Re: Results of IETF-conflict review for draft-williams-exp-tcp-host-id-opt-07

[Harald Alvestrand <[e-mail]>]

This one surprised me a bit.

Asking for blockage of an ind-sub is a fairly unusual thing.
I kind of expected to find in the IESG review would explain the nature
of the conflict, but the totality of the review is:

"The IESG has concluded that this document violates IETF procedures about
pervasive monitoring (RFC 7258) and should therefore not be published
without IETF review and IESG approval. This work is related to IETF work
done in the INTAREA WG."

The procedures I could find described in RFC 7258 are these:

   Those developing IETF specifications need to be able to describe how
   they have considered PM, and, if the attack is relevant to the work
   to be published, be able to justify related design decisions.  This
   does not mean a new "pervasive monitoring considerations" section is
   needed in IETF documentation.  It means that, if asked, there needs
   to be a good answer to the question "Is pervasive monitoring relevant
   to this work and if so, how has it been considered?"

   In particular, architectural decisions, including which existing
   technology is reused, may significantly impact the vulnerability of a
   protocol to PM.  Those developing IETF specifications therefore need
   to consider mitigating PM when making architectural decisions.
   Getting adequate, early review of architectural decisions including
   whether appropriate mitigation of PM can be made is important.
   Revisiting these architectural decisions late in the process is very
   costly.

The draft in question does have a "Pervasive Monitoring Considerations",
so the issue has certainly been considered by the authors. One may agree
or disagree with their conclusions, but one can't argue that they didn't
consider it.

Armchair lawyers will also note that the procedure refers to "IETF
specifications". An independent-submission RFC is *not* an IETF
specification.

Note: I'm not arguing that this particular idea is bad or good.

I'm saying that the IESG's justification for recommending it not be
published needs to be more explicit about what the problem is, and why
requesting an IESG note to be added saying "this is a Bad Idea" isn't a
better IESG response.

Harald


Den 26. jan. 2016 00:13, skrev The IESG:
> The IESG has completed a review of draft-williams-exp-tcp-host-id-opt-07
> consistent with RFC5742.
> 
> 
> The IESG recommends that 'Experimental Option for TCP Host
> Identification' <draft-williams-exp-tcp-host-id-opt-07.txt> NOT be
> published as an Experimental RFC.
> 
> 
> The IESG has concluded that this document violates IETF procedures about
> pervasive monitoring (RFC 7258) and should therefore not be published
> without IETF review and IESG approval. This work is related to IETF work
> done in the INTAREA WG.
> 
> The IESG would also like the Independent Submissions Editor to review the
> comments in the datatracker related to this document and determine
> whether or not they merit incorporation into the document. Comments may
> exist in both the ballot and the history log.
> 
> The IESG review is documented at:
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/conflict-review-williams-exp-tcp-host-id-opt/
> 
> A URL of the reviewed Internet Draft is:
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-williams-exp-tcp-host-id-opt/
> 
> The process for such documents is described at
> https://www.rfc-editor.org/indsubs.html 
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> The IESG Secretary
> 
> 
>