Re: [therightkey] Draft charter for a Transparency Working Group

[Stephen Farrell <[e-mail]>]

Hi Ben,

I've a question.

On 12/11/2013 04:55 PM, Ben Laurie wrote:
> Work items: Specify a standards-track mechanism to apply verifiable
> logs to HTTP/TLS (i.e. RFC 6962-bis).
> 
> Discuss mechanisms and techniques that allow cryptographically
> verifiable logs to be deployed to improve the security of protocols
> and software distribution. Where such mechanisms appear sufficiently
> useful, the WG will re-charter to add relevant new work items."

I'd like to get a feel for how these work items
might be sequenced.

For the 2nd one, I assume the modus-operandi would
be for folks interested in transparency-for-X to
write up a personal draft, have that discussed on
the WG list and for stuff for which the WG achieve
consensus to re-charter to add new work items to
tackle transparency-for-X to the charter. That
seems fine to me. (And people can starting writing
those today - the more that exists before the WG
would be chartered, the easier it'll all be.)

For the first one, I'm not clear as to whether
you intend to 1) first consider a set of
transparency-for-X proposals, re-charter and
to only then figure out how to re-factor 6962
into a set of standards-track RFCs, or

2) if you want to do the work of generating a
standards-track set of RFCs based on 6962 for
HTTP/TLS before the WG have considered a set
of transparency-for-X proposals.

Or maybe 3) you wanted that to emerge from
this chartering discussion.

Can you clarify? If (1) or (2) apply then it'd
probably be useful to include that explicitly
in the charter text. If (3) applies then I guess
you'd want to actively lead the discussion down
that path, which sort of seems to be happening
already.

And note I'm not asking here about the specific
set of RFCs as deliverables nor the timing of
those deliverables, just how the ordering of
HTTP/TLS vs. other stuff would happen at a
coarse-grained level. (Separately, it'd be good
to chat about what RFC deliverables are likely
to be wanted, but probably only after the
above is clear.)

Thanks,
S.