I completely agree with Ryan here. These attacks and smears have no place
in the IETF. Deb is a professional and has always acted with integrity.
This stuff will only discourage people from volunteering for leadership
positions which would be very regrettable.
regards,
Dan.
On 7/15/26 6:38 PM, Ryan Hurst wrote:
I have known Deb professionally and through the standards community
for more than a decade. She is one of the most hardworking,
principled, and public-service-minded people I have encountered in
this field.
You may disagree with Deb’s technical conclusions. You may disagree
with how she has handled a particular matter as Security Area
Director. Those disagreements are legitimate, and the IETF has
well-established processes for raising them.
What is not legitimate is turning those disagreements into
insinuations about her integrity, loyalty, or professional history.
Referring to someone who completed more than 37 years of public
service and then retired as having “defected” is not criticism. It is
a personal smear, and an especially ugly one.
Deb has spent decades doing difficult, consequential, and often
thankless work. In every interaction I have had with her, she has
shown up prepared, engaged seriously with the substance, and acted
according to her principles even when doing so was difficult or unpopular.
Deb has earned better than this from the community she has served.
Ryan Hurst
On Wed, Jul 15, 2026 at 11:51 AM Deb Cooley <[email protected]> wrote:
For the record: I have been a Security Area Director since March
2024, that is 2 years and a couple of months.
There have been previous inquiries into my ability to perform the
duties of Security Area Director via the SSHM working group, and
as part of complaints against the TLS chairs/AD. Those have been
responded to by the IESG, the artifacts are below:
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ssh/7KRZCX_bvZWUOG50HqDg_KVT77c/
https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/iesg/appeals/ (see artifacts
125/126, as well as 128/129)
In addition to the artifacts above, I suggest that there might be
people for whom I have worked with that could give an opinion on
my work ethic and conduct for the last 2 plus years.
The recourse for anyone who doesn’t believe this is a sufficient
response is free to take a look at [RFC 8713, Section
7](https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8713/#section-7).
Just a couple of minor points:
1. Retirement means that I don't work for NSA anymore. I earn no
salary.
2. Retired does not mean the same as 'defected'.
3. My bio is accurate see here:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/person/Deb%20Cooley. 37+ years of
service in Cybersecurity which used to be Information Assurance,
which used to be Information Security, which used to be COMSEC.
4. If you read RFC 9151, read all of it. Section 6 and 7 have
MAY requirements which improve interoperability. Note that the
draft was published in February 2021 when Adrian Farrel was the
ISE. It was reviewed by a noteworthy set of reviewers including
the late Jim Schaad.
Deb Cooley
Sec AD
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"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to
escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." -- Marcus Aurelius
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