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Re: >IPSEC Agenda

        Reply to:   RE>>IPSEC Agenda


Ran,

Thanks for the comments on the agenda.  


>Date: 6 Jul 93 13:13:04 -0400
>From: Ran Atkinson  <atkinson@itd.nrl.navy.mil>
>To: ipsec@ans.net,
>        Paul_Lambert-P15452 <Paul_Lambert@poncho.phx.sectel.mot.com>
>Subject: Re: IPSEC Agenda
>Message-Id: <9307061713.AA10797@itd.nrl.navy.mil>
>
>
>
>I have a couple of comments on the agenda...
>
>1) I'm very surprised to hear that there are only "experimental" 
>  implementations of SP3.  This is simply not true.  The US Government 
>  currently uses SP3 implementations, which are purchased commercially, 
>  to secure some of its networks.  SP3 is known to be solid and to work 
>  well and be scalable to higher bandwidth networks.  It is not
experimental  
>  at all, but rather is a solid production-quality protocol and has
>  a clear, readable, and sufficiently detailed specification. 

You are correct that SP3 is widely installed.  Experimental is the wrong
term for SP3 and I will modify the agenda.  The intent was to provide time
for a brief discussion of existing network security implementations some of
which are experimental.  

>2) What is the status of getting the IPSP session onto the MBONE Multicast
>  Conference list for Amsterdam ?  A number of us are unable to attend
>  and would like to participate via the MBONE.

It looks like a MBONE slot may be open on Tuesday morning!  I will attempt
to arrange for IPSEC to be multicast and will post a note to this list when
I get confirmation.


> 3) I don't see any announcement of an IPSP draft being available online
>   via the Internet drafts mechanism.  As such, it is inappropriate to
>   discuss any particular IPSP draft or select one at this time.  Drafts
>   for the various proposals need to be made fully available using the
>   Internet Drafts mechanism sufficiently before any IETF meeting or any
>   decision so that anyone on the Internet may have time to review and
comment
>   on those drafts.
>
> 	As such the 0945 agenda item appears to be inappropriate if it
>   talks about any specific IPSP draft proposal rather than discussing
>   technical features desired in a proposal-neutral manner.       ...

You are correct that no IPSP draft is currently available online.  This
portion of the agenda represented my own commitment to cobble together a
working draft of a specification for the group to review.  I agree that any
draft should ideally be available at least two weeks before a meeting. 
However, given the dearth of contributions I had assumed that any draft
would be better than no draft.  This *draft* would have been posted this
weekend, in time for discussion (but not much review) at the Amsterdam
meeting.

We did discuss at the last meeting most of the technical *features* and
requirements that would be appropriate in IPSP.  Some of these features were
controversial.  I had hoped that a working draft would be a good way to
capture this work.

If you insist, I will postpone posting a working draft for a few months
until we have a better document that has been fully reviewed and approved.


>        ...      

>  4) I would like to encourage more email list discussions and less
reliance
>   on face to face meetings.   Decisions reached at IETF physical meetings
>   are not necessarily binding on the whole working group and all subjects
>   should be thoroughly discussed on the email list as well before any 
>   conclusions are drawn.  One of the big advantages of the IETF process 
>   over some less successful processes is this ability to discuss matters
>   via email so that there is more discussion and review of the technical
>   content prior to making any decisions.  It will always be the case that
>   some folks can't make a physical meeting (Amsterdam is maybe worse than
>   normal in this respect) and email is a critical part of the IETF
process.

Ok, lets send more email to this list ...


Thanks again for your comments,

Paul