Filippo Valsorda writes:
> I want the WG and the chairs to be aware that Bernstein is now
> coordinating a campaign to get dissenting opinions emailed to the
> list.
Your quote ("You can have your voice heard too" etc.) omits important
context from <https://nsa.2026.action.cr.yp.to>, namely the paragraph
immediately before the quote. Here's that paragraph:
> > NSA lost the most recent mlkem vote in the IETF TLS working group.
> > However, they've now called another vote and are trying to pack the
> > room. For example, a positive vote has now appeared from NSA's Mike
> > Jenkins, who has _never_ shown up on the working-group mailing list
> > before. This is _allowed_ under IETF rules, which say that "There is
> > no membership in the IETF" and that "Anyone can participate by
> > signing up to a working group mailing list".
When NSA's Mike Jenkins showed up on the TLS list to post the three
words "I support publication" without having ever posted anything to the
list before, did you complain about that? Did you complain about the
people from NSA asking him, even paying him, to do this?
We seem to agree that IETF rules allow such actions. Why exactly are you
(1) complaining about such actions in the first place, (2) targeting
those complaints solely at _opponents_ of the document, and (3) omitting
the explicit context of _proponents_ already taking such actions?
> no In-Reply-To header (which is slightly annoying to produce when one
> was not a participant in the list previously).
Did you complain about the lack of an In-Reply-To header field in
multiple messages that have already shown up _supporting_ the document,
such as the message from NSA's Mike Jenkins?
> the interpretation that consensus is a voting process is incorrect and
> in bad faith
Did you ask the chairs to withdraw their claim that, for solo ML-DSA,
"There is consensus to move this document forward - a ratio of 4:1"?
That claim is using the purported ratio of supporters and opponents as
its sole basis for claiming consensus.
(I'm saying "purported" because, in fact, the situation at the end of
WGLC for that document was 14 people having stated opposition on list,
37 people having stated support on list. This is a ratio of 2.64, not
the "4:1" fiction from the chairs. But that's a separate issue.)
> the degree to which individuals have participated in the WG in the
> past should be part of how their opinion is weighted into calling the
> consensus of the WG.
Did you use this rationale to ask the chairs to discount the message
from NSA's Mike Jenkins supporting the document, the only message that
he has ever sent to the TLS mailing list?
How about the messages from NSA's Nicholas Gajcowski supporting the two
solo PQ documents? Those are the only two messages that he ever sent to
the TLS mailing list. (To be clear, this is according to not just IETF's
limited archives of the list but also to my own list archives going back
to when I joined last century.)
As a reminder: "IETF procedural rules, which include robust appeal
options, are well-documented in public materials, and rigorously
followed." If you'd like to have some people count as, let's say, only
3/5 of other people, then you'll have to find where this is documented
in IETF's procedural rules, and you'll have to rigorously follow it.
What IETF actually says is that it's not a "pay-to-play organization",
that "51% of the working group does not qualify as 'rough consensus' ",
that WG-issued RFCs have "consensus of the IETF community", etc. There
are also legal requirements for standards-development organizations to
address all "objections by interested parties", among other rules. So
there are a bunch of obstacles to any attempts to disenfranchise people.
But there's also a much more basic point here about fairness. How can it
be okay for new TLS participants to support the spec, and not okay for
new TLS participants to oppose the spec? How can it be okay for NSA to
overtly wave around huge amounts of money for its "vendors" to push the
controversial idea of weakening ECC+PQ to solo PQ, and not okay when the
opposition posts a message asking for volunteers to speak up in favor of
the public interest?
---D. J. Bernstein
===== NOTICES =====
IETF BCP 78, "Rights Contributors Provide to the IETF Trust", Section 5
(normative), "Rights in Contributions", provides a modification right
"unless explicitly disallowed in the notices contained in a Contribution
(in the form specified by the Legend Instructions)".
The official language from IETF's "Legend Instructions" for the
situation that "the Contributor does not wish to allow modifications nor
to allow publication as an RFC" is as follows: "This document may not be
modified, and derivative works of it may not be created, and it may not
be published except as an Internet-Draft."
<https://trustee.ietf.org/wp-content/uploads/Corrected-TLP-5.0-legal-provsions.pdf>
The same language is used in, e.g., RFC 5831. The same language hereby
applies to this document. This is not disclaiming or limiting the
applicability of IETF policies; it is strictly following IETF policies.
IESG claims that the "explicitly disallowed" provision in BCP 78 is
limited to the examples in Section 3 in BCP 78. That is incorrect. BCP
78 states that Section 5, "Rights in Contributions", is normative, while
Section 3, "Exposition of Why These Procedures Are the Way They Are", is
informative. The opt-out provision in the normative text is clear, and
cannot be limited by an informative section. BCP 78 does not give IESG
any authority to issue changes or purported clarifications of the rules.
Rationale for exercising the BCP 78 opt-out provision: I'm fine with
redistribution of copies of this document. The issue is instead with
modification, such as (1) IESG's May 2025 posting of an IESG-mangled
version of an appeal that I had filed and (2) IETF management selling
IETF mailing-list text to AI companies. This goes far beyond what
copyright law allows as fair use (such as giving quotes for purposes of
commentary). When I complained about the mangled document, the IETF
Executive Director responded not by apologizing but instead by asserting
that IETF management had the power to do whatever it wanted.
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