Scott makes some important points here.
A more clinical and less dramatic approach would
I think serve us better.
Stewart
On 11/12/2013 16:51, Scott Brim wrote:
I have two major editorial comments too.
I want this draft and the IETF effort it (potentially) represents to
succeed on a difficult global stage. For that, it needs to be simple,
clear, and solid in what it says, without much extra to keep readers
entertained while they absorb the substance. Consider RFC 2804, where
the face-to-face discussion was passionate but the resulting document
is straightforwardly factual and technical. That approach worked very
well for us.
This draft should be a basis for further work at layers 1 through 8+,
media analysis of what we ("those nerds") are up to, and discussions
in government, criminal organizations, and other organizations around
the world. I'm not trying to dampen the message or the enthusiasm,
just to get it presented carefully, so that no one can misuse what we
say.
Recommendation #1, the section headings: Currently they are "It's an
Attack" and "And We Will Continue to Mitigate the Attack". Just those
headings are all the media needs for high entertainment value. They
are also all various organizations need as leverage to dismiss us as
extremists. :-) I suggest making the first section "Pervasive
Monitoring is Indistinguishable from an Attack". "It's an Attack" is a
great title for a slide presentation to an appreciative audience, but
it is only accurate at a high level and is immediately qualified in
the text anyway. The heading for Section 2 is great as long as Section
1 is changed to be clearer.
Recommendation #2, where to put discussion of definitions: Statements
are made at the front of each section and then _after_ that, the
concepts used in those statements are developed. In Section 1,
"attack" is presented as a technical term after it is used in what
appears to be a non-technical way. I would move discussion of its
meaning up to the top of the section. The discussion of "pervasive
monitoring" can probably stay where it is -- let's see after the next
editing pass. In Section 2, the discussion of the meaning of
mitigation should be tightened up and moved to the top of the section.
It's not good to give general readers the soundbites they are going
to run with unless you make sure they understand what you're saying
first.
FYI I'm also the assigned gen-art reviewer for this draft, but I'll
put that off as long as possible until this all settles out. I expect
a new draft version soon :-).
Scott
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