Re: Meta-comment: use of "red" / "black" terminology...

[Stephen Kent <kent@bbn.com>]

At 11:27 -0500 11/10/03, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
>One comment which Barbara and I noticed in many of the 2401 issues is
>the use of the terms "red-side", "black-side", "red-to-black", etc.
>
>To date these terms have not been used in the IPsec RFC's and I-D's, and
>I'd like to suggest that perhaps we should be careful not to introduce
>them.  The reasons for this is two-fold.  First of all, it introduces
>additional specialized lingo which may make the documents more difficult
>to read.  Secondly, "red" and "black" primarily only makes sense in the
>case of a security gateway, and do not necessarily make much sense in an
>peer-to-peer configuration.  There is at least one example where the use
>of "red" and "black" lingo has also been accompanied by diagrams that
>only address the use of IPsec in tunnel mode and assume the VPN/Security
>gateway model.
>
>Comments?
>
>						- Ted

The terms are applicable in all 4 examples of IPsec implementations, 
and in transport and tunnel mode.  The terms are thoroughly relevant 
to peer-to-peer use of IPsec.

One might prefer better names, but not for most of the reasons you cite.

Steve