Re: Diversity and offensive terminology in RFCs

[Toerless Eckert <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 09:34:05AM -0400, Kathleen Moriarty wrote:
> And what if your last name were Moriarty?  You'd never have the community
> be okay with you as a Security AD? ;-)

Maybe perception of an appropriate criminal pedigree was actually a plus for
your career in security ;-)

> I'm fine with Block/permit lists, but don't think there is a racial
> connotation to black/white list.  White lists being preferred may be where
> the issue arrises I'm guessing.  Switching would be fine with me.

Thinking beyond my frustration with virtue signalling:

When i learned about computers, my english from scchool was pretty lousy,
so i learned a lot of words with their "computer" meaning first.
And then i often wondered how/why those words where choosen when
i looked up their real world" meaning. 

Aka: For inclusiveness with non-native english speakers, there is
something to be said about choosing a language that minimizes the
required cultural and historical context.

> I already say active interception or session hijacking and think that's a
> fine replacement for man-in-the-middle.  I didn't see an issue with
> man-in-the-middle.

Except that hijacking/interception seem to be more easily implying an
easily discovered attack, whereas the main attack of concern are those
not discovered.

Cheers
    toerless

> I do recall a recent draft coming through the IESG (within the last year or
> so) with monkey-in-the-middle and remember doing some searches on it prior
> ro entering comments on the draft.  I think it was commented on by an AD,
> but don't remember where that landed.
> 
> Best regards,
> Kathleen
> 
> >
> > *sigh*
> >
> > Keep your virtue signalling out of my language!
> >
> > --
> > Toerless
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 11:25:58AM +0200, Niels ten Oever wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > On the hrpc-list [0] there has been an intense conversation which was
> > > spurred by the news that the Python community removed Master/Slave
> > > terminology from its programming language [1].
> > >
> > > In the discussion that followed it was remarked that in RFCs terms like
> > > Master/Slave, blacklist/whitelist, man-in-middle, and other terminology
> > > that is offensive to some people and groups is quite common.
> > >
> > > This is not a discussion that can be resolved in hrpc, but rather should
> > > be dealt with in the IETF community (because hrpc doesn't make policy
> > > for terminology in the IETF), which is why I am posting this here.
> > >
> > > If people find the discussion worthwhile, we might also be just in time
> > > to request a BoF on this topic.
> > >
> > > Looking forward to discuss.
> > >
> > > Best,
> > >
> > > Niels
> > >
> > >
> > > [0] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/hrpc/
> > > [1]
> > >
> > https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8x7akv/masterslave-terminology-was-removed-from-python-programming-language
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Niels ten Oever
> > > Researcher and PhD Candidate
> > > Datactive Research Group
> > > University of Amsterdam
> > >
> > > PGP fingerprint          2458 0B70 5C4A FD8A 9488
> > >                    643A 0ED8 3F3A 468A C8B3
> >
> >
> 
> -- 
> 
> Best regards,
> Kathleen