Re: [Madinas] MADINAS - Proposed Charter v2

[Bob Hinden <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

A few comments inline.

Bob


> On May 21, 2021, at 9:46 AM, Juan Carlos Zuniga <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> The BoF proponents, BoF chairs and ADs have made some revisions to clarify and clean the proposed charter.
> 
> The plan is to discuss it at the BoF meeting over IETF 111.
> 
> Please let us know if you have any comments.
> 
> MADINAS Draft Charter:
> 
> The Medium Access Control (MAC) address is the Link Layer address used in IEEE 802 technologies. It is usually assigned statically for each physical

“usually” is no longer correct, otherwise we wouldn’t be discussing this charter.   Suggest changing to “originally”, “in the past" or something similar.

> network card by the Network Interface Card manufacturer, out of the space reserved by the IEEE Registration Authority Committee (RAC) for globally unique MAC addresses. The MAC address is used as source or destination target when sending and receiving frames. The default static assignment of the MAC address raises privacy concerns for personal devices, which have recently started to be mitigated by end-device vendors implementing and SDOs specifying the use of Randomized and Changing MAC addresses (RCM).

Good to make it clear that these devices are shipping in volume now, this is not a future issue.


> Device identity is important in scenarios where the network needs to know the device or user identity in order to offer, operate and maintain certain services. Currently, many use cases and applications make an implicit assumption about the unique association between the device identity and its MAC address. This assumption is being used in both control plane and data plane functions and protocols. RCM will break this assumption. This requires update of the current applications to function across MAC address changes.

Suggest /RCM will break/RCM breaks/

If I had written the paragraph, I would have said that use cases and applications took a shortcut that assumed device identity and MAC address were the same, but this was never true because 802 style devices always had the ability to change their MAC address dynamically.


> The MADINAS Working Group will examine the effect of RCM schemes on network and application services in several scenarios identified as relevant. The group will also evaluate various identifiers (beyond the MAC address) that can be used by the network to provide services, as well as scenarios where personal device identity is not required.

> For scenarios where personal device identity stability is desirable, the Working Group will recommend protocols that can be used to protect the request and exchange of identifiers between the client and the service provider. For scenarios where privacy is paramount, the group will recommend best practices to ensure that the privacy achieved with RCM is not compromised by the communication of other identifiers. The MADINAS Working Group will examine other IETF work that may be applicable.

I think it is important to add to this, that the Working Group will not recommend in any form that RCM not be used.

> The Working Group will work together with other IETF WGs (e.g., DHC, IntArea), and will liaise with other relevant SDOs such as IEEE 802 and the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA). The Working Group will coordinate on the different recommendations, as well as potential follow-up activities within or outside the IETF.

> MADINAS is expected to be a short timeframe (12-18 months) Working Group to quickly assess these needs. Additional solution space documents may be published after a rechartering process is identified as necessary and in coordination with other relevant SDOs.
> 
> The group will produce the following deliverables:
> - An Informational Problem Statement document, including use cases analysis and requirements.
> - An Informational MAC Address Randomization analysis document.
> - A Best Common Practices document.

Could you provide more detail on what is intended to be in these documents?   I admit to be a little confused as to what the desired outcome is here beyond analyzing the problem caused by RCM.



> Best,
> 
> MADINAS proponents, BoF chairs & ADs.
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