On 27-Mar-20 20:26, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 04:29:12PM +0100,
> Vittorio Bertola <vittorio.bertola=40open-xchange.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
> a message of 93 lines which said:
>
>> I am not sure of which IETF list is appropriate for this. It
>> concerns relationships with non-technical stakeholders and their
>> representation in the standards-making process,
The singularity of the IETF is that there is no "representation"
since all participants contribute as individuals. This is something
that I guarantee we have been trying to convey to government and
international officials since 1994 to my personal knowledge and
probably longer. While I was IAB chair (1995-2000) I spent quite a
lot of time doing that, since liaisons are an IAB responsibility.
Such officials have genuine difficulty in understanding this concept,
until they actually attend a few meetings.
> Well, it is mostly about what happens after (deployment of
> standards, not definition of standards). As such, it has very few
> requests specifically for IETF. Except:
>
>> It formulates (section 8.1) six recommendations, of which the sixth
>> is specifically aimed at the IETF and other Internet standards
>> organizations:
>
>> "Standardisation processes are advised to include a consultation
>> phase with government and industry policy makers, and civil society
>> experts."
I've always understood that's what ISOC is for, and I've sat in
policy meetings with an ISOC accreditation in seats reserved for
"Civil Society".
> As noted by several people here, the governements don't ask for a
> voice (they already have it) but for a power of decision. One can
> imagine what would have happened of RFC 1984 in such "consultation".
>
>> There is also a page (section 7.13) discussing "Communication
>> from/to the IETF", and how to make it better.
>
> From my experience, communicating with governements is very
> frustrating: they don't listen and they hate being challenged ("if you
> don't want to add backdoors, it means you support terrorism and,
> worse, illegal file-sharing".)
Exactly, but in fairness the NSA did send somebody to the IETF during
the pre-RFC1984 discussion. However, in general, officials are completely
flummoxed by the IETF notion of participation that is not representation.
As in "We don't care what the NSA thinks about key escrow, we want to hear
your personal technical explanation of how it improves end to end
security."
<snip>
On 28-Mar-20 07:31, Michael Richardson wrote:
....
> internet-clueless boomer with power...
....
> This is a *significant* step forward. I suspect it is the result
> of above mentioned boomer retirement.
Writing as a mainly retired boomer, I would like to point out
that the Internet was largely built by boomers. I don't think the
problem is so much there as in the arrogance that seems to be built
into civil servants - not because they are personally arrogant, but
because the civil service itself is intrinsically arrogant, knows best,
etc. So it's great if the next cohort of officials groks the Internet,
but that doesn't mean that they grok the IETF or will ever accept
RFC 1984, 2804 and 7258.
Stay well,
Brian
