OPEN ISSUE: Standards Track

[john.loughney at nokia.com]

Jari,

> Secondly, we've talked about early architecture
> design in this list. The security architecture
> for protocol X would be a prime candidate for
> inclusion in the architecture design section,
> and should be reviewed early. Not when the bits
> have been designed! No mandatory architecture
> design early on, no early review possible...
> 
> Thirdly, it is really, really crucial to think about
> deployment issues and how easy to use people find the
> security mechanisms. All of us could use secure e-mail
> but almost no one does. Why? And do the current secure
> e-mail protocols deal with the real problems people are
> having with e-mail? Why can't I think of more success
> stories in security beyond one-sided TLS authentication,
> SSH, and cellphone smart cards? IMHO we as a community
> do not understand these issues well enough at the moment,
> let alone have documented them somewhere. Yet this
> seems a much more important issue for the world than
> getting some documents approved by the IESG at t1 or t2.
> Here's where I think the security area should probably
> move a bit of its focus on. Less "policy" from admins,
> less extra work for users, less reliance on non-existent
> other stuff in the network.

Adding on to this, perhaps it would be prudent for
most new working groups should do a threats analysis
and perhaps even an analysis or review of existing 
security solutions, before protocol design.

John