Subject: Re: [Pppext] Advancing PPP RFCs to Standard, updating Security

From: William Allen Simpson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 09 Jun 2013 04:53:30 -0400

On 5/15/13 2:59 AM, Donald Eastlake wrote:
> Thanks for the feedback thus far on security. Further feedback welcome.
>
Missed this short discussion.  Here's my belated feedback.

Some years ago, we had quite a bit of interest in updating the
security protocols.  But the charter was changed to disallow it.

Somewhere, I had a key establishment draft sitting around.  And
there was some significant interest in securing PoS -- specifically
with a lightweight stream cypher like ARC4.  But this was all some
time ago.

The question of the day would be: how much PoS is there out there
now -- and would the issue of the day (surveillance) be enough
motivation for vendors to add it?

Don's a lot more in touch with vendors than I am these days.  But
I'd be willing be bet China would be interested....

> I may have overstated our AD's interest in advancing PPP standards,
> Brian is perhaps closer to neutral on the idea.
>
As I've mentioned before, most simply need an implementation table
in order to advance.  There really haven't been any changes in years.

The biggest lack of advancement was IPv4.  McGregor disappeared and
the whole thing needed an upgrade with comments from the WG mailing
list.  Folks just tested against existing implementations and made
things work over time.

But the WG mailing list isn't online any more.  So any newer
implementation would likely have troubles.  That's probably more
important than merely updating document status.  Is there any chance
to get the old UCDavis and Merit archives back online?