Date: Mon, 19 Jun 95 00:36:59 PDT From: rogaway@cs.ucdavis.edu (Phil Rogaway) To: rivest@theory.lcs.mit.edu Subject: Terrible IETF Internet Drafts about to become Draft Standards Cc: rogaway@cs.ucdavis.edu Dear Ron, I don't know if you've been following what's been going on in the IETF IP Security Working Group. My take: a group of people with little discernible cryptographic expertise have gone off and defined the security architecture and mechanisms for the next generation of the Internet Protocol. Their work product (which you can find on the WWW under ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts; the files are , , , , and ) is a terribly flawed and immature set of documents. To the skilled cryptographers of our community, reading these documents will almost certainly yield the same conclusion. But for whatever reasons, this seems so far to have been irrelevant: those in power within the IETF seem set on proceeding with the current drafts. I feel a bit like the child who shouts (in a voice no one hears) that the emperor wears no clothes.... I have come to realize that it is going to take someone with substantially greater influence than I have to derail this standardization push: my voice carries no weight among these people. I have already spent many days time to read these drafts, follow what transpires on an inane mailing, and provide criticisms to the Working Group. This input has been completely ignored. You can find a copy of one set of my criticisms (3 April 1995 mail to ipsec@ans.net) in http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/papers/draft-rogaway-ipsec-comments-00.txt. The final call for comments, directed to the IESG (iesg@cnri.reston.va.us) is now out. Comments are due by June 30. If you can afford the time to look over the above materials and form an opinion, your words will count far more than mine. I defer to your judgment on how to provide feedback in a way to ensure it has an impact. Some possibilities include: I can draft a joint letter (which we can circulate for further signatures); you could draft a letter individually; or you could have some discussions "behind the scenes" (e.g., Jeff Schiller is the head of IP Security). Additionally, a conference paper on this (e.g. for USENIX) might be worthwhile. Please let me know your thoughts. I suspect that these proposals will be virtually invincible once they become Draft Standards. And I believe these particular documents becoming standards is a very bad thing for the future of the Internet. Regards, Phil Rogaway