Subject: RE: interception proxies

From: "BookIII, Robert" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 16:56:05 -0400

Joe,
	Am I to presume by your statement that you are of the mind that the
time for considering whether vs. which has already come and gone? Is there
anyone on this list who thinks that?

		-----Original Message-----
		From:	Joe Touch [mailto:[email-masked]]
		Sent:	Tuesday, April 11, 2000 4:03 PM
		To:	Vernon Schryver
		Cc:	[email-masked]; [email-masked]
		Subject:	Re: interception proxies

		Vernon Schryver wrote:
		> 
		> > From: John Martin <[email-masked]>
		> 
		> > 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

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 13:58:30 -0700

> anyone on this list who thinks that?

With respect to 'inside the WG', yes, the assumption has been (to me)
that the time had passed, with respect to the WG charter.

There is always time outside the WG to do so, or (if directed) to
recharter, pending interest and approval of the WG as well.

Joe