IAB Open Meeting

Reported by Abel Weinrib/Intel

An on-line copy of these and other IAB minutes are available from
ftp.isi.edu:pub/IAB.


IAB Chair

It was announced that Christian Huitema has stepped down as chair of the
IAB. Appreciation for his years of dedicated service was expressed by
all.  Brian Carpenter has been elected as the new chair.


Architectural Principles

The IAB has decided to try to write down the architectural principles of
the Internet.  The IAB is eager to have community input on this topic,
and used the bulk of the open meeting to start the process.  Christian
Huitema, Paul Mockapetris and Brian Carpenter made presentations on this
topic.  See the copies of their slides included with these minutes.

Additional architectural principles suggested by the audience included:
the importance of performance and cost; large clouds are bad; layers are
bad, especially when they duplicate functions; and virtual circuits do
not suck.  A number of people also brought up the concern that such an
architectural document will become dogma, limiting the evolution of the
Internet.  In response, it was emphasized that the IAB's goal is to
develop architectural principles that can help our understanding of what
makes the Internet successful, not an architectural framework that would
limit innovation.  In a similar vein, members of the audience also
suggested that whatever document the IAB comes up with should be
published as a draft and then immediately go to Historical.


Security

In addition to the architectural principles presentations, Steve Crocker
presented a challenge to the IETF community in the area of security.  He
asked that we deploy at the next IETF meeting the security
infrastructure that will enable participants to safely log in back to
their home locations.  The discussion following Steve's talk touched on
the fact that a firewall as part of this infrastructure might well get
in the way (for example, for Kerberos-authenticated remote mail) and
that we should have an official packet sniffer on the terminal room LAN.
There was considerable interest in taking Steve up on his challenge, and
a mailing list for implementors who want to take part will be set up.