Hi Sam, On 12/13/2013 11:49 PM, Sam Hartman wrote: > > > Hi. > I strongly support the consensus statements that were the sense of the > room at the IETF 88 technical plenary. Cool. > I strongly support publication of a document like this, but I believe > this document should provide more guidance before publication. I think we disagree about that. More below. > We have a history of publishing vaguely worded security BCPs that are > really hard on our area directors and chairs. As an AD, I found > aspects of RFC 3352, BCP 61 and RFC 4107 very challenging. Not sure. I've not found our BCP text problematic actually and I'm not sure that vague wording is the cause of problems. For example, bcp107/rfc4107 is pretty clear but often difficult to apply if a WG actually aren't keen on doing the work for automated key management - I don't think the wording is the problem at all in cases I've seen. > The big questions tended to surround protocols already in progress and > architectural re-use. > > Let's not do that again. As you'll guess from the above I don't think we have that problem with vaguely worded BCPs. And I don't think this one is vaguely worded either - it is high level but not IMO vague. > Protocols already in progress is a fairly obvious problem. I don't > think we want Stephen and Sean to hold a DISCUSS on every document on > the telechat following approval of this BCP because none of them explain > how they mitigate pervasive monitoring. Stephen and Sean wouldn't do > something that ridiculous, Absolutely. And I don't think any AD would or should do that. As it happens, my experience over the last 3 years is that the IESG have self-regulated in a way that would have addressed this anyway. Many or maybe all new ADs (me included) seem to start out being a bit too enthusiastic about some aspect of the IETF but after a while, and sometimes a quiet chat or two, we've all settled down to a better balance between making progress and being picky. (Not sure if all authors would agree mind you:-) > but I believe they and the community could > use better guidance than "use good judgment." I know as a document > author, chair and former AD I sure could. I'm not sure of that, and I think that's the kernel of where you and I perhaps disagree here. I don't believe we're in a position where we can say much more than "use good judgement and our existing knowledge of the attack and mitigations" and we won't be in a position to do better for a few years until we've seen what tends to work in terms of conforming to the BCP *and getting deployed*. I really don't want our reaction to Snowdonia to be a work of fiction and that could happen if we do too much guessing now. I also don't want to see us wait years before we reduce the real consensus that exists to words in an RFC. Doing the most-significant-bit of that now is important IMO. > my recommendation is that protocols with no significant solution work > accepted by a WG need to address this BCP the same way new protocols > would. Protocols with significant solution work within a WG need to > address this BCP to the extent that doing so is consistent with the > existing work antd doesn't involve reopening decisions that would > otherwise be closed or revisiting earlier stages in the process that > would not otherwise be revisited. So, if you haven't decided on your > security mechanism yet, take this into account. If you're working on > security considerations but your protocol is basically done, write up > how well you did but don't revisit things. If you're in last call, move > on as usual. > > The architectural re-use question is harder to explain. Imagine you're > desiging something new. You could use enum-like things or some other > directory. It would be convenient to use DNS because similar > technologies you care about use DNS. If you use DNS, then people can > more easily monitor the queries to your service. How much do you need > to consider pervasive monitoring in your technology choice. We've had > this sort of thing come up lots with previous security BCPs; I most > especially remember being told by PCE that they had chosen not to follow > RFC 4107 because they wanted to be like other routing protocols and use > TCP-AO even though it doesn't provide key management. > > The issue of architecture re-use is important to discuss in the > community because it significantly affects how much impact this BCP will > have. If we say "use good judgment," and nothing more, then we're > basically leaving it entirely up to the WGs, because cross-area-review > time is really late for telling someone they need a new fundamental > technology. Obviously the WG will have significant impact on this, but > I think if we provide useful guidance here it can really help. My > personal preference is that this BCP should impact future architectural > choices more than RFC 4107 has managed to but that architectural re-use > is quite important. > > A related issue is how to treat extensions to existing protocols. > Again we've had a lot of heart-ache from not specifying that. > > I think it is important for the community to receive guidance on these > issues. I think it would be fine for this BCP to delegate that > guidance. I'd support a paragraph describing each issue plus a > paragraph saying that the IESG would provide guidance if the IESG would > be willing to do that. Obviously that would mean we're trusting the > IESG to make that decision; I'd be happy to do that. I'd also be happy > to work on guidance to be included in the BCP on these issues. I think the above is really useful and should feed into our analysis of how to deal with the attack. For example, I'd like to see it reflected in the threat-model document we've discussed. I think text based on that would fit really well into a section with a title like "what do I do about this for my protocol?" maybe. > I do not support the document remaining silent on these issues. I'm afraid that that would lead to years of delay. > Please, whatever you do, remove section 3 on the process note. > As it stands, it reads as follows: > > * We're unable to find a way for the IESG and IAB to publish a document > together That's accurate. Bit, isn't it;-) > > * We really wish the IESG and IAB could publish a document together bbut > reluctantly being unable to do that we'll settle for a community > consensus document. That's not accurate though. In the IESG/IAB discussion on this, after a bit of process-flapping, we quickly settled down on the current plan and I think everyone recognised that this plan will give a better outcome - IETF consensus being far better than just IESG/IAB-say-foo. > If you must say something how about: > In the past, architectural statements of this sort have been published > as joint products of the IESG and IAB. This document represents the > community consensus of the IETF and was published in accordance with the > processes in affect at time of publication. > > In particular, I think a community statement of the whole community is > stronger than a joint IAB/IESG work product. I'd hope that the IESG and > IAB would support the team and say that "Hey, we're part of the > community, and a community consensus is how we present really strong > statements." Fair point. Will think about re-wording to make the above clear. I do think we need section 3 though to say why this is being done differently from 1984 and 2804. > The IAB also has an ISOC role beyond the IETF. If they want to > emphasize support in that role, they could release a statement on their > own making that clear. However I think it would be more powerful if the > IAB worked with ISOC to release such a statement and was included in > that statement. One for the IAB. > I'm also still sputtering at the idea that our leadership cannot find a > way within the current process for the IESG and IAB to publish a > document together ifg they wanted to. I don't think that would be > desirable in this instance. We've changed and there's more focus on the > community than there was in the RFC 1984 days. However, I hope that if > it were the right thing to do our leadership could work together and > publish a joint document. The current text really sounds like you > believe you couldn't. Let's try and be better team players than that. I believe we couldn't and that that's silly. Folks who care more about process than me would disagree that it's silly. I don't think anyone is not being a team-player though. (And if this generates more mail, please make it a separate thread since its tangential to this last call.) > In response to other last call comments: > > I do not support the idea of taking the time to figure out how each WG > is impacted by this document. I agree. > I understand the desire to figure out whether we have consensus that > pervasive monitoring is a threat quickly. If we find that we have some > open issues to resolve like the ones I bring up, but that we have > consensus on the basic point, we have a quick way forward. Jari could > announce that the consensus of the IETF 88 plenary has been confirmed on > the list and we could move forward. It's rare that the IETF acts in > plenary, but not rare that we make consensus calls about the big points > in documents while details are still open. As I said above I think the more detailed guidance should not go in here and will take a long time so we should approve the document and move forward. Thanks for the insightful comments, Cheers, S. > >