Subject: Re: Future Handling of Blue Sheets

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:28:57 -0400

--On Wednesday, April 25, 2012 18:06 -0400 Eric Burger
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> I would strongly support what Wes is talking about here.  I
> see two (other) reasons for keeping blue sheets.  The first is
> it is a recognized method of showing we have an open standards
> process.  The second is to support those who are trying to
> defend themselves in patent suits.  Frankly, I hope the IETF
> makes it hard for those who want to abuse the IETF process to
> get patents or ignore prior art and then come after the
> industry for undeserved royalties.
> 
> For the former purpose, just having a list is sufficient.
> However, for the latter purpose, one needs records that would
> be admissible in court. Without eating our dog food and having
> some sort of audited digital signature technology, a simple
> scan will not do.

+1.  And I suggest that, especially if we are removing email
addresses, we should ask for organizational affiliation as well.
If someone wants to say "none" that is fine.  If they want to
lie about it, they can lie about their names too.  But, for most
patent-related purposes (given standard employment agreements)
and antitrust ones, the affiliations are likely to be pretty
important.   FWIW, there was a time when one of the reasons for
asking for email addresses was that they provided a crude
surrogate for organizational affiliations.  They don't do that
any longer, which is a reason to not worry about dropping them.

   john

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From: "Richard L. Barnes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:33:46 -0400

So can we just wrap the scans in CMS under an IETF cert and call it a day?

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From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:53:53 -0400

Lots of business records are never cryptographically signed (presumably, most of them, actually), and they are just as valid as evidence in court, scanned or on paper. Unless somebody can make a plausible argument that the IETF just made them up, this seems a rather unlikely problem. If somebody wanted to truly contest the evidence, they'd be more likely to claim that their evil competitor signed them in.

Henning
(not a lawyer, but just having been deposed in a patent suit…)