Subject: Re: [Raven] IETF Consensus? Not according to Fred Baker

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999 08:57:23 -0700 (MST)

>                    .... The raven list has been a fine service of IETF
> for those of us who benefit from the group's work but don't know much
> about its inner workings.

On the contrary, the contents of the list have been a waste of time.  The
list was required, but no issues were raised that needed airing.  No
technical facts were mentioned that were not already very well known to
most readers and anyone with the ambition to consult popular on-line or
dead-tree references.  Anyone who actually wanted to find how about the
workings of the IETF could have more easily and far more accurately
consulted on-line documents or books, or asked in existing mailinglists.
It is silly to characterize a long series of factually inaccurate
rationalizations, uninformed technical misstatements, endlessly repeated
kooky ravings, bald faced lies, and (exceptionally polite) refutations of
all of those as "a fine service."  It was typical netnews and "message
board" drivel, but nothing related to the community that produced the
Internet.

> It would be exemplary for IETF to keep the wiretap debate as public as
> possible, especially as the dispute gets more intense, which appears to
> be in the offing according to your messages.

That would be contrary to the clear consensus of the mailinglist and the
meeting.  This is one camel's nose whose welcome in the tent has been
determined.  There is nothing the IETF could contribute having said "no."

Besides, it is bogus to characterize the nonsense seen in this list as a
debate.  Endlessly repeated, generally knowingly false statements and
their refutations about existing laws, regulations, politics, sociology,
technical possibilities, and existing technical mechanisms aren't "debate"
in my book.  Such effort by supporters of a "political philosophy,
movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual
and that stands for a centralized autocratic government" might be parts
of a (generally hopeless and failed) "Big Lie," but not a "debate."

> You know that there's been a long-standing effort to make the cellular
> standards deliberations more public in order to air disputes on weak
> encryption in the US and abroad. And that is still being debated behind
> closed doors at the cost of  public credibility of those standards groups.

The IETF has not quite slide into the political, technically dead abyss
where it cares about "public credibility."  All that is supposed to matter
to the IETF is running, interoperable code.  Whether code works is
unaffected by the synthetic enthusiasms of the mob.

Besides, the notion that such "debates," whether open or private can have
any long term relevance is wrong.  The cell phone people are working
feverishly to deliver phones that can run programs.  Their efforts will
make the so called debate moot.  A harbinger is the availability of SSL
and PGP for the Palm Pilot.  When anyone who cares can run download and
run real encryption on their phones as well as their home PC and their
pocket Internet terminals, the non-encryption of the phone system will
matter only to the telephone companies, whose billing and authentication
systems will still be profitable jokes to the non-governement bad guys.

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From: John Young <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999 12:28:55 -0500

Perhaps you're right Vernon.

Still there are workarounds to strongest encryption in the works or already
deployed by those who hope we believe in its cureall.

And there are always workarounds to any technology, no matter
how apolitical, indeed there is a view that the more apolitical 
political technology is, above public debate, the greater is its
vulnerability to abuse for political purposes. 

Rational technologists have proven themselves to be no more angelic 
than the unruly mob, possibly less so due to their hands being on the 
life-support controller.

I've never witnessed a public debate as orderly as you dream about,
nor a democracy for that matter. Picking the good stuff out of the
tumultous breastbeating is the duty of the informed citizen, as you
have aptly demonstrated we must. Otherwise we get outfoxed by
the practitioners of that art and artifice.

I was impressed by a number of contributors here who took the time
to share what they know and believe. The noise was not a problem here
anymore than out there nor in the inner sanctums I've sat in on. Being
trapped in a meeting room while an arrogant shit tells us we're wasting
his time is pretty common suffering these days. Not that you would
do that any more than me, people listen to us carefully, right, keep their
mouths shut when we're delivering gravy on a shingle. Read the FFAQ
we scream, puts them ROTFFL. Yeah, that's preaching to the idiots.
Meanwhile, while some are hooting at your spleen, others are sugaring 
your Harley, ranking you for takedown by unfair cheating.

As was done, is being done, to the cellular engineers who were certain the
world was square, to the crypto faithful who cannot yet dream of being
outsmarted.