IETF has its own way of training, and better ways of introducing people to the collected wisdom should be explored. A MOOC for new IETFers with specializations for document editors, attending meetings, reading RFCs, the standards process, security analysis, …? For the case in hand, I suggested in all seriousness reflecting on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit The evil bit is a fictional IPv4 packet header field proposed in RFC 3514, a humorous April Fools' Day RFC from 2003 authored by Steve Bellovin. The RFC recommended that the last remaining unused bit, the "Reserved Bit"[1] in the IPv4 packet header, be used to indicate whether a packet had been sent with malicious intent, thus making computer security engineering an easy problem – simply ignore any messages with the evil bit set and trust the rest. Influence The evil bit has become a synonym for all attempts to seek simple technical solutions for difficult human social problems which require the willing participation of malicious actors, in particular efforts to implement Internet censorship using simple technical solutions. The best April 1 RFCs are the ones that serve as Reductio Ad Absurdum |
