RE: [saag] No need for SHA-2 Packet Authentication - Open Letter to the WG and Area Directors

[Russell Dietz <rdietz@hifn.com>]

On Wednesday, July 17, 2002, at 09:42 PM, RJ Atkinson wrote:

> Russell,
> 
> I'm pretty indifferent to the topic of what ought or ought not be
> mandatory-to-implement or maybe even standards-track RFC versus
> informational RFC.  I am remarkably indifferent to any of the
> mathematical parts of your note or Uri's followup.
> 
> I do feel pretty strongly that the above referenced draft ought to be
> permitted to be published, at least as an Informational RFC, so that
> those folks who choose to implement/deploy it can do so in an
> interoperable manner.
> 
> Trying to prevent people from publishing open specifications for
> entirely optional-to-implement technology is NOT consistent with
> the Internet tradition.  I would hope that the RFC Editor would
> apply their own good judgement to an individual request to publish
> such a document as an Informational RFC if the situation should arise.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Ran
> rja@extremenetworks.com

Hello Ran,

I totally agree that the Internet tradition of allowing individuals to
publish work should continue unchanged.  I apologize if I gave off that
impression in our note.  That was not the intent.  We need 'optional'
features to be made available to the Internet community in order to allow
for potential coordinated field 'trials' and interoperability.

The facts around this draft are that it was added to the charter of the
IPSec WG as part of the AES cipher support effort.  (It is a WG draft!) That
linkage has caused misinformation in the original draft to become perceived
as pseudo-requirements.  The general issue of WG drafts and the connection
between this draft and the AES/FIPS 180-2 effort have created a great deal
of confusion at some of the implementers.

So... the concern is the linkage and the request by the user community for
implementation as it is 'going to be a standard soon...'

Hope this helps clarify things!

Regards,

Russ