So, let me answer your message in reverse: On 1/21/12 11:15 AM, Barry Leiba wrote:
Barry, who will now get back to chairing quietly in his chair
Please don't. I hope (indeed *want*) serious technical pushback to the IESG from WG members and chairs when any AD (myself included) makes a technical claim that might be wrong. In this case, pushing back on Stephen for asking for HMAC was entirely appropriate: The fact is that HMAC *is* overkill for this protocol, but we (the WG) hadn't yet clearly spelled out why in the document, and the fact that we were using a hash algorithm muddied the waters, because it was probably overkill as well and made it look like we needed something more than we did. As you said:
As it turns out, what was really needed was for us to better explain what the redaction is trying to do, so it's clear why the specific encoding doesn't matter and needn't be specified here. And, of course, that *is* reasonable for the IESG to ask. That done, all is well.
So, technical pushing back on this was good and I want more of that. The only thing that I was concerned about was your statement that this was an "overstepping its authority" situation. As I expect you know, I take these sorts of appeal-worthy process things pretty darn seriously. If you (or anyone) think something is going a-foul of process (especially the IESG overstepping authority), please bring that to me immediately. In particular, don't throw it into the middle of a technical discussion on a WG list. Aside from it not being the best venue, it also can get things rather contentious rather quickly. I do want to hear about and discuss these things, and as you said, perhaps I wasn't careful enough in my message to keep the "Pete questions" separated enough from the "IESG issues", but let's all try to keep those discussions cleanly separated.
Please forgive me for being inappropriately inflammatory in my hyperbolicness. Probably I was a little grumpy at the time, as well.
No need for apology, and completely forgiven. I will also ask for a bit of forgiveness myself, as I was also likely grumpier than necessary due to being a bit sick this past week (food poisoning blows), and having spent my recovery time on an IESG telechat. But my intention was not to be scolding, and I'm sorry that it came off that way.
Ah, sorry. I will note that either you weren't careful and explicit enough or (more likely) I simply missed it. I was committing a bit of hyperbole here, and didn't really think the IESG was going over the edge... but I did think the "explain why you won't use HMAC, or else use HMAC" think was what was required to clear the DISCUSS position.
A misunderstanding, and I think we're all on the correct page now. Your (perhaps not sufficiently) humble servant. pr -- Pete Resnick<http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/> Qualcomm Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102 _______________________________________________ marf mailing list [email protected] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/marf
