Re: [Ntp] [EXT] Need guidance on interpreting NISTIR 8366

Ulrich Windl <Ulrich.Windl@rz.uni-regensburg.de> Wed, 12 May 2021 22:49 UTC

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From: Ulrich Windl <Ulrich.Windl@rz.uni-regensburg.de>
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Subject: Re: [Ntp] [EXT] Need guidance on interpreting NISTIR 8366
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On 5/12/21 7:58 PM, Daniel Franke wrote:
> (CCed recipients, see 
> <https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/on-inclusive-language/ <https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/on-inclusive-language/>> 
> for context)
> 
> I'm writing for guidance on interpreting NISTIR 8366 as it pertains to
> my work and that of the NTP working group, and in particular on
> several matters surrounding the following language from section 4.1:
> 
>      "Avoid terms that perpetuate negative stereotypes or unequal
>       power relationships
> 
>           Examples: master/slave; smart/dumb; right/left"

I'm afraid any "dumbphone" wouldn't make it to the market (just as 
D.U.M.B. monitoring for harddrives;-)

> 
> with the footnote,
> 
>      "In this example, avoid using right to mean 'good' or 'normal,'
>      and left to mean 'bad' or 'abnormal.'"
> 
> The NTP working group is presently discussing extending RFC 8915
> ("Network Time Security for the Network Time Protocol") to support
> PTP (the Precision Time Protocol, IEEE 1588). IEEE 1588 makes
> pervasive use of master/slave terminology to describe fundamental
> concepts of the protocol. (As a historical aside, the terms and
> concepts of "master clock" and "slave clock" are much older than PTP;
> see <http://www.hvtesla.com/masters/masters_index.html 
> <http://www.hvtesla.com/masters/masters_index.html>> for some
> examples from as early as 1838). What should we consider to be best
> practice for dealing with this sort of situation, where we're building
> on work that originates from a non-IETF standards body and uses
> terminology that is plainly non-compliant with NISTIR 8366?

I wonder: Will the movie "Masters of the Universe" be renamed?
Is "Superman" still allowed? Blackholes? White dwarfs?

> 
> Any work that builds on IEEE 1588 can't reasonably avoid using the
> technical concepts that IEEE 1588 uses "master/slave" to represent.
> It could continue using the same terminology, either with or without
> an acknowledgement that it is violating NISTIR 8366 in doing so. Or,
> it could define its own synonyms, but would still need to use the
> original terms at least one when defining the new ones in order to
> make the synonymy clear to the reader. What's the correct approach?

I think the real question is: How many non-master people were ever hurt 
by a master PTP clock? How many people are afraid of a PTP master clock?

> 
> Taking this a little further: "unequal power relationships" is an
> awfully broad concept and I don't think any time synchronization
> protocol can ever get away from it no matter what euphemisms it
> chooses. I happen to have written Byztime
> <https://github.com/akamai-contrib/byztimed 
> <https://github.com/akamai-contrib/byztimed>> which is a truly
> peer-to-peer protocol, but NTP and PTP are inherently

I also wonder: Have there been any claims against the phrase "black power"?

> hierarchical. They have to be, because they exist to support a
> hierarchical social function. The answer to "what time is it?", in the
> context of TAI or any timescale based on it (such as UTC) ultimately
> derives from a central authority, BIPM, and the network of reference
> clocks coordinated under it. And even with Byztime, there's still
> power inequality between the set of configured peers, which are
> authorized to participate in consensus, and the rest of the world
> which is unauthorized.
> 
> I think we can find some principled middle ground here. I take for
> granted that everyone reading this agrees that slavery is evil, but
> only a tiny minority, mostly the intellectual heirs of Proudhon, favor
> the complete abolition of *all* power hierarchies. I would be very
> surprised if NIST, a bureau of the United States government, intended
> to officially endorse anarchism, so I think a more moderate reading is
> justified. I propose that the text be understood as being limited in
> scope to power relationships in which participation is non-consensual
> (FSVO, recognizing that different political philosophies have
> different notions of what consent means). Hence, "master/slave" is
> still out but we can use "client/server", "controller/agent", and
> other such terms that still imply unequal power relationships but lack
> connotations of coercion.

Are a "brown out" and "blackouts" still legal, an is "I had a blackout" 
no longer an excuse?

> 
> Finally, as to that footnote about "left/right". This seems to be
> telling me that RFC 8280 ought not have spoken approvingly about
> "human rights" and that we ought to rename our "intellectual property
> rights" disclosures. "Right" as in "right-handed", "right" as in
> "correct", and "right" as in "just entitlement" are not merely
> homonyms; they're the same word with the same etymology, tracing to
> the Proto-Indo-European "h₃reǵtós" which had all the same meanings.
> The same root, with all its meanings preserved, shows up in other
> modern Indo-European languages as well, such as the Spanish word
> "derechos". Now, this is obviously ridiculous and not an intended
> reading. I've never encountered anyone who sincerely thinks that
> phrases like "human rights" are problematic, and surely I've gotten
> too literal. But I'm struggling to come up with any more reasonable
> interpretation. How am I to take this footnote seriously and give it
> meaning, while avoiding this sort of inference?

I think (as we know from politicians): As words don't make the world any 
better, words also don't make it worse.  Isn't this all just a great 
waste of time and energy?

Regards,
Ulrich

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