[Cfrg] Status of ECC discussion
Alexey Melnikov <alexey.melnikov@isode.com> Mon, 05 January 2015 18:26 UTC
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Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 18:26:25 +0000
From: Alexey Melnikov <alexey.melnikov@isode.com>
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Subject: [Cfrg] Status of ECC discussion
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Dear CFRG participants, As many people are accusing chairs of "continuing the farce" and generally being slow with declaring consensus on ECs, I think chairs need to clarify their position and elaborate on what is guiding our actions. We strive to be impartial. If you don't believe that that is the case, please bring this to our attention or appeal to IRTF Chair Lars Eggert. We believe that having an algorithm for generating suitable secure curves at any given level will benefit Internet long term. I personally don't want to repeat this discussion every couple of years, if I can avoid it. This topic caused chairs lots of stress and it is requiring too much bandwidth. We don't want to just rubber stamp curve25519 or any alternative. We try to steer people to reach some sort of agreement on curves and curve generation procedures. Chairs admit that they are not always successful at that. There is significant external pressure to get this work complete from the TLS WG. Yes, we missed 2 deadlines (and got 2 extensions) already, but the pressure is still there. If CFRG can't have even rough consensus on anything, CFRG will fail to make a positive difference and choices will be made elsewhere in IETF, most likely in multiple incompatible ways. This is going to be a net loss for the Internet. After observing recent discussions on the mailing list and answering to multiple private emails, chairs are in agreement that we reached the point of diminishing returns. So we are planning to declare outcome of the discussion on curve choices within 2 weeks from today (decision about signature algorithm, and point formats will be done after that), unless significant new facts are posted on the mailing list. We would prefer for that not to be "no consensus". So when posting any email, people should be calm and as constructive as possible. Constructive proposals like the one made by Adam Langley recently should be the norm, not the exception. Other observations: Please avoid second guessing other people (including chairs) and attributing motives to them. People MUST NOT imply that other mailing list participants are not acting in good faith and they must treat all contributions with respect. In particular, we don't think that some reaction to work done by authors of draft-black-rpgecc was warranted. Some people are not behaving very professionally on the mailing list. We want to remind people that bullying behaviour is not acceptable on CFRG mailing list. Chairs are a bit tired of slapping every hand and mouth. Best Regards, Kenny & Alexey
- [Cfrg] Status of ECC discussion Alexey Melnikov