Re: Proposed Statement on "HTTPS everywhere for the IETF"

["Mark Baugher (mbaugher)" <[e-mail]>]

+1
On Jun 1, 2015, at 3:41 PM, Roland Dobbins <[e-mail]> wrote:

> 
> On 2 Jun 2015, at 4:27, Paul Wouters wrote:
> 
>> We had to cater to governments banning encryption for its users, and we now see what that got them.
> 
> They just go around the encryption and compromise the endpoints.  They're *governments*, so they have the resources to do that (not debating whether or not they should, just stating observed fact).
> 
> Also, universal or near-universal encryption is a serious problem in terms of detection, classification, traceback, and mitigation of application-layer DDoS attacks.  It drastically limits the scaling capacity of defenders, and results in even more cost asymmetry between defenders and attackers (in favor of the attackers).
> 
> My guess is that those who make bold, sweeping statements about how everything ought to be encrypted all the time are rarely those who have to deal with the unintended consequences of overencryption.
> 
> In the final analysis, there are no technical solutions for social ills.  The entire issue of unwanted surveillance by government entities is a social and political problem; it seems pretty clear that since the social/political side of things aren't proving to be easily resolved, that some folks are advocating doing *something*, *anything*, irrespective of whether it will actually make a positive impact on the conditions to which they object and without regard to the non-trivial side-effects of what they're advocating.
> 
> The IESG and the IETF in general should concentrate on technical issues, and work on solving social and political problems should take place in other, more appropriate appropriate fora, IMHO.
> 
> -----------------------------------
> Roland Dobbins <[e-mail]>
>