Subject: [ltans] WG Action: Conclusion of Long-Term Archive and Notary Services (ltans)

From: IESG Secretary <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:28:54 -0700 (PDT)

The Long-Term Archive and Notary Services (ltans) working group in the
Security Area has concluded. The IESG contact persons are Sean Turner
and Stephen Farrell.

The ltans working group has completed its primary charter items, and is
officially closing. The mailing list will be retained for future
discussions involving ltans. The list archive will also be retained.

The ltans working group was primarily focused on defining requirements,
data structures and protocols for the secure usage of archive and notary
services. In total the working group published five RFCs, including
Long-Term Archive Service Requirements (RFC 4810), Evidence Record
Syntax (ERS) (RFC 4998), Using the Server-Based Certificate Validation
Protocol (SCVP) to Convey Long-Term Evidence Records (RFC 5276), Data
Structure for the Security Suitability of Cryptographic Algorithms
(DSSC) (RFC 5698), and Extensible Markup Language Evidence Record Syntax
(RFC 6283).

We would like to thank all of the IETF participants who have contributed
to the various documents produced by the ltans working group and to the
successful completion of these deliverables. We especially thank Carl
Wallace and Tobias Gondrom who have chaired the working group from its
inception.

---

From: todd glassey <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 07:49:05 -0700

> Security Area has concluded. The IESG contact persons are Sean Turner
So there is actually no Notary's process in any of this code. No 
Notarial signing ceremony and more importantly no Notarial Organization 
as a sponsor... As such - and since the term NOTORIAL pertains to a 
legal standing, i.e. as in 'from an act from a commissioned Notary 
Public" - something this protocol has none of the representing it as a 
replacement or extension of a commissioned Notary Public is a form of 
fraud.

No I am not kidding... If you dont believe me look at California's 
Apostilles Page for certifications issued under the Notary's Commission 
to perform signings. What you will see is that a Notary is similar to 
the term Judge, when used in an official context it applies to a person 
appointed under the Notarial commission of the issuing State or Entity.

http://www.sos.ca.gov/business/notary/authentication.htm which of course 
are further controlled under the International Definition of the 
Apostilles under the Hague Convention - read it at 
http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=text.display&tid=37

The real issue here (and the sad one) is how much human effort went into 
this effort after the WG members were made aware of these legal issues 
with their work, and how far from the mark based on a simple reading of 
these documents that the WG ultimately landed.

Todd Glassey

> _______________________________________________
> ltans mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltans
>

-- 
Todd S. Glassey
This is from my personal email account and any materials from this account come with personal disclaimers.

Further I OPT OUT of any and all commercial emailings.

---

From: Carl Wallace <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 11:12:31 -0400

On 7/20/11 10:49 AM, "todd glassey" <[email-masked]> wrote:

>So there is actually no Notary's process in any of this code.

Correct.  In accord with the charter, a requirements gathering effort for
potential notary-related work was conducted.  The results were reviewed by
the working group and work on notary-related standards was suspended at
IETF 65 due to lack of interest in pursuing the topic.

---

From: todd glassey <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:10:18 -0700

On 7/20/2011 8:12 AM, Carl Wallace wrote:
> On 7/20/11 10:49 AM, "todd glassey"<[email-masked]>  wrote:
>
> potential notary-related work was conducted.
 From who - the engineers working on the protocol??? - do any of them 
have legal backgrounds which would be competent to advise here? Will any 
of their sponsors take legal culpability for those parties actions?  You 
see my point?

Its time for accountability here in the IETF to be real.
> The results were reviewed by

Which means that the terms and any reference to the concept of "Legal 
Document Control" per the apostles practices have to be cleansed from 
these works.  i.e. someone with a redline needs to cut out all 
references to Notary anything. That said, it means simply that this WG 
isnt done and that until those issues are completed, that NONE of the 
works can be finalized... or that they can and must all be pulled - 
since the IETF itself becomes a party to the fraud of misrepresenting 
its IP's as 'replacing legal roles' in the Human population.

The IETF has never made a legal statement about any of its protocols 
before LTANS, but I think that by using the Legal Term "NOTARY" in both 
the WG's title and its operating practices, it opens the IETF to this 
review.

t.

---

From: Carl Wallace <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:32:04 -0400

The good news is that none of the 5 completed specs address notary-related
concepts.  Each spec addresses fairly narrow concepts consistent with the
backgrounds of the volunteers contributing the work.  While it may be
unfortunate that the term notary appears in the working group name, the
notary concept was from the inception of the working group considered to
be a topic area that would not necessarily result in new standards.

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:48:09 -0400

Exactly, a WG should do something right or not at all. In this case they
choose not at all. That is fine with me.

Todd seems to be giving some pretty good reasons to not do notary.

What I am interested in is probably a little speculative. I would like to
have a form of data repository that we could establish some pretty good
expectations of it surviving for a very long time and for the integrity of
the data within it to be witnessed by a sufficiently large set of witnesses
that forgery is implausible.

-- 
Website: http://hallambaker.com/

---

From: todd glassey <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:03:13 -0700

On 7/20/2011 9:32 AM, Carl Wallace wrote:
> backgrounds of the volunteers contributing the work.
Yes as a solution which is represented through the name and charter of 
the WG to have implications or use as a notarial resource... i.e. that 
they are formally a part of a Notarial Solution which they are not. If 
there is no assertion to constrain Notarial splendor in this code or its 
process uses, then the N word needs to be washed from everything- 
including anything that would through search engines allow an idiot not 
trained in the art to come to the belief that this code cannot be used 
in its current form for notarial anything...
>   While it may be

The problem comes this creates comes not from the IETF actions but from 
those which are from relying parties. The title representing that this 
WG was chartered and produced work which is constrained under that magic 
N word is still binding. The issue is the use of a term of art which has 
legal implications and the intentional vagueness so that people will 
interpret or subliminally equate this with Notarial Apostilles which it 
simple isn't.

I think the effort and practice was excellent for a very specific set of 
very limited uses, and that the protocol and its defined practice 
components like most other IETF works lacks any use-specification for 
the intent of the developers in how this protocol should be used 
specifically. This is a very common game played in the IETF by techies 
who want to build the biggest dick they possibly can swing in public and 
bluntly its pretty offensive.

Look, you may think this is a nothing issue, but as a contributor you 
are contained by it and the use of it in administering this WG...

Its all about transparency and its time the IETF got a serious dose of 
sunshine...

Todd

> On 7/20/11 12:10 PM, "todd glassey"<[email-masked]>  wrote:
>

---

From: todd glassey <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:05:15 -0700

On 7/20/2011 9:48 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
> Exactly, a WG should do something right or not at all. In this case 
> they choose not at all. That is fine with me.
The problem is they didnt remove the SCOPE STATEMENT from the WG Name 
and so now whenever a search is done for those documents they are tied 
to the term NOTARIAL even though they have nothing to do with it...

Todd
> What I am interested in is probably a little speculative. I would like 
> to have a form of data repository that we could establish some pretty 
> good expectations of it surviving for a very long time and for the 
> integrity of the data within it to be witnessed by a sufficiently 
> large set of witnesses that forgery is implausible.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 12:32 PM, Carl Wallace 
> <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>
>     On 7/20/11 12:10 PM, "todd glassey" <[email-masked]
>     <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>
>     >> On 7/20/11 10:49 AM, "todd glassey"<[email-masked]
>     <mailto:[email-masked]>>  wrote:
>     >>
>     >> Correct.  In accord with the charter, a requirements gathering
>     effort
>     >>for
>     [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>

---

From: Tobias Gondrom <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2011 14:32:28 +0100

Todd,

thank you for your input.

The working group name and charter do not hold legal implications and 
the word "notary" in technical terms is no more "magic" than any other 
word.
The WG tried to identify notary specific requirements and possible 
solutions, but as Carl explained we discontinued the notary path due to 
missing input on the requirements document up to IETF65  (and btw. that 
included all sources: neither technical nor legal experts did 
participate sufficiently to continue with that).

There is no need to wash the word "notary" from the charter or WG name, 
because the charter still documents that the WG aspired and tried to 
address issues in this realm, though unsuccessfully in this case. Please 
note, that this is not bijective, i.e. although all work of a WG must be 
included in the charter, but not everything lined out in the charter and 
worked on in the WG must result in a RFC.

Kind regards, Tobias

Ps.: and on a personal note: though the WG did not address notary 
requirements in specific, I would not be surprised to see Timestamps and 
ERS, XMLERS and ers-scvp or dssc be useful and valuable supporting 
elements in systems deployed in notary offices in the future or even today.

On 20/07/11 20:03, todd glassey wrote:
> there is no assertion to constrain Notarial splendor in this code or 
> its process uses, then the N word needs to be washed from everything- 
> including anything that would through search engines allow an idiot 
> not trained in the art to come to the belief that this code cannot be 
> used in its current form for notarial anything...
>>   While it may be
> The problem comes this creates comes not from the IETF actions but 
> from those which are from relying parties. The title representing that 
> this WG was chartered and produced work which is constrained under 
> that magic N word is still binding. The issue is the use of a term of 
> art which has legal implications and the intentional vagueness so that 
> people will interpret or subliminally equate this with Notarial 
> Apostilles which it simple isn't.
>
> I think the effort and practice was excellent for a very specific set 
> of very limited uses, and that the protocol and its defined practice 
> who want to build the biggest dick they possibly can swing in public 
> and bluntly its pretty offensive.
>
>
>