Subject: [hrpc] RFC 8492 and the Human Rights Considerations section

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2019 10:03:00 +0100

It seems that RFC 8492 is the first one with an explicit Human Rights
Considerations section (it mentions RFC 8280).

But, in that specific case, I would have preferred none :-(

---

From: Niels ten Oever <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 17:51:46 +0100

I do agree this is problematic. On the other hand it does reflect the opinions of some parts of the community. At least this person was ready to engage with the idea of considering the social impacts of a protocol and reflect it in their draft. That is more than can be said of other I-D authors to date... 

8.  Human Rights Considerations

   At the time of publication of this document, there was a growing
   interest in considering the impacts that IETF (and IRTF) work can
   have on human rights; some related research is discussed in
   [RFC8280].  As such, the human rights considerations of TLS-PWD are
   presented here.

   The key exchange underlying TLS-PWD uses public key cryptography to
   perform authentication and authenticated key exchange.  The keys it
   produces can be used to establish secure connections between two
   people to protect their communication.  Implementations of TLS-PWD,
   like implementations of other TLS ciphersuites that perform
   authentication and authenticated key establishment, are considered
   "armaments" or "munitions" by many governments around the world.

   The most fundamental of human rights is the right to protect oneself.
   The right to keep and bear arms is an example of this right.
   Implementations of TLS-PWD can be used as arms, kept and borne, to
   defend oneself against all manner of attackers -- criminals,
   governments, lawyers, etc.  TLS-PWD is a powerful tool in the
   promotion and defense of universal human rights.

On 2/22/19 10:03 AM, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
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-- 
Niels ten Oever
Researcher and PhD Candidate
DATACTIVE Research Group
University of Amsterdam

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