Re: [Internetgovtech] Involvement from other constituencies

[S Moonesamy <[e-mail]>]

Hi John,
At 07:30 01-03-2014, John Curran wrote:
>  The exact opposite - the IETF should realize that protocols can indeed
>  embed social/political values, but it should _not_ become a forum for
>  such discussions.  Instead, it should strive to make Internet protocols
>  as globally useful as possible, and simply _reference_ those externally
>  developed statements values or norms that it decides to specifically
>  recognize as drivers for particular protocol decisions.

[snip]

>  If a particular tradeoff is necessary to make the protocol desired by
>  the user community, and that is the driver that the IETF wishes to
>  reference, then that's fine.  <draft-farrell-perpass-attack-03.txt>
>  does not refer to users or trust, and instead defines it has a
>  security problem.  Personally, I'd prefer the approach you suggest or
>  prefer referencing a widely accepted statement of human privacy being
>  equally applicable to the Internet - either approach acknowledges the
>  requirement without having the IETF developing its own position on
>  personal privacy applicability on the Internet (an undertaking would
>  indeed encourage having a political discussion at the IETF.)

I have used non-technical references in some Internet-Drafts.  There 
is what I would describe as the social context.  It is very difficult 
to explain that.  There are the political issues.  These issues could 
be considered unimportant at the time the decision is taken.

There isn't a widely accepted statement on, for example, privacy 
which could be used as a good reference.  There is a view that 
encryption ensures privacy.  That draft looks at the problem from a 
security perspective as it is what people could understand. :-)

>  The process doesn't have to be changed, but the IETF needs to have a model
>  for how governments engage with it when desired and spend some time actually
>  explaining that to governments (or run the risk that they'll decide on other
>  approaches to meet their needs)

At 08:05 01-03-2014, John Curran wrote:
>Please no...  simply common understanding of how governments should engage
>with the IETF, and some documentation of same... e.g. an internet-draft.

It's not possible to evaluate that risk.  It shouldn't be a problem 
to have some documentation as long as it is not a blueprint.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy