Re: [regext] [Ext] Robert Wilton's Discuss on draft-ietf-regext-data-escrow-07: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

["Rob Wilton (rwilton)" <[e-mail]>]

Hi Gustavo,


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gustavo Lozano <[e-mail]>
> Sent: 17 April 2020 00:59
> To: Rob Wilton (rwilton) <[e-mail]>; The IESG <[e-mail]>
> Cc: [e-mail]; [e-mail];
> [e-mail]; James Gould <[e-mail]>
> Subject: Re: [Ext] Robert Wilton's Discuss on draft-ietf-regext-data-
> escrow-07: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)
> 
> Thank you Robert,
> 
> Comments inline, prefixed with GL -
> 
> Regards,
> Gustavo
> 
> On 4/8/20, 10:04, "Robert Wilton via Datatracker" <[e-mail]>
> wrote:
> 
>     Robert Wilton has entered the following ballot position for
>     draft-ietf-regext-data-escrow-07: Discuss
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> 
>     ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>     DISCUSS:
>     ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>     Hi,
> 
>     I spotted some issues with the terminology and the description of the
> algorithm
>     that I would like you to please address.
> 
>     Section 2: Terminology
> 
>     The definitions provided for "Differential" vs "Incremental" are the
> opposite
>     to their standard meaning in backups.  The term definitions should be
> reversed
>     to align with the common vernacular.  I.e. differential is the diff
> against the
>     last full backup, incremental is the backup since the backup (of any
> type) was
>     performed.
> 
> GL - The definition of differential in the draft complies with the legal
> use in the gTLD space. The amount of work required to make this change,
> make it unrealistic. It's worth mentioning that data escrow is not the
> same as a backup.
> 

I don't see a huge difference between a remote backup vs data escrow.  E.g., if I use an online backup service then it seems that they are storing data securely on my behalf that I can subsequently recover if required.  It feels like the concepts are so very similar that using the same set of terms with different meanings could easily cause confusion.

The choice here is between having 
(i) a protocol that matches legal data escrow definitions but could easily be confused by people who see this as a type of remote backup
(ii) a protocol specification that matches the widely used common definitions for these terms (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incremental_backup, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_backup), but that is opposite to the legal definitions.

It seems to me that the legal definitions are really self-contained within their documents, and potentially could be updated over time.  However, I see no way that we can convince the world in general to reverse their understanding/usage of these terms, and hence if you are to use these terms, I still believe that they should align to their common usage rather than the legal definitions.

Of course, an alternative solution would be to define and use completely different terms for the incremental and differential deposits, e.g. full deposit, full-delta deposit, minimal-delta deposit.

Thanks,
Rob