Minutes interim-1992-iesg-34 1992-12-21 17:00
minutes-interim-1992-iesg-34-199212211700-00

											
Minutes of the IESG Teleconferences

    IETF STEERING GROUP (IESG)

    REPORT FROM THE IETF MEETING

    December 21th, 1992

    Reported by: Greg Vaudreuil, IESG Secretary

    This report contains IESG meeting notes, positions and action items.

    These minutes were compiled by the IETF Secretariat which is supported
    by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. NCR 8820945.

    For more information please contact the IESG Secretary.

    ATTENDEES
    ---------

    Almquist, Philip / Consultant
    Crocker, Dave / TBO
    Crocker, Steve / TIS
    Coya, Steve / CNRI
    Davin, Chuck / Bellcore
    Gross, Philip / ANS
    Hinden, Robert / SUN
    Hobby, Russ / UC-DAVIS
    Huizer, Erik / SURFnet
    Stockman, Bernard / SUNET/NORDUnet
    Vaudreuil, Greg / CNRI

    Regrets
    Borman, David / Cray Research
    Knowles, Stev / FTP Software
    Reynolds, Joyce / ISI
    Piscitello, Dave/ Bellcore

    AGENDA
    ------

    1) Administrivia

    o Bash the Agenda

    o Review of Minutes
    - December 7th
    - December 14th

    2) IESG Nominations
    o Selection of additional members to stand re-nomination
    o Selection of IESG non-voting members of nomination committee.

    3) Technical Management
    o Status of Road feedback

    3) Protocol Actions
    o IESG approval needed
    - FTP/FTAM
    - Privacy Enhanced Mail

    o IESG action needed
    - MTU Discovery
    - PPP MIBS
    - Sun NFS/RPC

    o Working Group Discuss
    - DHC
    - SMTPext
    - Header Compression
    - Network Time Protocol

    4) Working Group Actions
    o IP Security (ipsec)
    o Simple IP (sip)

    5) Technical Management
    o 48bit CRC patent Issue
    o Review of Action Items

    MINUTES
    -------

    1) Administrivia

    The minutes of the December 7th and 14th Teleconferences were
    approved.

    2) IESG Nominations

    There are 14 members currently on the IESG. This number will remain
    constant through the next IESG realignment. The Internet,
    Applications, and Operations Areas each have two IESG members. The
    IESG agreed that only one of the two directors should stand for
    re-nomination at one time. The IESG established the following
    rotation for IESG member selection.

    Position This year Next year

    Chair Phill Gross
    Standards Dave Crocker --
    Applications Russ Hobby Erik Huizer
    Internet Stev Knowles Dave Piscitello
    Phil Almquist
    Management -- Chuck Davin
    Operations Phill Gross(*) Bernard Stockman
    Routing -- Bob Hinden
    Security -- Steve Crocker
    Service Apps empty (*) --
    Transport Dave Borman(*) --
    User Services -- Joyce Reynolds

    (*) Open positions

    Three IESG members intend to resign their position at the end of
    their terms, Philip Almquist, and Dave Borman. Phill Gross will not
    seek re-selection for the Operational Requirements Area but will
    seek re-selection as chairman. Dave Crocker, Steve Knowles, and Russ
    Hobby presented themselves as candidates to continue in their
    respective positions.

    The IESG choose Erik Huizer as the non-voting IESG liaison person to
    the nomination committee.

    ACTION: Gross -- Communicate to the IETF the list of IESG positions to
    be filled during the next selection process and the names of the IESG
    members who wish to be considered for continuation in their present
    positions.

    The question was raised of whether the IESG chairman was
    automatically a member of the IAB. This and other questions about
    liaison between the IAB and IESG were distilled into a strawman
    POSITION.

    STRAWMAN: The IESG chair shall be one of two IESG members serving as
    liaison members of the IAB. Two IAB members should be designated to
    act as liaison members of the IESG for the purpose of offering
    architectural input to IESG deliberations.

    ACTION: Gross -- Communicate the proposed liaison arrangements with the
    IAB and work towards common understanding of the mechanisms for
    communication between the IAB and IESG.

    3) Technical Management Issues

    o Feedback to the IETF on ROAD Proposals

    Stev Knowles wrote a draft note to the IETF which argues the case
    for an IETF selection of a single next IP version. This note was
    created to solicit community consensus on the concept of a single
    solution before making the difficult decision to pick one solution.
    The IESG discussed this approach and did not reach any firm
    conclusions. Discussion will be continued on the mailing list.

    o 48 Bit CRC Patent Issue

    The IESG has been asked by the PPP Extensions Working Group for
    guidance on the acceptance of a proposal to the Working Group to use
    a particular CRC algorithm. The IESG and IAB had previously
    discussed this issue and agreed that proprietary technology can be
    use in Internet Standards provided it is made available on a
    non-discriminatory basis for a reasonable fee. The Working Group is
    free to reject any patented proposal when other usable alternatives
    are available.

    ACTION: Vaudreuil Communicate this understanding of the use of patented
    technology in Internet Protocols to the PPP Extensions Working Group.

    o Protocol Approval Process

    The IESG further defined its procedures for approving protocols.

    POSITION: A protocol will pass the IESG if nine members vote
    affirmatively. This balloting will be done by email and during
    regularly scheduled teleconferences. If there is a single "discuss"
    vote, or an inadequate number of "yes" votes, a teleconference
    discussion will be scheduled.

    4) Protocol Actions

    o FTP/FTAM Gateway Specification

    The IESG discussed the FTP/FTAM Gateway and the one question raised
    was of constituency. The IESG was satisfied that the initial
    implementation experience and emerging FTAM services demonstrated
    a need for a common protocol.

    ACTION: Vaudreuil -- Send out the Protocol Action for FTP/FTAM to
    Proposed Standard.

    o Privacy Enhanced Mail

    Several issues were raised with respect to the reliance on patented
    technology in the PEM protocol. While these issues have been
    addressed in the course of deliberating on PEM, there was a desire
    to have their results of these discussions documented.

    PEM relies upon patented technology, RSA public key cryptography.
    The IAB deliberated at length about the licensing requirements for
    patented technology and the IESG would like to review these
    deliberations. A letter explaining the licensing was submitted by
    RSA to the IAB. The IESG has not seen this letter and wants to
    insure the terms are reasonable and that the letter gets published
    as an Informational RFC.

    ACTION: Coya -- Get a copy of the letter sent by RSA to the IAB on the
    license terms for RSA technology in PEM from Braden and make it
    available to the IESG for review.

    Free software based on the PEM specifications may be useful without
    any license. A key must be attained at some cost to sign, encrypt,
    and decrypt messages, but authenticated messages can be verified
    without any licensing.

    ACTION: SCrocker -- Send to the IESG a summary of the functionality of
    PEM and the requirements in terms of licensing for each of the PEM
    functions, Encryption, Decryption, Signing, and Authenticating.

    The PEM protocol specifies one suite of algorithms, viz DES for
    symmetric key encryption, RSA for asymmetric key signature and
    key exchange, and MD2 and MD5 for cryptographic hash. The
    specification leaves the door open to several additional suites.
    The IESG questioned this approach because the sender and the
    receiver must use the same suite for interoperability to be
    attained. Steve Crocker addressed the question to the IESG's
    satisfaction by noting that multiple suites are likely to occur
    because the U.S. Government is pushing for the use of the Digital
    Signature Algorithm (DSA) and Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) instead
    of RSA and MD5, and that export laws prohibit the general export
    of systems using DES for encryption but permit the general export
    of systems using weaker encryption algorithms such as RC4 with
    keys limited to 40 bits. These complications are unfortunate,
    but this protocol does not add any additional complexity to the
    situation.

    PEM originated in a closed IRTF Research Group, the Privacy and
    Security Research Group. An IETF Working Group was chartered to
    review the initial work of the PSRG subject to the open ietf process.
    This review resulted in significant changes to the specification.

    o Point to Point Protocol MIBs

    Several MIBS were submitted to the IESG for consideration as
    Proposed Standards. These have not been reviewed by the Network
    Management Directorate and were referred to them.

    ACTION: Davin -- Begin a review of the PPP mibs in the Network
    Management Directorate.

    o SUN NFS/RPC

    The IESG previously approved moving these protocols to Informational
    status. Since that time, however, SUN Microsystems has initiated
    discussion with the IESG to re-enter these protocols into the
    standards track. The IESG decided to hold the movement of these
    protocols to Informational until the situation becomes more clear.

    ACTION: Vaudreuil -- Do not sent the SUN NFS/RPC protocol action moving
    these protocols to Informational. Schedule a discussion on these
    protocols for January 21st if no progress is made.

    o SMTP Extensions

    The SMTP Extensions for 8 bit transport have been submitted to the
    IESG for re-consideration as a Proposed Standard. The document
    originally submitted to the IESG has been split into several smaller
    documents with significant technical changes.

    ACTION: Vaudreuil - Issue a Last Call for the SMTP Extensions
    Documents.

    o Network Time Protocol

    There was nothing to report on the status of the NTP Version 3
    review.

    5) Working Group Actions

    o IP Security

    The IP Security charter was accepted in principle. In the absence
    of a Security architecture, the IESG requests a statement in the
    charter about how this relates to other IP security efforts in the
    IETF including Common Authentication Technology, US Department of
    Defense IP Security Option and the Commercial IP Security Option.
    After the changes are made the IESG will reconsider the Working
    Group proposal.

    ACTION: SCrocker - With the Working Group chairs, revise the IP
    Security charter to address the relationship with current work Add a
    line to the charter addressing how this relates to other working
    groups.

    o Simple IP Protocol

    The IESG reviewed the SIP charter. The milestones appear aggressive
    and some concern was expressed that the December delivery dates were
    not realistic for implementations.

    ACTION: Vaudreuil - Contact the chairs of the SIP Working Group and
    confirm the milestones listed in the charter.

    Appendix -- Action Items Taken
    --------

    ACTION: Gross -- Communicate to the IETF the list of IESG positions to
    be filled during the next selection process and the names of the IESG
    members who wish to be considered for continuation in their present
    positions.

    ACTION: Gross -- Communicate the proposed liaison arrangements with the
    IAB and work towards common understanding of the mechanisms for
    communication between the IAB and IESG.

    ACTION: Vaudreuil Communicate this understanding of the use of patented
    technology in Internet Protocols to the PPP Extensions Working Group.

    ACTION: Vaudreuil -- Send out the Protocol Action for FTP/FTAM to
    Proposed Standard.

    ACTION: Coya -- Get a copy of the letter sent by RSA to the IAB on the
    licence terms for RSA technology in PEM from Braden and make it
    available to the IESG for review.

    ACTION: SCrocker -- Send to the IESG a summary of the functionality of
    PEM and the requirements in terms of licensing for each of the PEM
    functions, Encryption, Decryption, Signing, and Authenticating.

    ACTION: Davin -- Begin a review of the PPP mibs in the Network
    Management Directorate.

    ACTION: Vaudreuil -- Do not sent the SUN NFS/RPC protocol action moving
    these protocols to Informational. Schedule a discussion on these
    protocols for January 21st if no progress is made.

    ACTION: Vaudreuil - Issue a Last Call for the SMTP Extensions
    Documents.

    ACTION: SCrocker - With the Working Group chairs, revise the IP
    Security charter to address the relationship with current work Add a
    line to the charter addressing how this relates to other working
    groups.

    ACTION: Vaudreuil - Contact the chairs of the SIP Working Group and
    confirm the milestones listed in the charter.