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Re: SKIP status

In article <3039866563.1.p01152@psilink.com> Jeff Pickering wrote:
>I would like some feedback  on the status of SKIP, ie:
>
>- what is its status? 

This is an "official" response in my role as co-chair of the IPsec WG.

	SKIP is currently a set of Internet-Drafts.  It is one of 2
proposals under active consideration for possible publication as Proposed
Standard RFCs for key management.

The two proposals under active consideration are:
	SKIP
	ISAKMP with Oakley extensions (ISAKMP+Oakley)

	SKIP and ISAKMP+Oakley each have freely distributable
implementations of the most recent drafts in progress.  Each has resolved
the issue of the Diffie-Hellman patent in precisely the same way.  Each has
support from at least one major vendor.

	A third proposal, known as Photuris, is not currently under active
consideration for standards-track RFC because its editor has repeatedly
refused to edit that document to conform to WG consensus.

	At the LA IETF meeting in March, Jeff Schiller (Security Area
Director) took a straw poll on key management.  There was nothing close to
consensus behind any of the proposals at that time.  The IETF requires that
there be rough consensus in the WG _before_ a proposal can go to Proposed
Standard RFC.  It is unclear when such consensus will emerge, so the RFCs
are being published as Experimental status so that more experience can be
obtained.

>- likely to go to RFC?

	Several of the SKIP documents, the ISAKMP document, and the Oakley
document are all going to become Experimental RFCs (not standards-track) in
the near term (most are already in the queue at the RFC Editor and will
appear whenever the RFC Editor gets to them).

	It is VERY important to recall that many RFCs are not
standards-track and hence publication as an RFC does not necessarily mean
anything.  The widely deployed Internet protocols (e.g. TCP, IP, UDP) are
all standards-track RFCs, so the status of the RFC does make some
difference in the probable deployment.

Ran
rja@inet.org
Co-Chair, IPsec WG
References: