Re: [secdir] [Cfrg] Time to recharter CFRG as a working group? Was: Re: ISE seeks help with some crypto drafts

[Richard Barnes <[e-mail]>]

Mike, are your concerns here primarily IPR related?  If that's so, then
maybe that's the level at which we should address them, as opposed to
flipping the bigger RG->WG switch.


On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 4:43 PM Michael StJohns <[e-mail]>
wrote:

> On 3/12/2019 2:56 PM, Richard Barnes wrote:
>
> Big +1 here.  It's not broke, so let's not fix it, especially for purely
> process-wonk reasons.
>
> Except its not quite just for process-wonk reasons.  The last couple of
> discussions have been about the IPR related to OCB and whether the CFRG
> should work on it because of that.   That's a perfectly fine set of
> discussions for a standards WG especially when considering which modes to
> include under recommended and mandatory to implement, but is probably out
> of place for an RG.     The RG ought to be answering the question "does
> this proposal have security flaws" and not "has the patent expired on this"
> but we seem to be getting far past the "discussing and analyzing" part of
> the CFRG charter?
>
> Our goal is to provide a forum for discussing and analyzing general
> cryptographic aspects of security protocols, and to offer guidance on the use
> of emerging mechanisms and new uses of existing mechanisms.
>
>
> I'd really like the CFRG to continue to be a place where anything
> cryptographic can be brought to be evaluated on its merits - but that -
> IMHO - doesn't seem to be the recent trend.
>
> I note that the CFRG has already published RFC7253 on OCB and the IETF
> published an RFC on MD5 many many years ago, so unless there are new
> security flaws in this set of documents, the answer to the ISE should be a
> no brainer of "we don't see any problems with the publication".    And at
> some point the patents *will* expire even if its not the 1-2 years that one
> poster suggested.
>
> In any event, I'm not going to push for this at this time, but I'm still
> confused about what would have to change if the charter were turned into a
> WG charter.
>
> Later, Mike
>
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 3:08 AM John Mattsson <[e-mail]>
> wrote:
>
>> I think it is much more important that CFRG stays a Research Group, than
>> it is that CFRG can produce standards track documents. CFRG is unique and
>> fills a very important roll. The fact that CFRG documents are used so much
>> indicates to me that CFRG is working very well. I would be very hesitant in
>> changing something that works.
>>
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> John
>>
>
>
>