Subject: Re: PacePutIpAddrInEntry

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 08:44:20 -0700

On Jun 30, 2004, at 1:01 AM, Bill de hÓra wrote:
>> -1.
> To what?

  - atom:ipaddr in the format

--
Mark Nottingham     http://www.mnot.net/

---

From: Sam Ruby <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 12:45:50 -0400

>  - atom:ipaddr in the format

Quoting from the charter:

"""Atom defines a feed format for representing and a protocol for 
editing Web resources such as Weblogs, online journals, Wikis, and 
similar content."""

I would assert that an ip address would qualify as "basic, generic 
metadata" for Wikis.

- Sam Ruby

---

From: Robert Sayre <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 13:07:04 -0400

> I would assert that an ip address would qualify as "basic, generic 

Shouldn't elements defined in the core format spec be applicable to 
every item in that list? I think a case could be made that IP is, but 
Wikis alone is not sufficient. My journal could really use atom:mood.

Robert Sayre

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 10:08:35 -0700

> I would assert that an ip address would qualify as "basic, generic 

Fair enough.

It still encourages reading things into IP addresses that shouldn't be 
read into them, and is bad practice.

It's akin to counters on Web pages; some people think they're useful 
and gleefully put them on every page, when in fact they have a very 
doubtful relationship to reality [1].

That's not to say that people shouldn't be allowed to use either 
mechanism, just that they shouldn't be baked into an IETF 
standards-track document.

1. http://www.goldmark.org/netrants/webstats/

---

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 10:42:19 -0700

At 10:08 AM -0700 6/30/04, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>It still encourages reading things into IP addresses that shouldn't 
>be read into them, and is bad practice.

...which is completely widespread in the IETF. The IETF has been 
grappling with this for over five years, and has made nearly no 
headway at all. So, it's safe for us to treat IP addresses like other 
identifiers for now.

>standards-track document.

Dream on. :-) We have IP-addresses-as-identifiers baked into 
everything from PKIX to IPsec to you-name-it.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

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From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 11:12:16 -0700

> everything from PKIX to IPsec to you-name-it.

Come on, Paul; there's a huge difference between baking it into the 
context for purposes of security and exposing it to end-users in an 
application protocol as a means of uniquely identifying a person, 
especially when the substrate - HTTP - actively disassociates IP 
addresses from user agetns.

---

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 11:23:06 -0700

>addresses from user agetns.

I'm not talking about IP addresses identifying humans (although that 
is done too), but as ways of identifying machines. There are many 
contexts where a machine, not a person, is the creator of an entry. 
I'm hoping Atom gets used for feeds of status alerts from hosts, for 
example. In that case, an IP address or a DNS name are reasonable 
identifiers.

--Paul Hoffman, Director

---

From: Asbjørn Ulsberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 20:42:42 +0200

> I would assert that an ip address would qualify as "basic, generic  

I have nothing against having an element or @rel that binds an IP address  
to the originator of a feed or entry (we should look into if this could be  
the IP address of a web server, in terms for pingbacks, trackbacks etc),  
but as the syntax nazi I am, I think it looks neater with <ip-address />.  
Only four extra characters, but easier to read and prettier than <ipaddr  
/>.

E.g. I see no reason to shorten an already as short word as 'ip-address'.

-- 
Asbjørn Ulsberg         -=|=-        [email-masked]
«He's a loathsome offensive brute, yet I can't look away»

---

From: Sam Ruby <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 14:40:27 -0400

> Wikis alone is not sufficient. My journal could really use atom:mood.

I track and publish[1] IP addresses on my weblog.  It has cut down 
significantly on "spoofing".

I discussed a case[2] recently where somebody "anonymously" updated the 
wiki.  Somebody proporting to be Bill de hÓra stepped forward and 
claimed responsibility.  Truth be told, I personally trust the ip 
addresses information more than the SMTP headers.

- Sam Ruby

[1] http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/comments.atom
[2] http://www.imc.org/atom-syntax/mail-archive/msg05871.html

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 12:34:44 -0700

> example. In that case, an IP address or a DNS name are reasonable 

That sounds like a great use case for an Atom extension, but it's 
completely outside of our charter to include such a mechanism in the 
core protocol. I'm hoping to use Atom to carry stock tickers; should we 
bake metadata for that into the Atom format?

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 12:41:56 -0700

> significantly on "spoofing".

Great. Why is it necessary to standardise it? Why does it have to be 
captured in an Atom feed in a way that's interoperable between 
implementations?

> I discussed a case[2] recently where somebody "anonymously" updated 
> the wiki.  Somebody proporting to be Bill de hÓra stepped forward and 

Same as above. Using IP addresses in your system is different to 
codifying their use in formats and protocols.

Put it this way; would you trust an <ipaddr> field in a post that 
someone made to your blog over the IP address that your system thinks 
they're coming from? Both can be spoofed, but I think you'll agree it's 
technically easier to spoof the XML.

---

From: Bill de hÓra <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 20:54:11 +0100

> addresses information more than the SMTP headers.

I observe that you trust some the evidence of some sets of SMTP 
headers more than others ;)

Datapoint: the name of the second ip address listed on your wiki 
("83-70-35-17") is not the same of as the name of the ip address 
that entry was authored from ("192.168.123.143")

cheers
Phosphorus

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From: Robert Sayre <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:01:25 -0400

Sam Ruby wrote:

> the wiki. 

OK. Perhaps an atom:received-from element would be more appropriate? The 
IP address for a given author could vary quite a bit, but the one would 
expect that the other children of Author would remain relatively constant.

<entry>
<author>
...
<geo:location>....</geo:location>
</author>
<received-from>
    <ipaddr>x.x.x.x</ipaddr>
    <geo:location>....</geo:location>
</recieved-from>
...
</entry>

In the example above, the children of received-from indicate where the 
entry came from--not who wrote it.As a child of author, the geo:location 
element might be expected to point to the author's home, while the 
geo:location element under atom:recieved from might be expected to point 
to the author's location at the time she clicked "send" on her blackberry.

Robert Sayre

---

From: Asbjørn Ulsberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 22:07:20 +0200

> bake metadata for that into the Atom format?

I think we can agree on that in Atom's primary use cases, an IP address  
will be both attainable and an interesting peice of information to have.  
It should imho be optional, but I can see many scenarios where it is  
useful. And a lot of these scenarios fall into the booths Atom is  
primarily trying to fill.

In the end, I can't find a good reason _not_ to have an <ip-address />  
element in the feed (probably as a child of atom:author).

---

From: Bill de hÓra <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 21:06:42 +0100

Paul Hoffman / IMC wrote:
> I'm not talking about IP addresses identifying humans (although that is 
> done too), but as ways of identifying machines. There are many contexts 
> where a machine, not a person, is the creator of an entry. 

This isn't a use case I've heard put forward by the Pace's author. 
It seems to suggest some kind of mutual exclusion between ipaddr and 
the other stuff.

cheers
Bill

---

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 13:13:19 -0700

At 12:34 PM -0700 6/30/04, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>>I'm hoping Atom gets used for feeds of status alerts from hosts, 
>>for example. In that case, an IP address or a DNS name are 
>>reasonable identifiers.
>
>core protocol. I'm hoping to use Atom to carry stock tickers; should 
>we bake metadata for that into the Atom format?

That's a perfectly reasonable point.

--Paul Hoffman, Director

---

From: Asbjørn Ulsberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 22:14:27 +0200

> technically easier to spoof the XML.

I wouldn't trust the contents of an <ip-address /> element if it was  
received through some kind of remote comment mechanism -- I would see the  
element as useful in the end of the flow; on my site. I would probably not  
even save the contents of the <ip-address /> received, but rather do a  
request on REMOTE_HOST and put that one into the Atom feed I serve from my  
site.

I doubt <ip-address /> would ever be used as some kind of authentication  
mechanism, it would mostly be used for logging and other use cases Sam has  
mentioned. The more I think of it, the more I support the element.

---

From: Asbjørn Ulsberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 22:38:28 +0200

> example. In that case, an IP address or a DNS name are reasonable

Speaking of... Is there a common designation for IP addresses and DNS  
names we could use instead of 'ipaddr' or 'ip-address'? Both DNS names and  
IP addresses should be possible to use to point to a node of origin, but  
I'm not sure what name the element should have to fit both. Any ideas?

---

From: Mark Pilgrim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 18:41:17 -0400

> technically easier to spoof the XML.

No, but that's an irrelevant argument.  I wouldn't trust the name they
typed in, or their email address, or their URL either.  What's your
point?  Sam has specified a very clear use case for atom:author:ipaddr
*that our own Atom project wiki could benefit from immediately*.  "It
could be forged" is not a counterargument; any
un-cryptographically-signed data could be forged.

("You'll need to deal with privacy laws in the EU" is similarly
specious.  If you are subject to such laws, then deal with them.  Atom
is just a data format.  Obviously you can use it to do illegal
things.)

I am in favor of atom:author:ipaddr in the core spec, because it would
be immediately useful to a known class of existing Atom-enabled
implementations, including our own wiki.  I am also in favor of some
way of unambiguously notating that nothing at all is known about the
author of this feed and/or entry, and still having a valid Atom feed
(something you can not currently do in 0.3).  I have no opinion at all
on how this is actually accomplished, or how it should interact with
our (currently undocumented) author inheritance model.

-- 
Cheers,
-Mark

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:17:40 -0700

On Jun 30, 2004, at 3:41 PM, Mark Pilgrim wrote:

> *that our own Atom project wiki could benefit from immediately*.

Please to explain how. What are the specific benefits? Walk me through 
the scenario that conveys a benefit brought out by this particular 
feature that could not be realised if it weren't part of the core atom 
standard.

Why, if this feature is so earnestly needed, has there not been a 
widely-deployed RSS extension for it? I'm incredibly wary of baking 
this into Atom just because it seems like a nifty, off-the-cuff idea. 
This is why we have an extensibility model.

> is just a data format.  Obviously you can use it to do illegal 

Well, it's all just bits, Mark. Protocols and formats can encourage and 
discourage certain activities by their design; if we put atom:ipaddr 
into the core format, most people will build some level of support for 
it into their tools, and most users will unthinkingly use it, because 
"it's there." This is human nature, and if we design the protocol and 
format to regularly rub against things like data protection, there will 
be problems.

>  I am also in favor of some
> (something you can not currently do in 0.3).

+1

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From: Robert Sayre <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 19:47:55 -0400

On 6/30/04 6:41 PM, "Mark Pilgrim" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> 
> ("You'll need to deal with privacy laws in the EU"

It does seem odd that Mark N. is saying that an IP address is not useful as
an identity datapoint, but also suggesting that it constitutes an additional
privacy concern.

> implementations, including our own wiki.

Why not atom:received-from:ipaddr? You wouldn't put your ip address on a
business card.

Robert Sayre

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:58:38 -0700

> an identity datapoint, but also suggesting that it constitutes an 

One might see a superficial contradiction here, but consider that just 
because P3P classifies IP addresses as PII (Personally Identifying 
Information) for the purposes of data protection, it doesn't follow 
that IP addresses are a good, useful or reliable form of personal 
identification. These are very different goals.