Re: [ietf-privacy] New Webiquette RFC

[Toerless Eckert <[e-mail]>]

On Sun, Apr 17, 2022 at 12:48:45PM -0700, Bernard Aboba wrote:
> The questions you refer to are not new.  The same issues (IPR policy
> conformance and hidden agendas) have been raised with respect to the
> affiliations of ‘consultants’ who are hired by clients who wish to remain
> anonymous.  AFAICT, the IETF has never required that consultants divulge
> their clients, even to the nomcom.

Indeed. And there is a wide range how open or secret those consultants are
in the IETF about their sources of financing. And while this may be all quite
well-known to IETF old-timers, it would be nice to even just document these
insights to IETF newcomers. And RFC like the one suggested might be a good
start, although it would expand from "recommendations" to a broader "fyi".

> Anonymous participation takes this trend one step further.  The W3C does
> not allow anonymous participation due to IPR concerns, but their IPR policy
> is also significantly different, since W3C is membership-based (and not
> particularly friendly to ‘consultants’ or small businesses).

> We might decide that this anonymous participation is one step too far, but
> my take is that IETF crossed an important line long ago.

IMHO there is still a relevant difference between complete anonymity and some degree
of tracability/accountability through some form of "public" intermediary.

Cheers
    Toerless

> On Sun, Apr 17, 2022 at 12:15 Christian Huitema <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> > This submission raises an interesting question for the IETF: how to
> > treat anonymous (or pseudonymous) submissions?
> >
> > On one hand, there are lots of classic reasons for hiding behind a
> > pseudonym when participating in public discussions. On the other hand,
> > the IETF has to be protected against intellectual property issues and
> > against sabotage by external groups.
> >
> > Before submissions are accepted for publication, their authors have to
> > disclose whether they, or their employer, own intellectual property
> > rights on the technologies described in the draft. Failure to disclose
> > would influence the prosecution of intellectual property disputes that
> > might arise when third parties implement the technology. This provides
> > some degree of protection to implementers. But when the submission
> > cannot be traced to a specific company, these protections disappear, and
> > we might have a problem. So this is one source of tension between
> > standards and anonymity.
> >
> > The other source of tension is the risk of sabotage. Various groups have
> > tried to sabotage the standard process in the past, for example to delay
> > the deployment of encryption, or to introduce exploitable bugs in
> > security standards -- some of these tactics were exposed in the Snowden
> > revelations. Anonymous participation could allow these groups to perform
> > such sabotage in untraceable ways, which is obviously not desirable.
> >
> > I think this issue of anonymous participation is worth discussing.
> >
> > -- Christian Huitema
> >
> >
> > On 4/17/2022 11:35 AM, [e-mail] wrote:
> > > Dear all,
> > >
> > > I'm quite new at creating RFCs. I have recently submitted a draft for
> > > a new webiquette and I am still searching a group which will take care
> > > of it. It would fit into privacy as this new webiquette is dealing
> > > with new internet technology such as deepfakes, sharing photos of 3rd
> > > parties and so on and also deleting old information on a regular basis
> > > good behavior. It's also quite short with only 9 pages and also covers
> > > cancel culture and mobbing. I think a document like this is needed and
> > > important. Anyone here who'd like to take care or helping me making an
> > > RFC out of it? Or guide me in the right direction?
> > >
> > > The draft can be found here:
> > >
> > https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-rfcxml-general-the-new-webiquette-00.txt
> > >
> > > Best Regards,
> > >
> > > Kate
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > ietf-privacy mailing list
> > > [e-mail]
> > > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-privacy
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > ietf-privacy mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-privacy
> >

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