Re: A contribution to ongoing terminology work

[Carsten Bormann <[e-mail]>]

On 5. Apr 2021, at 21:08, Viktor Dukhovni <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> I have a Master's degree, is that offensive?

Hi Viktor,

I think there are two problems here:

(1) You treat the evolution of the English language that we are experiencing as something that should be subject to rational logic.
That’s not how it works.  I may not understand tax law (and it’s certainly not logical), but I’m still paying my taxes.

(2) You seem to assume that the IETF actually is in a position to change anything about this evolution.
Well, we may choose to be leading (OK, we already missed that), main stream, or trailing in adapting to it.
But that is about it (apart from the unlikely butterfly wing effect maybe).

So I still have Master’s students, but my principal git branches are now called main.
The latter caused some work, but I don’t resent it (in this case, the replacement is even actually better).

What we actually can do is agree on good replacement terms for technology that we own or considerably shape.
Discussion whether MITM/Middleperson attacks should be described as “on-path” attacks is very much on topic for us — in the groups that own/shape that technology.

Grüße, Carsten