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.