Besides the defamatory aspect,
the IETF rules require WG chairs to interact with participants, and Austein's
use of the counterfeit blacklist prevents interaction in violation of IETF
rules. Austein needs to use an official email address that accepts email from
IETF participants, and needs to stop making defamatory messages during official
IETF business. Austein has not yet done so, as of 9/24/2005. A complaint was
made to the IETF main list on May 10, 2004. We still have several years in
which to discover pertinent facts before begining litigation on the defamation
issue. We seem to be discovering official hostility, which isn't far from
malice. This remains an open issue.
June 21, 2004, a complaint was made after Paul Vixie called Av8 Internet by the
disparaging name "dv8" several times. No response on this.
October 4, 2004, a complaint was made after Stephane Bortzmeyer made disparaging
remarks on the DNSOP list. The subject under discussion was also the ISC Anycast
Extension.
I've just noticed that a number of these personal attacks involve the ISC
Anycast Extension, and are made by people involved with or friendly to ISC.
Though, not all. A few are related to frequent posters to the Nanog list such as
Dave Crocker, Steven Bellovin, Stephane Bortzmeyer, etc. Over the years, I've
been involved in a number of controversial or at least unpopular issues
involving Nanog sometimes. On most or maybe all of these issues, I've been
vindicated and proved right over time. See
http://www.iadl.org/nanog/nanog-story.html Vindication is apparently quite
irritating to those proved wrong.
There are a number of other incidents where personal attacks are made. Nick
Strand was told his view was a waste of time by the present IETF chair. In fact,
his view was articulate, and substantiated by facts. These attacks are meant to
disrupt discussion. If for example, Mr. Strand was wrong, people would make a
rational argument against his view. But they had no rational argument, leaving
them with only personal attacks and name-calling. Jefsey Morfin also comes to
mind as a victim. No reparation has been made that I know of.
While name-calling and some kinds of professional dishonesty are usually merely
discourteous behaviors that don't ultimately affect the operation or decisions
of the IETF, by contrast, the failure to address valid DNS operational
criticisms by a Working Group charged with DNS operational issues is a
significant failure. But more gravely still, active efforts by a WG Chair to
suppress valid technical criticism for what seems to be the financial benefit of
one company (ISC) is not just merely inappropriate, but in fact well beyond what
can be tolerated of an allegedly vendor neutral forum. This has gone well
beyond mere name-calling and is now a serious issue of IETF operational
integrity.
Dean Anderson
Av8 Internet, Inc
On Fri, 23 Sep 2005, David Kessens wrote:
>
> IESG,
>
> I would like to request that we consider Dean Anderson posting
> privileges to be removed for the dnsop and ietf maillist.
>
> As you can see from my private mail that Dean forwarded to the IETF
> list, I have given him an official warning to refrain from sending any
> more abusive mails to IETF maillists. Despite this, he immediately
> followed up by sending more abusive mails to the dnsop and ietf
> mail lists.
>
> I hope that we can discuss this as soon as possible. Until then, I
> will try to refrain from sending any more messages on this topic as I
> don't believe that this will be productive. People on this mail list
> might want to consider to do the same thing.
>
> Thanks,
>
> David Kessens
> Operations & Management Area Director
> ---
>
> ----- Forwarded message from Dean Anderson <dean@xxxxxxx> -----
>
> Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 20:08:46 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Dean Anderson <dean@xxxxxxx>
> X-X-Sender: dean@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: ietf@xxxxxxxx
> Subject: Mismanagement of the DNSOP list
>
> FYI: I am being threatened for posting operationally relevant criticism of
> mis-operation of the F DNS Root server on the DNSOP list.
>
>
>
>
--
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