Re: [babel] Roman Danyliw's No Objection on draft-ietf-babel-applicability-09: (with COMMENT)

[Juliusz Chroboczek <[e-mail]>]

> -- Per the sentence, “Given a sufficiently friendly audience, the principles
> behind Babel can be explained in 15 minutes, and a full description of the
> protocol can be done in 52 minutes (one microcentury)”, what does this mean? 
> If this is to suggest to the reader that they too can learn Babel in 15
> minutes, it is unconvincing and reads like a marketing statement.

I stand by my claim.  I've done it multiple times, last time was back in
July at Battlemesh, and a good part of the audience got it.

> -- Per the phrase, “…including one that was reportedly written and debugged in
> just two nights“, this statement is not convincing without context.

It happened at an IETF meeting.  The author was Markus Stenberg.  Please
indicate precisely what additional context you would expect.

> -- Per the sentence, “In addition to the above, our implementation experience
> indicates that Babel tends to be robust with respect to bugs: more often than
> not, an implementation bug …”, this text is an improvement over -07 (thank
> you), but I still view this as a high risk, anecdotal claim.  I strongly
> recommend it be removed.

I've removed this paragraph.  (I stand by my claim, but I've removed it
from the document.)

> (2) Section 2.2.  This section uses the designation of “strong” vs. a “weak”
> property.  Where are those defined?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/weak#English meaning 9.

This is standard usage in mathematics.

> (3) Section 2.2.  Per the sub-bullets of “These weak requirements make Babel a
> robust protocol …”, what assurance does the phrase “does most likely not”
> suggest?  Furthermore, the claim that implementation bugs won’t collapse the
> network based on an uncited “extensive” experience seems too strong of claim.

The part about bugs has been removed.

> (4) Per Section 3.1.  How big is a “medium-sized hybrid network”?

Covering a small European country and parts of its neighbours:

  https://wlan-si.net/en/map/

> (5) Per Section 3.1.  What are “meshy wireless bits”?

I believe the formulation is clear, and I like it.

> (6) Section 3.2.  Is there a citation for the successful deployment in
> “large scale overlay networks, built out of thousands of tunnels
> spanning continents”?

Nothing that I can cite.  The sentence in the draft was painstakingly
negotiated with the CEO of the company who run the network.

  https://re6st.nexedi.com/

> (7) Section 3.4. The utility of Babel in small and home offices
> surprised me as I wasn't expecting such networks to mix IPv4 and v6; and
> use an IGP.

Do you wish me to remove this bit?  I only have two examples:

  - Dave Taht's network, which is used to cover a camping;
  - my home network.

> (8) Section 5.  Per the sentence “Due to its simplicity, Babel-HMAC  …”, I’m
> not sure that simplicity should be driving the choice of the security
> properties.  It seems like it should be the security requirements.

Can we please agree to disagree on this subject?

-- Juliusz