Vernon Schryver wrote:
>
> > From: John Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> > There has been a lot of discussion about the problems associated with
> > so-called "interception proxies". This discussion is very much within the
> > charter of the WREC WG. In fact, we even have a current draft whose sole
> > purpose is to document such problems.
> >
> > The known problems draft is at: draft-ietf-wrec-known-prob-01.txt
> >
> > This is the first of two very useful documents being produced by WREC; the
> > first, a taxonomy of terminology is available as:
> > draft-ietf-wrec-taxonomy-03.txt; I would suggest you read this first.
>
> The problems draft is interesting and depressing. All of the problems
> listed are technical nits.
This was a choice - in some larger sense, if sourcing other-owned IP
addresses or TCP connections is considered an architectural problem,
needs to come down from above, rather than up from WREC. f
> I don't know whether to be depressed, encouraged, or neutral that WREC
> seems to not be about port 25 traffic redirection and interception proxies,
> such as AOL's effort. That there is no mention of the problems that IP
> fragmentation can cause interception proxies is depressing.
The problems of IP fragmentation are not unique to web caching or
replication proxies. They affect all interception proxies. The issue of
inteception proxies was around long before WREC, and is more than just a
caching or replication issue.
> Joining that mailing list would not be useful, prudent, or honest for
> people with sentiments like mine. Moving the question of the wisdom of
> such proxies to WREC would be equivalent to moving the question of the
> wisdom of wiretapping to the wiretapping working group. At best the group
> WG consensus can be predicted. At worst, the discussion would legitimately
> be considered disruptive and irrelevant.
WREC is about proxies - there are plenty of 'architecturally conformant'
ways to do proxies. If the problems with transparent proxies is an
issue, WREC may be a good place (but not the only place) to solicit
input.
> It appears that the WREC working group is doing exactly as someone
> lamented a day or two ago about working groups in general, and not
> considering the question of whether the mechanisms they are working are
> good ideas in the larger scheme of things. WREC is only concerned with
> making them as good as possible. (Yes, I checked recent months of the
> archives at ftp://cs.utk.edu/pub/wrec/)
That's the property of WGs in general, by construction. These questions
sometimes get addressed in BOFs, but there is also often too much
momentum or political interest in establishing a 'standardizing
presence' in an area. By the time a WG is formed, the time for 'whether'
has often passed in favor of 'which'.
Joe
