Subject: Re: [babel] WG Last Call for draft-ietf-babel-dtls - failed

From: Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2019 14:35:26 -0500

Hi,

I'm going to declare this WG Last Call to have failed. There was
insufficient support indicated and there has been discussion on preserving
crypto state and co-existence with hmac including port numbers. I should
also do a Shepherd review of the draft. After these things are cleared up,
we can issue a new WG Last Call that I think will have a higher chance of
success.

Thanks,
Donald
===============================
 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1-508-333-2270 (cell)
 1424 Pro Shop Court, Davenport, FL 33896 USA
 [email-masked]

On Wed, Nov 7, 2018 at 8:16 PM Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]> wrote:

> This message begins a Working Group Last Call for draft-ietf-babel-dtls-01
> running through November 26th. Please indicate whether you think this draft
> is ready for publication as an RFC. Comments on the draft are also welcome.
>
> Thanks,
> Donald
> ===============================
>  Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1-508-333-2270 (cell)
>  1424 Pro Shop Court, Davenport, FL 33896 USA
>  [email-masked]
>

---

From: David Schinazi <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2019 13:46:50 -0800

Hi Donald,

I was honestly quite surprised by your email, as I had interpreted the last
call discussions to be more positive. To discuss your points in more detail:

> insufficient support indicated

I think this might be due to most WG participants having already shown
support for this document in the past. I did not see anyone arguing not to
publish.

> discussion on preserving crypto state

This was discussed on the list and there was pretty immediate consensus
that adding some text would address the issue entirely. I've now added that
text
<https://github.com/jech/babel-drafts/commit/16004ba889e1b0809892ecd813a2069225de39b4>.
However, I don't think the lack of that text warranted failing the WG last
call.

> co-existence with hmac including port numbers

I'm not sure what you are referring to, could you elaborate please?

> I should also do a Shepherd review of the draft

That would be much appreciated, your comments on the other drafts have
helped improve them.

Hopefully we can resolve this shortly, I don't think there is much standing
in the way of us declaring last call for this draft.

Thanks,
David

On Wed, Jan 2, 2019 at 11:35 AM Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]> wrote:

>  Donald E.. Eastlake 3rd   +1-508-333-2270 (cell)
>> This message begins a Working Group Last Call for
>> draft-ietf-babel-dtls-01 running through November 26th. Please indicate
>> whether you think this draft is ready for publication as an RFC. Comments
>> on the draft are also welcome.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Donald
> _______________________________________________
> babel mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/babel
>

---

From: Juliusz Chroboczek <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2019 02:11:37 +0100

Dear Donald,

I am just as surprised as David by your decision to fail the last call.

> I think this might be due to most WG participants having already shown support
> for this document in the past. I did not see anyone arguing not to publish.

As far as I am aware, everyone agrees that Babel-DTLS should be published,
in order to satisfy those use cases that are not served by Babel-HMAC
(asymmetric keying and confidentiality).

> This was discussed on the list and there was pretty immediate consensus that
> adding some text would address the issue entirely. I've now added that text.

This is not a wholly hypothetical vulnerability, and the fix is a single
paragraph of text, a simple copy-paste from the latest revision of the
Babel-HMAC draft.

> I'm not sure what you are referring to, could you elaborate please?

I too would appreciate a clarification.

-- Juliusz

---

From: Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2019 22:38:48 -0500

Hi,

> (asymmetric keying and confidentiality).

Perhaps I should have been more verbose. I meant "insufficient support
indicated on the mailing list in response to the WG Last Call". While
I believe it is legitimate for a WG Chair to take into account other
traffic on the mailing list and support shown in face-to-face
meetings, the call I posted didn't, for example, say there appeared to
be consensus and ask if there was any opposition. The message I posted
was a typical WG LC that asked for people to respond if they supported
or opposed publication:
https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/babel/current/msg01570.html
True, there were no opposition responses. But it is also true there
were zero responses indicating support. There were two responses but
neither expressed an opinion on publication. If there were any
problems later with a WG declaration of consensus, say an appeal, what
do you think the initial conclusion would be based on an examination
of the Babel WG mailing list?

> paragraph of text, a simple copy-paste from the latest revision of the

Guess I should have stopped when I was ahead. But, while technical
changes can be made after the declaration of WG consensus, they are
procedurally more normal if made before the declaration of WG
consensus. And subsequent declaration of WG consensus provide an
especially solid confirmation of the change.

> > I'm not sure what you are referring to, could you elaborate please?

As I recall I noticed some discussion of the port number(s) to be used
by Babel over DTLS that had not been fully resolved.

> I too would appreciate a clarification.

I am confident that after minor improvements, the draft will pass a
subsequent WG LC.

Thanks,
Donald

---

From: David Schinazi <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2019 21:59:47 -0800

Hi Donald,

Thanks for elaborating.

> As I recall I noticed some discussion of the port number(s) to be used by
Babel over DTLS that had not been fully resolved.

The port number discussion was resolved in October 2018 and the output was
added to draft-ietf-babel-dtls-01. If you know of anything else
outstanding, could you please send us details?

subsequent WG LC.

Could you please send us a specific list of requested minor improvements,
so we can start the new WG LC?

Thanks,
David

On Thu, Jan 3, 2019 at 7:39 PM Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]> wrote:

> support