Birds of a Feather at IETF 105

Before each IETF meeting, the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) collects proposals for Birds of a Feather (BOF) sessions. These sessions are designed to help determine the path for new work in the IETF or to generate discussion about a topic within the IETF community. For IETF 105 we approved six BOF sessions:

Media Operations (MOPS): Many of those involved in the delivery of streaming Internet video have been gathering regularly during unofficial side meetings and on the Glass-to-Glass Ecosystem (GGIE) mailing list to discuss operational and interoperability issues related to video. The MOPS BOF will solicit input on operational issues and practices as well as existing and proposed technologies related to the deployment, engineering, and operation of media streaming and manipulation protocols and procedures on the Internet. The BOF’s scope is media and media protocols’ interactions with the network, but not the technologies of control protocols or media formats. This will be a working-group-forming BOF.

Collaborative Automated Course of Action Operations (CACAO): To defend against threat actors, organizations need to manually identify, create, and document prevention, mitigation, and remediation steps. These steps when grouped together into a course of action (COA) or “playbook” are used to protect systems, networks, data, and users. However, there is no standardized and structured way to document them, verify they were correctly executed, or easily share them across organizational boundaries and technology stacks. Following up from a previous BOF at IETF 104, the intent of the CACAO BOF is to charter a working group that will standardize the exchange of playbooks. The mailing list is cacao@ietf.org.

Lightweight Authenticated Key Exchange (LAKE): In the space of constrained networking (“Internet of Things”), those using Object Security for Constrained RESTful Environments (OSCORE) in network environments such as NB-IoT, 6TiSCH, and LoRaWAN are looking for a "lightweight" authenticated key exchange (LAKE) that enables forward secrecy. "Lightweight" refers to both resource consumption and the amount of new code required on end systems that already support OSCORE. After extensive discussion in the SECDISPATCH working group, this BOF will seek to determine if there is interest in forming a tightly focused working group to standardize a LAKE. The mailing list is lake@ietf.org.

Applications Doing DNS (ADD): As deployment of new DNS transports such as DNS over HTTPS (DoH) and DNS over TLS (DoT) progresses and more kinds of applications do their own DNS resolution, there is increasing interest in operational implications and identifying potential further work that would benefit DNS operations and architecture across a variety of network environments. Areas of interest include service discovery, expression of resolver policy, mechanisms to accommodate split-horizon scenarios, and more. This non-working-group-forming BOF will seek to identify work items where further protocol standardization, best practices, or guidance could be usefully documented via the IETF consensus process. (Note: The description above reflects the direction the IESG and Internet Architecture Board have provided to the BOF proponents, with whom they are working to craft a productive BOF agenda. It has not yet been reflected on the BOF wiki.) The mailing list is add@ietf.org.

Local Optimizations on Path Segments (LOOPS): This work is focused on enabling optimizations within segments of an end-to-end path. Typically, these segments are located between overlay nodes (tunnel endpoints), which allows a local optimization protocol to run between these nodes. The LOOPS work is motivated by (1) increasing deployment of encryption, which is affecting the functioning of traditional Performance Enhancing Proxies (PEPs) that leverage transport and application-layer information, and (2) increased processing power available within the network. This will be a non-working-group-forming BOF. The mailing list is loops@ietf.org.

IETF Meeting Network Requirements (NETRQMTS): The IETF meeting network has a long history of pushing beyond the bounds of normal event networks. The IETF Network Operations Center (NOC) team maintains a set of requirements for the IETF meeting network and has recently been discussing potential updates to those requirements. This BoF will gather community input on the network requirements for IETF meetings, including prioritization and the resource implications associated with those requirements. This will be a non-working-group-forming BOF. The mailing list is netrqmts@ietf.org.

We received one additional BOF request for IETF 105: Security and End to End Privacy in Identifier Locator Separation Systems (PIDLOC). This work is focused on privacy preservation in identifier-locator separation systems such as LISP, ILA, and ILNP. To generate interest across the community in further developing and deploying this work, we are encouraging the proponents to present it as a Request for Conversation (HotRFC) lightning talk at IETF 105. The mailing list is pidloc@ietf.org.

As you can see, we will have new work discussions across a wide variety of technology areas on the agenda in Montréal. Looking forward to a great meeting!