On Sun, Apr 17, 2022 at 12:48:45PM -0700, Bernard Aboba wrote: > The questions you refer to are not new. The same issues (IPR policy > conformance and hidden agendas) have been raised with respect to the > affiliations of ‘consultants’ who are hired by clients who wish to remain > anonymous. AFAICT, the IETF has never required that consultants divulge > their clients, even to the nomcom.
Indeed. And there is a wide range how open or secret those consultants are in the IETF about their sources of financing. And while this may be all quite well-known to IETF old-timers, it would be nice to even just document these insights to IETF newcomers. And RFC like the one suggested might be a good start, although it would expand from "recommendations" to a broader "fyi". > Anonymous participation takes this trend one step further. The W3C does > not allow anonymous participation due to IPR concerns, but their IPR policy > is also significantly different, since W3C is membership-based (and not > particularly friendly to ‘consultants’ or small businesses). > We might decide that this anonymous participation is one step too far, but > my take is that IETF crossed an important line long ago. IMHO there is still a relevant difference between complete anonymity and some degree of tracability/accountability through some form of "public" intermediary. Cheers Toerless > On Sun, Apr 17, 2022 at 12:15 Christian Huitema <huit...@huitema.net> wrote: > > > This submission raises an interesting question for the IETF: how to > > treat anonymous (or pseudonymous) submissions? > > > > On one hand, there are lots of classic reasons for hiding behind a > > pseudonym when participating in public discussions. On the other hand, > > the IETF has to be protected against intellectual property issues and > > against sabotage by external groups. > > > > Before submissions are accepted for publication, their authors have to > > disclose whether they, or their employer, own intellectual property > > rights on the technologies described in the draft. Failure to disclose > > would influence the prosecution of intellectual property disputes that > > might arise when third parties implement the technology. This provides > > some degree of protection to implementers. But when the submission > > cannot be traced to a specific company, these protections disappear, and > > we might have a problem. So this is one source of tension between > > standards and anonymity. > > > > The other source of tension is the risk of sabotage. Various groups have > > tried to sabotage the standard process in the past, for example to delay > > the deployment of encryption, or to introduce exploitable bugs in > > security standards -- some of these tactics were exposed in the Snowden > > revelations. Anonymous participation could allow these groups to perform > > such sabotage in untraceable ways, which is obviously not desirable. > > > > I think this issue of anonymous participation is worth discussing. > > > > -- Christian Huitema > > > > > > On 4/17/2022 11:35 AM, kate_9023+...@systemli.org wrote: > > > Dear all, > > > > > > I'm quite new at creating RFCs. I have recently submitted a draft for > > > a new webiquette and I am still searching a group which will take care > > > of it. It would fit into privacy as this new webiquette is dealing > > > with new internet technology such as deepfakes, sharing photos of 3rd > > > parties and so on and also deleting old information on a regular basis > > > good behavior. It's also quite short with only 9 pages and also covers > > > cancel culture and mobbing. I think a document like this is needed and > > > important. Anyone here who'd like to take care or helping me making an > > > RFC out of it? Or guide me in the right direction? > > > > > > The draft can be found here: > > > > > https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-rfcxml-general-the-new-webiquette-00.txt > > > > > > Best Regards, > > > > > > Kate > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > ietf-privacy mailing list > > > ietf-privacy@ietf.org > > > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-privacy > > > > _______________________________________________ > > ietf-privacy mailing list > > ietf-privacy@ietf.org > > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-privacy > > > _______________________________________________ > ietf-privacy mailing list > ietf-privacy@ietf.org > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-privacy -- --- t...@cs.fau.de _______________________________________________ ietf-privacy mailing list ietf-privacy@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-privacy