Re: [DMM] Stephen Farrell's Discuss on draft-ietf-dmm-4283mnids-04: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

[Suresh Krishnan <[e-mail]>]

Hi Stephen,

> On Feb 15, 2017, at 8:27 PM, Stephen Farrell <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Stephen Farrell has entered the following ballot position for
> draft-ietf-dmm-4283mnids-04: Discuss
> 
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> Please refer to https://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/discuss-criteria.html
> for more information about IESG DISCUSS and COMMENT positions.
> 
> 
> The document, along with other ballot positions, can be found here:
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-dmm-4283mnids/
> 
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> DISCUSS:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> I don't consider that merely mentioning that there are some
> privacy issues (maybe) is nearly sufficient here.  Instead I
> would argue that any of these identifier types that could have
> privacy implications need to be specifically justified or else
> dropped. By specifically justified, I mean that there ought be
> an argument (and a fairly holistic one) that the Internet is
> better, and not worse, if we define a codepoint that allows
> MIPv6 (and later, other protocols) to use that identifier.  I
> do accept that my position is perhaps innovative, in terms of
> IETF processes, so I'll split the discuss into two parts, one
> process oriented and mostly for the IESG, and the second
> relating to the content of the draft.
> 
> (1) For the IESG: is it ok that we introduce (codepoints for)
> a slew of new long-term stable privacy-sensitive identifiers
> just because they might someday be needed, or do we need to
> have specific justification for defining such things? I would
> argue the latter, but that may need us to validate that there
> is IETF consensus for that somehow, and perhaps in the
> meantime hold on to this draft. Part of my reasoning is that
> once we define such codepoints (e.g. for IMSIs) then that
> inevitably means that other protocols, and not just MIPv6,
> will do the same eventually, so accepting this draft basically
> means accepting that we end up commonly and perhaps
> carelessly, passing such highly-sensitive information about on
> the Internet in many protocols and in many contexts.  My
> argument here I think does adhere to various of our BCPs that
> do argue for security and privacy, but I do also accept that
> this may be novel and to some extent goes against another of
> our generally accepted ideas which is that we benefit from
> folks documenting things even if those things are sub-optimal
> in various ways. So I'd argue this is a real case for an IESG
> discussion - I know what I think, but what do the rest of you
> think?

Yes. I think it is worth having that discussion given that few more ADs have expressed concerns similar to yours. On the flip side, I think at least few of these identifiers are already conveyed using other layers in some of the SDO networks.

Regards
Suresh