Subject: [Raven] Three Questions and Some Examples

From: "Richard Payne" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 11:53:26 -0500

I wasn't at the plenary session, and so I've been following the various
estimates on various shows of hands / straw polls / "votes" with some
interest. I think that we might be able to reach some useful conclusions by
considering the following three questions:

1) Is anyone willing to assert that more than 10% of the hands went up in
favor of any proposition supporting special support for wiretapping?

2) Is anyone willing to assert that 90% against or neutral, 10% for, is not
a "rough consensus" favoring "against or neutral"?

3) Given what RFC stands for, can't we assume that any official
communication on this subject from IETF, IESG, or IAB will have to contain
supporting reasoning, and that the goodness or badness of the reasoning will
be independent of how many hands went up in a particular meeting on a
particular day?

Anyone with answers to these questions, please send them along to the
list...

Just for fun, here's my candidates for canonical examples of good (based on
fact and relatively independent of position on the issues) and bad (based on
assertion only) reasoning: beware any editorial bias that I might have, of
course.

Good reasoning: "Widespread deployment of strong end-to-end encryption will
make wiretapping less useful to LEA's" - I think almost everyone can agree
on this regardless of whether we think tapping is a good thing. Note that
less useful is not the same as useless.

Bad reasoning: "Wiretapping is the same as a conference call" - this is only
true under additional assumptions about who can use the capability and what
the conferees expect in terms of knowing who's on the call and what degree
of confidentiality and privacy they have.

Good reasoning: "Making tapping easier and cheaper means there will be more
of it" - this follows from the law of supply and demand, I think, unless
tapping is a Giffen good.

Bad reasoning: "Wiretaps will only be used under court order" - given the
number of historical counterexamples, and the number of countries where this
is currently not true, this is an assertion that is definitely false. It
might be true in one country for some specified period of time, of course.

Anyone with other canonical examples of good or bad reasoning, please send
them along to the list...

Richard Payne

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From: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 14:55:59 -0500

Bear in mind that "abstentions" are not necessarily neutral.  I
abstained because I felt I had not hear enough either way to choose
one, and that it would be better for the IETF to not decide one
way or another immediately than to leap on to one path or the other.

What I understood when I left the room was that the IETF had decided
not to try to incorporate wiretapping into its protocols (whatever
that means) for now, but the discussion is not closed.

By the way, I think a working definition of consensus (as opposed
to a vote) is that you don't have to print photographs to prove meeting
attendeeship and retroactively re-count hands when you have consensus.

Leslie.

-- 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Newton's 3rd law of (e)motion, applied:         Leslie Daigle
   It's impossible to touch without              [email-masked]
             being touched."
                       -- ThinkingCat

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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From: "chefren" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 21:07:29 +0100

On 16 Nov 99, at 11:53, Richard Payne wrote:

> 
> Good reasoning: "Making tapping easier and cheaper means there will be
> more of it" - this follows from the law of supply and demand, I think,
> unless tapping is a Giffen good.

(Geffen?)

In general yes, in practice no:

Tapping cannot be made easier than tcpdump. The proposal 
for an audited version of tcpdump in special hardware 
environement will definitely be more costly and cumbersome 
for law enforcemement. They will only get better quality 
proof for it. Important. We will get more security against 
misuse of taps.

> number of historical counterexamples, and the number of countries where
> this is currently not true, this is an assertion that is definitely false.
> It might be true in one country for some specified period of time, of
> course.

So we should develop a standard that makes that as much 
parties as possible have to be corrupt to set a tap. Ideas 
for this are a random code generator on the Internet that 
sends codes that have to be feeded to the tapboxes. The 
sealed tapboxes use the random key to produce the hash that 
has to be send to a special newsgroup so everything can be 
counted by everyone. After a year or so all administrations 
should be OK.

+++chefren

= =
ii.nl ontwerpt, bouwt én onderhoudt websites
100 Euro aanbrengpremie: http://www.ii.nl/premie

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From: Ed Stone <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 15:40:01 -0500

>attendeeship and retroactively re-count hands when you have consensus.

IF there was consensus, but it is denied, then it is not unexpected that 
re-counting would be done to refute the denial of consensus.

What is interesting, just from a general "democracy watching" viewpoint, is 
the post-meeting spin on what it meant. Of particular note, the notion that 
a "straw poll" is different from "voting". How else do you do a straw poll? 
Possibly the term "straw poll" is used to convey that no matter what the 
count, it isn't going to decide anything.

But the post-meeting discussion seems to be moving down two separate tracks:

1. There was (or there was not) consensus expressed at the meeting, and it 
is controlling;

2. It doesn't matter whether there was consensus or not, we will move the 
question to a different group of "voters" with a process different from a 
broad "poll" of IETF participants, then the "vote" will be controlling.

Like most political questions, this issue is being addressed using the 
time-tested tactics of politics:

1. Select a person or office to bring the issue to democratic conclusion, 
being careful that the person or office selected predominantly agrees with 
your view;
2. That person selects a manageable group that predominantly agrees with him.
3. Those selected are appointed to advise and decide (impartially, of 
course) the issue.

What could be fairer? You're just going along with what the group 
democratically decided! You didn't even select the group!

Of couse the shell in this game to watch is first: who selects the selector 
of the manageable group; second: who is in the manageable group; third; 
what question is the group asked.

It is, of course, outside the technical realm.

--
--------------------------
Ed Stone
[email-masked]
--------------------------

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From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 07:57:37 -0500

>count, it isn't going to decide anything.

I want to backup Fred Baker on this.  The normal IETF procedure is to
prepare a draft statement, to publish it as an Internet draft, to discuss
this draft, to revise it, and, when the draft has reached a reasonably
stable status, to issue a "last call" and assess consensus. Plenary
discussions are no substitute for a technical assessment; neither is an
opinion poll. The important result of the arguments that were expressed;
any show of hands is merely indicative. (For the record, I do not believe
that application protocols such as Megaco should be engineered for wiretap,
said so and voted so in plenary.)
-- Christian Huitema

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From: Ed Stone <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 08:43:56 -0500

>said so and voted so in plenary.)

I don't dispute normal IETF procedure. I note that RFC 1984 is 
"informational", and "does not specify an Internet standard of any kind". I 
would expect the issue of the position on facilitating wiretap-friendly 
protocols could similarly be a "non-standard".

Excerpt from RFC 1984

"Network Working Group                               IAB Request for 
Comments: 1984                                          IESG Category: 
Informational                        August 1996
IAB and IESG Statement on Cryptographic Technology and the Internet

Status of This Memo

This memo provides information for the Internet community.  This memo does 
not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this memo is 
unlimited.

Copyright

(C) Internet Society 1996.  Reproduction or translation of the complete 
document, but not of extracts, including this notice, is freely permitted.

July 24, 1996

The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the Internet Engineering Steering 
Group (IESG), the bodies which oversee architecture and standards for the 
Internet, are concerned by the need for increased protection of 
international commercial transactions on the Internet, and by the need to 
offer all Internet users an adequate degree of privacy.

Security mechanisms being developed in the Internet Engineering Task Force 
to meet these needs require and depend on the international use of adequate 
cryptographic technology.  Ready access to such technology is therefore a 
key factor in the future growth of the Internet as a motor for 
international commerce and communication.
......"