On Nov 6, 2013, at 3:39 AM, Dave Cridland <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 11:28 AM, Eric Burger <eburger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> How does the use of HTTPS restrict who can participate in the IETF? That is like saying that because we no longer offer Gopher, we have closed off participation to some (possibly null) set of Internet users. > Requiring HTTPS, particularly with reasonable cipher suites, might restrict use of from certain jurisdictions. I assume that what we want is a mechanism for authenticating the content; in this case there is no need to encrypt the content. We are just talking about HTTPS because no mechanism exists to do the one without the other. So the problem you are talking about, which I agree is real, is simply evidence of a missing feature; maybe that is where this debate ought to go.