Subject: [hrpc] I-D Action: draft-irtf-hrpc-guidelines-01.txt

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2018 06:14:55 -0700

A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories.
This draft is a work item of the Human Rights Protocol Considerations RG of the IRTF.

        Title           : Guidelines for Human Rights Protocol Considerations
        Author          : Niels ten Oever
	Filename        : draft-irtf-hrpc-guidelines-01.txt
	Pages           : 27
	Date            : 2018-09-07

Abstract:
   This document sets guidelines for human rights considerations in
   networking protocols, similar to the work done on the guidelines for
   privacy considerations [RFC6973].  This is an updated version of the
   guidelines for human rights considerations in [RFC8280].

The IETF datatracker status page for this draft is:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-irtf-hrpc-guidelines/

There are also htmlized versions available at:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-irtf-hrpc-guidelines-01
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-irtf-hrpc-guidelines-01

A diff from the previous version is available at:
https://www.ietf.org/rfcdiff?url2=draft-irtf-hrpc-guidelines-01

Please note that it may take a couple of minutes from the time of submission
until the htmlized version and diff are available at tools.ietf.org.

Internet-Drafts are also available by anonymous FTP at:
ftp://ftp.ietf.org/internet-drafts/

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From: Tony Rutkowski <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2018 09:34:54 -0400

Hi Niels,

> Explanation: The end-to-end principle [Saltzer
> <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-irtf-hrpc-guidelines-01#ref-Saltzer>]
> holds that 'the intelligence is end to end rather than hidden in the
> network' [RFC1958 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1958>].
> The end-to-end principle is important for the robustness of the
> network and innovation. Such robustness of the network is crucial to
> enabling human rights like freedom of expression. Example: Middleboxes
> (which can be Content Delivery Networks, Firewalls, NATs or other
> intermediary nodes that provide other 'services' than routing) serve
> many legitimate purposes. But the protocols guiding them, can
> influence individuals' ability to communicate online freely and
> privately. The potential for abuse and intentional and unintentional
> censoring and limiting permissionless innovation, and thus ultimately
> the impact of middleboxes on the Internet as a place of unfiltered,
> unmonitored freedom of speech, is real. 

Is it possible to portray other views here?  Or are these the only
"expressions" allowed?

Not only are there quite contrary views on this highly controversial
topic, but there is enormous empirical evidence that network robustness
and end user security are critically dependent on middlebox based
services.  Indeed, because networks in the real world are provided by
enterprises, it is they who control what gets implemented, and copious
analysis indicates that there are an enormous number of middleboxes in
basically every network that exists.

A cursory search of industry activity, R&D literature and patents, make
it plain that the "innovation is in the network" today.  That's the
entire point behind NFV-SDN-5G networks and services - innovation is in
the NFV code instantiations.  It is doubtful if you are going to stop
all that activity.

So all of these factors drove the Middlebox Security Protocol work in
ETSI - which is directed at producing a protocol that enables discovery
of middleboxes in the transport path of data centres, and fine-grained
control of their "observability" to the meet the end user's and
enterprise network provider's security and privacy needs. 

So are alternative views allowed in these guidelines, or is the
perspective fixed?

-t