IN line below.. -----Original Message----- From: ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Melinda Shore Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2013 2:41 PM To: ietf@xxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Sergeant at arms: please deal with mars.techno.cat@xxxxxxxxx The more I've been thinking about this the less comfortable I am with how this was executed. I have no disagreement whatsoever with removing this person's posting privileges. But, I have a huge problem with Jordi's statement: "As Sergeant-at-arms, I agree with other previous postings and believe that anonymous posting is not tolerable in the IETF mail exploders." Clearly, there are non-trivial problems around making decisions on the basis of something sort of like identity in unauthenticated email. We don't *really* know who other people are - we tend to assume that they are who they say they are and evaluate their credibility (or not) on things like content, reputation, past performance, etc. The problem with mars.techno.cat@xxxxxxxxx isn't that he (and since we're pretty sure we know who this is, we'll stick with masculine pronouns) has an email address that doesn't look like a name (although his name could have been Mars Techno Cat, as unlikely as that is). The problem is that he had no prior history of posting -as that name- and posted nothing but off-topic rants and personal attacks. I would hope that the attacks would be sufficient to have his posting privileges revoked and that having an unfamiliar email address would not be sufficient. Additionally, let me suggest that finding anonymous posts "not tolerable" is inconsistent with the perpass discussions and concerns expressed *here* about privacy. We want accountability in our documents and that means knowing that the people who contribute to our work 1) have technical substance, and 2) are having their comments and text evaluated by other people of technical substance. It does not necessarily mean knowing their names or identities. In many discussions about privacy and about whether or not various cryptographic technologies have been deliberately weakened by some US government agency, there have been repeated assertion that open processes and aggressive review provide protection against that sort of problem. That ought to apply here, as well. Anonymity is not a problem. Behaving badly is a problem. [RS> ] That is the central issue. Anonymity cannot be used as a shield to protect abusive or criminal behavior. That is an issue some of us are struggling with in the RAI area with STIR and the global voice communications network. The right to privacy is also in part a "right to be left alone". I really never want to see someone's ejection justified on the basis of their putative "anonymity" again. I am not arguing that mars.techno.cat@xxxxxxxxx ought to be allowed anywhere near an IETF mailing list but that the reason that was given for throwing him off was not correct. We should be working to protect anonymity and privacy, not punishing it. [RS> ] With exceptions. Nothing is absolute here. There are exceptions where various actors, state or otherwise, have to be able to break the cloak of anonymity in order to protect the safety and health of others. Sometimes ..sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the desires of the few. Melinda