Re: [dtn] working group last call on draft-ietf-dtn-bpbis

["Burleigh, Scott C (312B)" <[e-mail]>]

Okay, if you believe that it is unnecessary to be able to test for the correct operation of a BP agent -- that is, an implementation of an Internet standards-track RFC -- then I think we may be at the root of the issue.  Let's continue tomorrow.

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Farrell [mailto:[e-mail]] 
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2017 1:37 PM
To: Burleigh, Scott C (312B) <[e-mail]>; Marc Blanchet <[e-mail]>; dtn <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [dtn] working group last call on draft-ietf-dtn-bpbis


Hi Scott,

On 27/03/17 21:27, Burleigh, Scott C (312B) wrote:
> Hi, Stephen.  I won't try to respond to all these points now, but I do 
> want to advance a little bit of an argument on your point (B).
> 
> If we look at, say, RFC 5681, I think we see a great deal of firmly 
> prescriptive text that has nothing to do with what bits are 
> transmitted over the wire, and everything to do with how the TCP state 
> machine is supposed to behave.

But 5681 is based on some decades of really widespread deployment.
If the BP were in that position I think you'd have a good argument there, but it isn't.

> I think this is true of
> virtually every MUST in the specification, and I think that in the 
> absence of this prescriptive language it would be impossible to 
> distinguish a correctly functioning router from a broken one -- 
> impossible to test a router for correct operation.

I don't believe that an ability to test such correctness from outside a router is really necessary nor desirable at this point in the evolution of the BP.

> I think the prescriptive language in the BPbis specification is just 
> as necessary, for exactly the same reasons.
> 
> I understand that you disagree, but I don't yet understand why.

I guess I'll point at the examples I offered as to why. I look forward to seeing your (or others') responses to those examples.

I do hope we agree that egregious/unnecessary MUST statements are a bad idea though. If so, the question becomes whether or not all these many MUSTs are needed or not.

Cheers,
S.

> 
> Scott
> 
> -----Original Message----- From: Stephen Farrell 
> [mailto:[e-mail]] Sent: Monday, March 20, 2017 3:06 
> PM To: Burleigh, Scott C (312B) <[e-mail]>; Marc 
> Blanchet <[e-mail]>; dtn <[e-mail]> Subject: Re:
> [dtn] working group last call on draft-ietf-dtn-bpbis
> 
> 
> Hi Scott,
> 
> Belated responses below. I hope the quoting isn't too messed up to 
> follow.
> 
> As a TL;DR, I'd say we might be best to debate point (B) below, that 
> the current text is overly prescriptive. I'm entirely happy that the 
> DoS-vector that would be the current reporting text won't make it to 
> the RFC, so am ok if we don't spend so much time on that.
> 
> For the "too prescriptive" point, I think you and I Scott have had 
> that debate before, so I'd be most interested in other WG participants 
> telling me I'm just wrong that all those MUSTs are needed for interop. 
> (I mean using some of the examples below that refer back to point (B) 
> and not literally a sentence that means the same as the sentence 
> before this one:-)
> 
> Cheers, S.
> 
> On 15/03/17 17:00, Burleigh, Scott C (312B) wrote:
>> Hi.  As Rick suggested, I'm posting my thoughts on Stephen's comments 
>> to the list in addition to noting them on Ed's spreadsheet
>> - mainly transcribing them but amplifying in a few instances.
>> In-line below.
>> 
>> Scott
>> 
>> -----Original Message----- From: dtn [mailto:[e-mail]] On 
>> Behalf Of Stephen Farrell Sent: Monday, January 23, 2017 7:33 PM
>> To: Marc Blanchet <[e-mail]>; dtn <[e-mail]>
>> Subject: Re: [dtn] working group last call on draft-ietf-dtn-bpbis
>> 
>> 
>> Hiya,
>> 
>> I've done a review of bpbis-06 and have many comments. (Sorry:-)
>> 
>> Overall I don't think this is ready, and some more discussion of some 
>> of the issues is needed. Since I've not followed the list as closely 
>> as I'd have liked I may have missed some such discussion in which 
>> case pointing me at the relevant bit(s) of the archive would be a 
>> fine response.
>> 
>> I've tried to separate stuff into things that'd cause me to ballot  
>> DISCUSS in IESG evaluation (*), things that might not, and nitty 
>> things. I hope that helps, but don't take that categorisation too
>> seriously:-)
>> 
>> Cheers, S.
>> 
>> (*) Note that I'll likely not still be on the IESG when this gets 
>> there (I escape in March) so the fact that I would ballot DISCUSS is 
>> not that relevant to what other ADs might do.
>> 
>> 
>> Possibly major issues (DISCUSS like)
>> ------------------------------------
>> 
>> (A) intro: The last bullet list of the things that are not specified 
>> here seems problematic for a PS and I think needs more 
>> discussion/work. I'm not sure if it's only the text that needs work, 
>> or if the missing specification is required now. Taking the bullets 
>> one at at time (numbers are in order of presentation): 1) This isn't 
>> clear enough, I'm not sure what's being omitted, 2) Omitting routing 
>> I think is fair, 3) It's also fair to omot RIB/FIB issues, 4) it's 
>> not ok to omit security mechanism definition, (making [BPSEC] 
>> normative and waiting on that in the RFC editor queue would fix this, 
>> and is IMO needed), 5) I'm not sure what's right here.  I think it'd 
>> be good to have some list discussion about this, as it'll certainly 
>> come up in IETF LC and IESG review and having list traffic at which 
>> to point will help backup whatever conclusions are reached.  In 
>> particular in 4.3, I don't think it's acceptable for the BIB and BCB 
>> to not have a normative reference.
>> Similarly, the "TBD" for the other extension block types are not 
>> appropritate. (But those can likely be informative refs.)
>> 
>> -	I'm fine with bringing bpsec along at the same time as bp(bis)
>> and tcpcl.
> 
> Cool. I think that's the right choice.
> 
>> 
>> (B) The spec is overly prescriptive in many places and ought be 
>> loosened up wherever possible. All we need is interop and not the 
>> kind of conformance at which this spec seems to aim (but maybe miss). 
>> For exmple the "retention constraint" stuff has absoluely no reason 
>> to be a MUST. As another, I think section 5.4 only needs a MUST in 
>> step 4 and all the rest are bogus and a bad plan.  Also in 3.1, the 
>> text here is often far too prescritpive and I suspect based on only a 
>> couple of implementation strategies.  There are many more examples. I 
>> think it'd be a good plan to do an editing pass to get rid of as many 
>> of the extraneous and unnecessary constraints that are here. Examples 
>> feature in other comments, but I've not tried to be exhaustive in 
>> spotting all instances of this.
>> 
>> -	I disagree.  In general, I think this language needs to be 
>> normative in order to ensure coherent behavior among nodes of the 
>> network.
> 
> Yep, I figured we'd not see eye to eye on the broader conformance 
> issue, in the same way that we've disagreed about that for about a 
> decade now:-)
> 
> Nonetheless, I will continue to argue the point, and I note that you 
> didn't respond to the examples in the above. Those are only examples, 
> but I think some discussion of them may help us to see that the 
> current text is (or is not) overly prescriptive.
> 
>> 
>> (C) Many of the flags relaed to reporting provide ways in which the  
>> BP, if it became widely deployed (even if not planned to be widely  
>> used), could be a significant (D)DoS accelerator. Has anyone figured 
>> out the scale factors involved, (e.g. if N bogus blocks say report if 
>> this can't be processed) whether those might be significant and if so 
>> what potential countermeasures might apply?
>> Absent such an analysis, or fixing the problem, I'd argue it'd seem 
>> irresponsible to standardise the BP.  I'd say for a PS, the minimum 
>> is that BPAs MUST default to not sending all these new bundles except 
>> when specifically configured to be so verbose.  This also affects 5.1 
>> and maybe elsewhere which says an agent MUST emit admin bundles if 
>> asked. In 5.6, step 2: again the SHOULD needs to be qualified in 
>> order to not have the BP be a fine DoS accelerator (given 
>> non-singletons). Step 3's SHOULD for this is even worse as a bad 
>> actor could include many such blocks.  In 5.13 - I think that is too 
>> many custody signals. If one envisages DTNs with custodians located 
>> at links that are particularly subject to disruption, then those may 
>> be few in number and having all other nodes/routers emit custody 
>> signals for each bundle not taken into custody seems hugely 
>> inefficient and unnecessary. There may be more examples.  FWIW, my 
>> guess is that if all the current reporting is kept, then the IESG 
>> will require some kind of applicability statement about the kind of 
>> network in which the BP can safely be deployed. For me, fixing the 
>> problem is a better approach than constraining it via an 
>> applicability statement.
>> 
>> -	I agree with making all status report generation "SHOULD" rather 
>> than "MUST".  But if it is possible to generate status reports (and I 
>> think it has to be, for network troubleshooting purposes) then it is 
>> always possible for a badly engineered implementation to generate 
>> them more frequently than might be optimal in a given network.  I'm 
>> unclear on how we can legislate against that.  Strong language 
>> warning the implementer of the possible dangers would be fine with 
>> me; is that enough?  Something like "Implementations MUST limit the 
>> generation of status reports so as to prevent excessive network 
>> traffic.  Strategies for limiting status report generation are beyond 
>> the scope of this specification."
> 
> I think that a SHOULD for emitting these is just wrong for the 
> Internet. If 10^8 BPAs were deployed (there are maybe that many web
> sites) and each by default will emit these reports then that'd be just 
> crazy as they could be per-hop and could bounce around all over the 
> place. At that scale there'd also no doubt be reports generating 
> reports (due to gatewaying even if that was disallowed in the BP) and 
> one would get explosions of reports. I think the only defensible 
> position is for *all* of these to be specified as "MUST be off by 
> default" to be acceptable for a proposed standard.
> 
> I would be ok if someone wanted to try characterise the kind of DTN or 
> node(s) in which it'd be ok to have these turned on. That could of 
> course be done in a separate document later. (Or outside the IETF if 
> it was e.g. really better a CCSDS thing.)
> 
>> 
>> A bit less major (maybe not DISCUSS-worthy)
>> -------------------------------------------
>> 
>> (1) 3.1's definition of a bundle correctly says that bundles are 
>> better when they include all the meta-data that might be useful. If  
>> considered naively, that conflicts with modern approaches to privacy 
>> where we want to ensure that meta-data is only seen by those (nodes) 
>> that need to see meta-data, as one form of data minimisation. OTOH, 
>> one could argue that such bundles will ensure that meta-data and 
>> payloads enjoy the same security services, which is a good thing. In 
>> any case, I think it'd be useful to have a discussion about the 
>> privacy aspects of the BP, esp the ways in which those may be 
>> different from other protocols. For example, would we expect 
>> report-to URIs to commonly allow re-identification of a person? I 
>> don't recall we've ever really discussed such issues.
>> 
>> -	I think having that discussion would be fine.  I don't think
>> that discussion has to happen in this specification, nor that it has 
>> to happen before this specification is published.
> 
> Disagree. I think now is exactly the right time to do a privacy 
> analysis. Later will be too late, if the protocol gets deployed at 
> scale. Note that I'm not arguing that the result has to be a BP with 
> fully understood and perfect privacy features.
> 
>> 
>> (2) 3.1, destination: I think this ought be clear that delivery to  
>> some node in the endpoint represents success, i.e.  that the BP does 
>> not force successful delivery to all or failure as a binary choice.
>> 
>> -	The spec doesn't define "success" at all, and I don't know why
>> it would need to.
> 
> Sure, but I was more asking for clarity - I didn't find it to be that 
> well explained what kind of effort(s) are expected with endpoints 
> containing >1 node.
> 
>> 
>> (3) What bad things would follow if 3.2 was deleted?  It may be that 
>> I'm too familiar with DTN (and hence not a good judge if this section 
>> is useful or not) but I didn't find it useful. Also - is
>> 3.2 normative? If not, I'm even happier to see it go. If it is, then 
>> I gotta wonder if it conflicts with other text later. And I see there 
>> are a few 2119 MUSTs in there so I guess you do mean it to be 
>> normative or did they sneak in in by accident whilst editing?
>> (As can happen.) If not deleting this section, I'd argue to find all 
>> the bits of text in it that are needed and move them all elsewhere 
>> and then delete the section.
>> 
>> -	I think 3.2 is essential to the specification.  I'm fine with 
>> moving the 2119 language to another section, if that helps.
> 
> Again, I don't think we'll agree here, as with point (B) above:-)
> 
> I note that you've not given an argument for including 3.2 though 
> other than stating that it's essential, and I did ask what'd be lost 
> if it were deleted so that seems not highly responsive.
> 
>> 
>> (4) 3.2: The idea that the EID fully determines the MRG seems just  
>> wrong to me. While that might be a nice theory, I figure it's way 
>> more likely that the routing scheme determines how many copies of a 
>> bundle are rx'd at how many instances of the destination EID.
>> What'd be bad about losing that concept and letting (the determinants 
>> of) the MRG be unspecified here?
>> 
>> -	I think that would make the behavior of nodes so indeterminate
>> that it can't be tested.
> 
> I don't get that. Given that we're not defining routing here, aren't 
> we in that position already? We can't for example tell if a node 
> emitting 10 copies of a bundle at different times, to different next 
> hops, on different interfaces etc. is good or bad or not.
> 
>> 
>> (5) 3.2, "Custody of a bundle MAY be taken only if the destination of 
>> the bundle is a singleton endpoint." That's plain wrong. Not all  
>> custodians can know about the desitnation being a singleton or not. 
>> And before you say it, I don't believe in the flag in 4.1.3 that 
>> allows an origin to specify this - I've never seen a real example of 
>> when that's useful - the only nearby case I recall was where the 
>> developer (me:-) knew we wanted distibution to all nodes in a 
>> multi-member endpoint but with best effort in terms of getting to 
>> them all and with custody and less frequent application layer re-tx's 
>> to ensure we got to as many as possible.  This also affects 5.2.
>> 
>> -	"Singleton" doesn't say how many nodes are in the endpoint.  It 
>> says what the maximum number of nodes in the endpoint is.  The source 
>> node should know this.
> 
> Huh? How can a source know that in general? I maintain my
> position:-)
> 
>> 
>> (6) 3.3, I'm not sure this is useful either. What'd break if it were 
>> deleted? (But then I never liked those bits of DTNRG's work
>> either;-)
>> 
>> -	Sure, don't care.
> 
> (I'll skip over stuff where there's little or nothing more to say, 
> like this one:-)
> 
>> 
>> (7) Including some examples and an RFC 7942 implementation status 
>> section would be a good thing, if easily done. That would help 
>> progression and increase confidence in the correctness of the spec.
>> 
>> -	I don't think this is really necessary, but I don't mind adding
>> an implementation status section.
>> 
>> (8) 4.1.6: Was sub-second timing discussed by the WG?  I'm not 
>> terribly pushed on that myself, but it'd be a shame to do an interop 
>> breaking change in the BP without discussing that topic. A reason to 
>> think about this is that there may be inter-VM (or
>> intra-data-centre) reasons to consider the BP with sub-second timing 
>> as interesting. It'd be a shame to make that impossible just to make 
>> it slightly simpler to represent time.
>> 
>> -	It was discussed by the WG, and I believe we concluded that 
>> sub-second time representation wasn't needed here.
> 
> That makes me a bit sad. If anyone else would like sub-second timing 
> maybe now'd not be too late if we ask nicely?
> 
>> 
>> (9) 4.2.2, creation time rules: I don't see why it'd be a problem if 
>> node-id=X, creation-time=0,counter=0,lifetime=2s is used in two  
>> bundles emitted 3 seconds apart. Why does that justify a MUST NOT in 
>> the spec?
>> 
>> -	I agree with Ed on this.  There may be purposes for which a log
>> of bundles may be needed; that's impossible if bundles are not 
>> uniquely identified.
> 
> (I'm not sure I saw Ed's argument, I guess it was not on the list, 
> sorry if I missed it.)
> 
> I'd be a bit concerned that the MUST NOT is too hard to nodes without 
> good clocks and will just be ignored across reboots. If other code 
> elsewhere (e.g. log analysis) depended on a fiction from here that'd 
> not be great.
> 
>> 
>> (10) 4.2.2: The "30 seconds" rule also seems wrong to me, as is the  
>> "MUST NEVER" (not a 2119 term btw) for re-use of the seq no, which is 
>> unrealistic.  As an example of that last: what do you expect to 
>> happen with a node that usually knows the wall clock time, but, at 
>> this moment, knows that it does not? E.g. previous logs have some 
>> real dates, but current clock is 1970-01-01 or whatever. I think this 
>> is fixable but the current language is too prescriptive. Best might 
>> be to weaken the language here and to see what implementations do in 
>> the real world.
>> 
>> -	Sure.
>> 
>> (11) 4.3.1: Is the SHALL here right? I would have thought a SHOULD is 
>> better to allow for legacy interop with 5050 via gateways, in which 
>> case there may be no node ID. That might be better off handled in 
>> some generic fashion though, and not piecemeal with each mention of 
>> node ID.
>> 
>> -	There are node IDs in 5050 also,
> 
> Well, sorta but not really. IIRC implementations and deployments 
> mostly did include the moral-equivalent but didn't have to.
> 
>> they're just not called by that term.  I think SHALL is correct here.
> 
> But fair enough, if nobody else cared, I'd fold on this one.
> 
>> 
>> (12) 4.3.2: I don't believe it is correct to drop a bundle due to the 
>> lack of a previous node block, which is what sems to be implied here. 
>> Not all routing schemes need this and so it ought not be a MUST. 
>> Maybe a SHOULD is enough, but even if you say "MUST insert this" then 
>> I would like to argue that "receivers can decide to not care" be 
>> stated explicitly e.g.  by saying that bundles MUST NOT be rejected 
>> solely due to the lack of this EB.
>> 
>> -	I think this will be a source of headaches eventually, but sure,
>> we can relax this.
>> 
>> (13) I'm not sure if you have all the right "watch out for the null  
>> EID node ID" text needed. (I didn't go back over everything, but it'd 
>> seem wrong e.g. in an current custodian AR.
>> 
>> -	I don't think there's an issue here, but sure, let's re-read
>> with this in mind.
>> 
>> (14) 5.4: "The bundle protocol agent MUST determine which node(s) to 
>> forward the bundle to." That's ungrammatical and close to BS - what 
>> if I want to multicast or broadcast the bundle or use some other 
>> opportunistic CLA? Or a sneakernet where nobody knows who'll be next 
>> hop.
>> 
>> -	Of course the BPA must determine which node(s) to forward the 
>> bundle to.  What else is going to make that determination?  Nothing 
>> in the spec says it has to make that determination right now; maybe 
>> it sets the bundle aside for a while until a data mule comes along
>> - and then it determines that this data mule is one of the nodes to 
>> forward the bundle to.  The text is correct.
> 
> Disagree. A BPA might decide to send the bundle on an interface that's 
> broadcast in nature and not care who turns out to be the next hop that 
> e.g. accepts custody. I think the text reflects a quite narrow 
> conception of a CLA.
> 
>> 
>> (15) 5.4: The text about the flow label should be deleted as it says 
>> nothing. If includng this, then the flow label spec may need to be a 
>> normative ref (arguably).
>> 
>> -	Okay.
>> 
>> (16) 5.4 - I think this is badly misleading. There will be many cases 
>> where a bundle cannot be forwarded now but may be forwarded later. Am 
>> I wrong in reading this section as precluding that?
>> 
>> -	You are wrong in reading this section as precluding deferred 
>> transmission.
> 
> Maybe it needs rewording then. (Happy to look over it with you
> later.)
> 
>> 
>> (17) 5.6, step 4 says one MUST handle "custody transfer redundancy" 
>> but that term seems undefined.
>> 
>> -	Sure, let's add a clause saying "this condition is termed
>> 'custody transfer redundancy'".
>> 
>> (18) 5.6 (step 5) points back to 5.3 which points to 5.7 or 5.4. I  
>> don't think such GOTOs are a good idea really.  I suggest removing  
>> lots of this and adding in some informative (i.e. non-normative) 
>> pseudo code (or real code) as an appendix.
>> 
>> -	I disagree.
> 
> See point (B) above I guess:-)
> 
>> 
>> (19) I think some rules related to custody and fragmentation may be  
>> missing. For example, if bundle A is multicast and reaches two nodes 
>> on different paths who take custody (custodians C1/C2) and who both 
>> fragment but differently (into F11/F12 and F21/F22 resp) with 
>> eventually a custody ack for F21 reaching C1.  Assume F21 is longer 
>> than F11, what is C1 to do with F11 when a custody timer expires? 
>> Ought it re-transmit or consider that the custody ack for
>> F21 matched F11 sufficiently well?  I'm not sure what'd be right 
>> here, if such cases can happen.  I'd be fine with the spec admitting 
>> that some such corner cases exist, or maybe it's easy enough to 
>> figure out, not sure.
>> 
>> -	I don't think there is a problem.  Custody transfer is undefined
>> if the destination endpoint is not singleton.
> 
> I wasn't referring to the destination here, C1/C2 are just routers on 
> paths to that destination. So I do think there's a problem, sorry.
> 
>> 
>> (20) 5.10.1, I've always wondered why custody timer expiry is covered 
>> here, and not really considered a part of DTN routing. It seems to me 
>> to make more sense to couple custody timing and routing. If that 
>> resonated with folks, I think the change would be to make the 
>> timer-related text here into an illustrative example and to say that 
>> such things are better considered together with routing and/or by 
>> chunks of code that are somewhat more topology/disruption-aware of 
>> the situation in the particular DTN.
>> 
>> -	Custodial retransmission really has nothing to do with routing.
> 
> I guess we disagree again there. I'd say with almost all routing 
> schemes (CGR and similar being an exception) figuring out the best way 
> to handle these timers will be intimately related to routing. See also 
> point (B) above:-)
> 
>> 
>> (21) section 9 seems woefully incomplete - why is it ok to say "will 
>> be required" at WGLC? Surely the WG should at least have discussed 
>> the set of registries needed and the registration rules for those? 
>> E.g. do we sill want CCSDS to be able to add entries to some of those 
>> registries as we did with 5050?  And has the WG considered how do all 
>> the things in this draft relate to the set of IANA registries related 
>> to the BP? [1,2] (In the case of [3], section 4.1.5.1 really probably 
>> does need to say something.)
>> 
>> -	Sure, let's review what other registries are needed here.
>> 
>> [1] https://www.iana.org/assignments/bundle/bundle.xhtml [2] 
>> https://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes/uri-schemes.xhtml#uri-sc
>> h
>>
>> 
emes-1
>> 
>> Seemingly more minor or nitty things
>> ------------------------------------
>> 
>> - abstract: "This Internet Draft" is no longer appropriate language.
>> 
>> -	Sure.
>> 
>> - abstract: I think this ought capture the fact that this version is 
>> not interoperable with 5050. That's not a bad thing, but worth noting 
>> here.
>> 
>> -	Worth saying, but not in the Abstract.
>> 
>> - intro: I don't think the "sales" language is needed or appropriate 
>> in the first couple of paras. It should be entirely ok to say "we've 
>> learned stuff and fixed stuff."
>> 
>> -	Sure, whatever.
>> 
>> - intro: "Custodial forwarding" is too terse at this point but also  
>> hard to explain briefly, is really a mechanism and not a capabililty, 
>> and maybe not such a highlight, so I'd delete that bullet
>> 
>> -	I disagree.  Let's turn it into a sentence and keep it.
>> 
>> - intro: "[TUT]" is quite outdated and using dtnrg.org for the 
>> reference isn't wise (particularly at the moment when we're seeing  
>> SERVFAIL from the relevant NS;-)
>> 
>> -	Sure.
>> 
>> - intro: this is a bit self-serving, but maybe a reference to the 
>> architectural retrospective [3] that Kevin and I wrote might be 
>> useful here, though I've not checked if it touches on enough of the 
>> issues behind the differences between 5050 and this.
>> 
>> -	I don't think this is needed.
>> 
>> [3] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4530739
>> 
>> - Figure 1: I wonder if it'd be worth pointing out that the BP does  
>> not have to run over a layer 4 that runs over a layer 3 etc. The 
>> figure and this text does give that impression that a "proper"
>> transport is needed, which isn't the case. (Tactically, I'm not sure 
>> if the text as-is, or something more correct, would make getting a 
>> new RFC easier or harder - I guess it'll depend on the
>> reader;-)
>> 
>> -	No, the spec already says "BP uses underlying "native" transport 
>> and/or network protocols".
>> 
>> - Figure 2: Few if any of the applications I've used with the BP had 
>> an administrative element. That's maybe down to the experimental 
>> nature of the work we've done but I don't think it's correct to imply 
>> that all applications using the BP need to be able to handle admin 
>> records, if that's what you're implying. (I'm not
>> sure.) I'd say indicating that that's an optional thing would be 
>> right.
>> 
>> -	I disagree.  The application agent -- not the application -- is
>> the thing that has an administrative element.  We could say that a 
>> given BPA's application agent might lack an administrative element, 
>> in which case the node could not take custody of a bundle.  I don't 
>> see much advantage in that, but I don't mind saying it.
>> 
>> - 3.1, singleton: not sure if it's clear enough that all endpoints 
>> are sets, so this may puzzle folks. Maybe add e.g. "remember that 
>> endpoints are sets," not sure.
>> 
>> -	Let's assume that people reading this specification are able to 
>> read.
>> 
>> - 3.1, forwarding: the text is odd - "sustained effort" is not 
>> mandatory, and what "that node" is meant here?
>> 
>> -	Nothing says how long "sustained" is, but okay, we could delete
>> the word.  But I have no idea how to make this sentence any clearer. 
>> There is exactly one possible antecedent for "that node".
>> 
>> - 4: The first two SHALL statements are odd in that there's no way in 
>> which one could implement this spec and not conform to those I think. 
>> In cases like that it's fine to avoid 2119 language. Not a big deal 
>> though, as the current IESG don't get anal about that, though some 
>> ADs in the past have done;-)
>> 
>> -	I think those statements are needed and are not obvious.
>> 
>> - 4: last item MUST be break stop code. Is a decoder supposed to barf 
>> a bundle if this is not true? More generally, same question applies 
>> for all MUSTs stated only in terms of what the encoding must match.
>> 
>> -	Let's add a general statement, somewhere, to the effect that the 
>> bundle protocol agent MAY discard any malformed bundle it receives.
>> 
>> - 4.1.1: why >1 CRC type? That seems bogus. None or strong seems 
>> better to me. (And I'd go for a crypto hash for strong.) I assume the 
>> WG discussed this and found that there are real use-cases for each of 
>> those specified. While those don't need to be in the spec, can 
>> someone tell me what they are as I'm not at all sure, e.g. why a 16 
>> bit CRC is useful as an option.
>> 
>> -	The WG discussed this and settled on these options.  See email
>> list traffic starting on 18 January 2016.
>> 
>> - 4.1.3: "enables anonymous bundle transmission" - that's overstated, 
>> chances are that something in the CLA will be identifying, or allow 
>> re-identification, so I think what you want to say is that omitting 
>> the source EID helps with, but does not ensure, nymity.
>> 
>> -	"Anonymous" doesn't mean you can't figure out who did it. 
>> "Anonymous" means the identity of whoever did it was not attached to 
>> it.  The text is correct as written.
> 
> Disagree. The term anonymous has a meaning which is not that.
> 
>> 
>> - 4.1.5.1: RFC3986 is the correct reference here, so the spec text is 
>> correct as-is. It may however be worth taking a look at the whatwg 
>> web page that has sometimes claimed to supercede 3986 for the 
>> browser-related things in which whatwg have an interest.
>> That's just in case there're some useful error handling 
>> considerations on the whatwg web page, (on the day you look at it;-). 
>> It's also the case that since BP EIDs are URIs, it's possible that 
>> strings that comply with today's or yesterday's whatwg web page may 
>> end up in the BP, so it'd be good to know if any of those (that are 
>> not valid according to 3986) might cause a problem with the CBOR 
>> encoding.
>> 
>> -	If the text is correct, let's leave it.  If someone discovers
>> that it is in error for one or more of the reasons proposed, then 
>> let's fix it.
>> 
>> - 4.1.5.2: Danger, metaphysics! "Every node MUST be a member of at  
>> least one singleton endpoint." This entire section is over-thought. I 
>> think all you need to say is that nodes the emit bundles need to have 
>> an EID they can use as a source EID for as long as necessary.
>> 
>> -	I disagree.  The section is exactly enough-thought.
> 
> See point (B) above:-) And "exactly"? :-)
> 
>> 
>> - 4.2.1: this entire section is duplicative. That's a bad idea.
>> 
>> -	If the text that it duplicates can be identified then we should 
>> remove the duplication.
>> 
>> - 4.2.2: 2nd para is badly written - that'd encourage coders to use  
>> the values 8,9,10 and 11 in ways that might be unwise.
>> 
>> -	The text says nothing about using any values in any manner, for 
>> good or ill.   It only says how many elements are in the array.
>> 
>> - 4.2.2: wrt "anonymous" see earlier comment
>> 
>> -	Correct as written, as noted above.
>> 
>> - 4.2.2: description of creation time is duplicative, except the 
>> earlier text didn't cover relative time.
>> 
>> -	This section is not duplicative, it is expansive.
>> 
>> - 4.3.3: Is "Bundle Age Block" a good name? BAB used to mean another 
>> type of block, so that could confuse maybe. (That said, I forget how 
>> long we're had this name.)
>> 
>> -	There are no longer any Bundle Authentication Blocks.  "Bundle
>> Age Block" is a good name.
>> 
>> - 4.3.4: Do you need to say that the hop limit MUST NOT be changed,  
>> once a hop count EB is added. Also, can any node add one of these, if 
>> one was not prevsiously present?
>> 
>> -	I agree, this needs to be clarified.
>> 
>> - 5: It's not necessary to say that new RFCs can supercede this. 
>> That's just standard IEFF process.
>> 
>> -	I don't see what harm this does.  For someone who is not steeped
>> in standard IETF process, but wants to read the specification anyway, 
>> maybe it would be useful information.
>> 
>> - 5.2: mentions "dispatch pending" as if I should know what that is
>> - is all the retention constraint stuff sufficiently explained I 
>> wonder? (Personally I don't think you need to mandate all this stuff 
>> and you cannot tell if an implementation has done it or not so I'd 
>> not bother trying to be so prescriptive.)
>> 
>> -	All of the retention constraint stuff is explained in detail.  I 
>> think it's necessary in order to ensure coherent behavior among the  
>> nodes of the network.
> 
> See point (B) above:-)
> 
>> 
>> - 5.4: "at the last possible moment... MUST..." that's a bit silly as 
>> it seems to require BP code inside a NIC which is not how this'll 
>> usually be implemented.
>> 
>> -	I don't understand the objection.  "Last possible moment" is
>> very clearly in the scope of the operation of the CLA, which is BP 
>> code. If that happens to be embedded in a NIC, fine, but that's not  
>> relevant.
>> 
>> - 5.5: I'm not convinced that the MUSTs here are right for all DTNs. 
>> I reckon that 5.5 could just as well say "MAY delete" and the BP 
>> would be fine. That might also provide some additional flexibility 
>> for some rounting schemes. That said, I won't press on this - if this 
>> doesn't resonate with folks now, and later turns out to be useful, I 
>> don't think we'd have such a hard time modifying BPAs where needed.
>> 
>> -	Here again I think the normative language is necessary in order
>> to ensure coherent behavior among the nodes of the network.
> 
> See point (B) above.
> 
>> 
>> - 5.6: Again, this is overly prescriptive.
>> 
>> -	I disagree, again because the normative language is necessary in 
>> order to ensure coherent behavior among the nodes of the network.
>> 
> 
> See point (B) above.
> 
>> - 5.6, step 4: I wonder if an implementer will get all this right.
>> 
>> -	It has been implemented.  The implementation works fine.
> 
> Yeah, but you've been doing this for ages, it's a new implementer we 
> need to consider, starting from the RFC.
> 
>> 
>> - 5.9: Badly implemented, re-assembly can create a memory consumption 
>> DoS vector, perhaps esp. if attempted on a non-destination node. It'd 
>> be better to warn about that. And maybe change from MAY for in-path 
>> reassembly to SHOULD NOT.
>> 
>> -	I am doubtful that this specification should be a compendium of 
>> implementation tips.
> 
> s/MAY/SHOULD NOT/ is way more than a tip
> 
>> 
>> - 5.11: does this mean that a custodian MUST ignore a custody signal 
>> destined for some other custodian?
>> 
>> -	This text does not imply that the receiving node must ignore a 
>> custody signal destined for another custodian.  It means exactly what 
>> it says, and no more.
>> 
>> - Figure 6: I don't get when reason codes 5 to 8 would really be 
>> used. Are they in fact needed?  (They seem a bit implementation 
>> specific to me, but I've not gone looking.)
>> 
>> -	DTNRG thought these codes would be needed.  Let's get more 
>> deployment experience before deciding that they are not.
>> 
>> - section 8: First sentence is bogus.
>> 
>> -	Not bogus, but not necessary.  Sure, let's delete it.
>> 
>> - section 8: [SECO] isn't a good reference. It's outdated and I doubt 
>> will be picked up.
>> 
>> -	Okay.
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
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