Re: [Gendispatch] Updated draft: Policy experts are IETF stakeholders

[Bob Hinden <[e-mail]>]

Vittorio,

> On Jun 22, 2023, at 12:47 AM, Vittorio Bertola <vittorio.bertola=[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> Il 20/06/2023 19:33 EEST John Levine <[e-mail]> ha scritto:
>> 
>> While policy advice on technical documents can certainly be helpful,
>> it is simply not possible to provide useful policy advice without a
>> clear understanding of the technology. That's how you end up with
>> cryptographers repeatedly explaining why we can't put back doors in
>> cryptosystems and policy people telling us we have to, just nerd
>> harder.
> 
> Don't misunderstand me, I do think that backdoors in crypto are a bad idea, but: is the cryptographers' explanation of why we can't have them a technical or a policy argument? I always understood it as "if we do, there is no way to eliminate the risk that they will fall into the wrong hands", but whether that risk is acceptable or not and under which conditions is a policy decision, not a technical one.

I think this shows that there is not a separation between “policy” and “technology”.   Many (perhaps most) technology decisions are also policy decisions.   It doesn’t work to think that they are separate domains.   

Bob