Re: the iab & net neutrality

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Traditionally, it was sufficient for the IETF to publish an RFC specifying requirements or behavior; the purchasing process, through RFIs and RFPs, then cited the long list of RFCs, essentially creating the protocol police force that the IETF doesn't have.

That list-of-RFC-numbers approach is clearly not workable for consumer gear. The consumer wireless providers recognized that a while ago. Thus, 802.11b became "WiFi" and an easily recognizable logo, with interoperability testing. Same for BlueTooth.

Trying to devise ever more elaborate NAT traversal mechanisms that include sending keep-alives every few seconds and various "let's try this and then that" algorithms clearly don't scale if we want to get to consumer-grade reliability, not just interesting toys that try to stay one step ahead of the next stupid NAT trick.

Thus, I think we need a separate organization (or work with a separate organization) that does branding and certification. It's hard to buy a non-WiFi device in stores today; the equivalent consumer assurance needs to be true for core consumer and small-business network devices, and possibly services.

Henning

Spencer Dawkins wrote:
Dear All,

My apologies for not being clearer - my intention was not to criticize WG or IAB actions in the past, but to point out that we are now in an escalating game of whack-a-mole with our applications as the moles that NATs and FWs are finding new ways to frustrate.

The security guys have taught us that holding the mallet and waiting for the next mole to pop up is not fun; I think the NAT/FW guys are teaching us that being the mole is just as bad ("gee, this used to work, until someone decided that yet another normal operation was a security threat and configured their FW to block it, or someone just installed a NAT that is broken in some new and exciting way").

Thanks,

Spencer

p.s. I apologize for the use of culture-specific analogies. For an explanation of "Whack-a-mole", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whack_a_mole or http://whacamole.com/ ("the official website" - now, that's scary).

From Wikipedia:

"Colloquial usage: The term Whac-a-Mole, or Whack-a-mole, has been used in the computer and networking industry to describe the phenomenon of fending off recurring spammers, vandals or miscreants. The connotation is that of a repetitious and futile task: each time the attacker is "whacked" or kicked off of a service, he only pops up again from another direction. Also used in the military to refer to opposing troops who keep re-appearing: Whack the mole here and it dies, but another pops up in a different spot."

From: "Melinda Shore" <mshore@xxxxxxxxx>


On 3/25/06 7:47 PM, "Spencer Dawkins" <spencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
So my point was, I'd really like to take a chance on some IAB statements
about things that need to be stated about our architecture. They might be
ignored. Would the result be any worse?

This is a somewhat bothersome case, because the IAB *did* issue
an RFC explaining what many of the problems were with "Unilateral
Network Self-Address Fixing" (i.e. STUN).  They included a list
of conditions they felt that an UNSAF protocol had to meet in order to
be published, including a description of a transition mechanism away
from itself and towards something more robust.  I don't know what
more the IAB could have done in order to kill what I think is
a clearly pathological approach to NAT traversal (and I chaired the
working group that standardized it, so I accept a great deal of
responsibility for this mess), but if putting out a document that
says "These are the reasons that this isn't a good protocol" isn't
enough, well, I'm not sure.  But it seems to me that trying to
fix it this late in the process (my other .sig is "software longa,
hardware brevis") has less to do with architecture and more to do
with oncology.

At any rate, I do think that in this case the IAB did do their job
and it was the rest of us louts who messed up.  And I'll tell you
where I think it happened: when we accepted the idea that something
might be transitional and would eventually go away.

Melinda





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