RE: United Nations report on Internet standards

[Larry Masinter <[e-mail]>]

IETF has its own way of training, and better ways of introducing people to the collected wisdom should be explored.

A MOOC for new IETFers with specializations for document editors, attending meetings, reading RFCs, the standards process, security analysis, …?

For the case in hand, I suggested in all seriousness reflecting on

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit 

The evil bit is a fictional IPv4 packet header <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4#Header>  field proposed in RFC 3514 <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3514> , a humorous April Fools' Day RFC <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day_RFC>  from 2003 authored by Steve Bellovin <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_M._Bellovin> . The RFC <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Request_for_Comments>  recommended that the last remaining unused bit, the "Reserved Bit"[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit#cite_note-1>  in the IPv4 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4>  packet header, be used to indicate whether a packet had been sent with malicious intent, thus making computer security <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_security>  engineering an easy problem – simply ignore any messages with the evil bit set and trust the rest. 

Influence

The evil bit has become a synonym for all attempts to seek simple technical solutions for difficult human social problems which require the willing participation of malicious actors, in particular efforts to implement Internet censorship <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship>  using simple technical solutions.

 

 

The best April 1 RFCs are the ones that serve as Reductio Ad Absurdum