Re: [arch-d] Time to reboot RFC1984 and RFC2804?

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 13-Oct-20 10:29, Andrew Campling wrote:
> On 10/11/2020 23:50, Christian Huitema wrote: 
> 
>> There may be something else. The government actions typically operate through application 
>> providers acting as gatekeepers, as in "Facebook, please provide me a clear-text version of 
>> these messages". If there are just a few platforms managing a large share of the 
>> communications, governments merely have to lean onto these platforms to obtain what they 
>> want. And if a company is running a big communication business, it will come to terms with 
>> local governments in order to protect that business.
>>
>> If the IETF wants to protect individual freedoms, then it might want to focus on distributed 
>> architecture for communication services.
> 
> This could lead to a situation where it appears to be an unaccountable tech sector against democratically elected governments, remembering that the tech sector is responsible for surveillance capitalism, helped enable Cambridge Analytica and its ilk, provides tools facilitating misinformation campaigns etc.  In other words, the sector cannot claim the moral high ground here; this may not end well.  
> 
> That said, it would be good news to see action taken to stop the accelerating pace of centralisation which seems likely to undermine the resilience of the Internet and potentially weaken privacy.  

We're not "the tech sector", however, nor are we rampaging libertarian capitalists. The strength of the arguments in RFC1984 and RFC2804 is that they are technical arguments about how to ensure security. RFC7258 is also based on technical arguments, although it's a bit harder to claim that it's 100% technical. I'm sure that we will see more work on fully distributed (serverless) encrypted mechanisms but I'm also wondering whether the IAB should say anything, possibly via ISOC. The basic message is only "please reread RFCs 1984, 2804 and 7258, because nothing has changed."

   Brian