Subject: Re: [Ltru] Possible RFC 3683 PR-action

From: LB <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 01:38:00 +0100

Dear Sir,
Like other members of the multilinguistic working list to which I
belong, since 2002 I received a copy of the mails exchanged between
JFC Morfin and your organization, on IDNs then langtags. And we have
often discussed them. I do not thus ignore big matter of this subject

As JFC Morfin got everything we wanted except again:
(1) that the WG-IDNABIS quickly demonstrates the merits of IDNA or
finds a better solution.
(2) that the RFC 4646 is respected by the IESG what also calls for the
RFC 4646bis underway.
I proposed to replace him as an IETF watcher, given the importance of
his current work.

In two months, I sent a half-dozen of messages and received courteous
answers. Of course I expected a possible ostracism. I was prepared to
respond with kind understanding. This was the case with Brian
Carpenter. He accused me of being JFC Morfin in an humorous but a way
a little hurtful. We exchanged and he had the courtesy to apologize
willingly and  and to inform the IESG about it.

I would have done the same with Randy Preshun if contacted me, even
impolitely, even after having ignored my question about a significant
breakthrough for us he implied, even after that he probably pushed a
"trap" by misrepresenting our position and that of ISO. Instead, he
dashes into a guerilla of racist censorship against me: it is because
of the MLTF ideas that he accuses me of not being me.

2008/3/20, Randy Presuhn <[email-masked]>:
> Hi -
>
>  There have been expressions of support, and no objections on this list,
>  to the proposed metric (and one off-list objection by JFC Morfin) for
>  identifying possible sock-puppets of those whose posting privileges
>  have been revoked pursuant to RFC 3683.  So, we're using it.
>
>  We engaged the procedure with three independent working group participants.
>  All three identified the same email address, which was also identified by the
>  responsible area director and both co-chairs.  Consequently, future postings
>  from [email-masked] will not be delivered, since we believe this address
>  is a sock-puppet for JFC Morfin.
>
>  Randy
>  ltru co-chair

You will understand that I have reached an age where I am not
impressed anymore and that I have time for a good cause:
-- or Randy Preshun apologizes and it stays there.
-- or he has suspended my rights without warning and is preparing for
a PR action against me without any reason. He does it with the support
of our two direct commercial competitors in his WG. Under these
conditions you will understand that I am not to be giving anything
that enables them to validate a practice of arbitrary exclusion of the
IETF. Today I, whom tomorrow?
-- 
LB
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---

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 11:11:15 -0800

Hi -

My co-chair Martin Duerst and I, and the three independent ltru working
group participants we asked (as well as some we didn't ask), are
convinced that "LB" is a sock-puppet for JFC Morfin.  In consultation
with Chris Newman, the responsible area director, we set the
"moderated" bit for that subscriber address on the working group
mailing list. If "LB" believes we have acted inappropriately, "LB" is
free to follow the appeal process described in section 6.5  of RFC 2026.

However, the vocabulary, style, content, and peculiar world-view of
this latest missive leave me more convinced than ever that "LB"
is indeed JFC Morphin, and that under the terms of RFC 3683
we are well justified in suspending the posting privileges for that
address.

Randy
ltru co-chair

> From: "LB" <[email-masked]>
> To: "russ Housley" <[email-masked]>
> Cc: <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 4:38 PM
> Subject: Re: [Ltru] Possible RFC 3683 PR-action
>
> Dear Sir,

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:27:22 -0400

LB:

Randy has responded quite publicly.  I think his position is quite 
clear.  So, the next step is up to you.

Russ

---

From: LB <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 10:22:01 +0100

Dear Russ,
I am not sure what should be the "next step" and I wish that all is
clear and transparent in the management of what I take for a censure
for offence of opinion or nationality. I think like somebody else, I
use the technical vocabulary appropriate for my thought. I think in
the same mother tongue as another Frenchman. Is it to protest with Mr.
Newman or with Mr. Presuhn or to appeal directly to the IESG?

I used in vain the RFC-Editor find out what was the rule. I found
nothing. Mr Presuhn says moreover that there are none. I would also
like to know how locate in your archives the cases where the identity
of somebody has been challenged within the IETF in such manner and
what procedures have been initiated.

With my thanks and my best regards
--
LB

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 09:26:34 -0400

>>>>> "LB" == LB  <[email-masked]> writes:

    LB> Dear Russ, I am not sure what should be the "next step" and I
    LB> wish that all is clear and transparent in the management of
    LB> what I take for a censure for offence of opinion or
    LB> nationality. I think like somebody else, I use the technical
    LB> vocabulary appropriate for my thought. I think in the same
    LB> mother tongue as another Frenchman. Is it to protest with Mr.
    LB> Newman or with Mr. Presuhn or to appeal directly to the IESG?

I think the next step should be for you to contribute positevly and
constructively to the ltru working group.  As I understand it, your
posts are moderated.  That means that if they are constructive they
will get through to the wg.

Don't turn this into some story about persecution; help work on
internet standards.
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---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:02:54 +0100

On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 10:22:01AM +0100,
 LB <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 96 lines which said:

> what I take for a censure for offence of opinion or nationality. I
> think like somebody else, I use the technical vocabulary appropriate
> for my thought. I think in the same mother tongue as another
> Frenchman.

For the record, since I was one of the three LTRU participants
consulted, and since I'm french, I insist that it has nothing to do
with nationality. People from all over the world, not only USAns,
think the same about the "LB" and "JFC" entities and their dummy
organizations.

It is not a matter of opinion either. To disagree with opinions
require that opinions are expressed. The long and convoluted messages
of LBJFC are "not even wrong" since they are not parsable by an
ordinary engineer. (I can testify it is the same thing when they are
written in french.)

> I would also like to know how locate in your archives the cases
> where the identity of somebody has been challenged within the IETF
> in such manner and what procedures have been initiated.

Randy Presuhn clearly said in his first message that there was no
precedent (and I add that no reasonable person could have believed
that someone was twisted enough to use a sock-puppet.)
_______________________________________________
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---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:34:36 -0400

LB:

The first step is to appeal to Chris Newman.  If you do not find his 
response satisfactory, then you raise the matter with me as IETF 
Chair.  If you do not find my response satisfactory, then you raise 
the matter with the IESG.  If you do not find the IESG response 
satisfactory, then you raise the matter with the IAB.  The IAB is the 
end of the appeal chain for this matter.

I do not know of any previous situation where two email identities 
were claimed to represent the same person, and on of those people 
already had a PR-Action.

I hope this can be resolved in a satisfactory manner very soon 
without invoking all of these steps.

Russ

---

From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 08:45:19 -0700

Does the IETF have a policy regarding misrepresented identities?

In the particular incident, it is assumed that the person using the name of a famous French aviation pioneer is in fact someone else. On the one hand, using pseudonyms is a form of free speech. But on the other hand, in a standard setting body, hiding identities is not necessarily something we want to encourage. What are the implications for our standard process? What about copyrights and patents?

-- Christian Huitema

---

From: Theodore Tso <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 20:47:57 -0400

On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 08:45:19AM -0700, Christian Huitema wrote:
> In the particular incident, it is assumed that the person using the
> name of a famous French aviation pioneer is in fact someone else. On
> the one hand, using pseudonyms is a form of free speech. But on the
> other hand, in a standard setting body, hiding identities is not
> necessarily something we want to encourage. What are the
> implications for our standard process? What about copyrights and
> patents?

The use of pseudonums is very much a form of free speach.  To quote
from from the U.S. Supreme Court,

    "`Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have
    played an important role in the progress of mankind.’ Talley
    v. California (1960).  Great works of literature have frequently
    been produced by authors writing under assumed names.  Despite
    readers’ curiosity and the public’s interest in identifying the
    creator of a work of art, an author generally is free to decide
    whether or not to disclose her true identity.  The decision in
    favor of anonymity may be motivated by fear of economic or
    official retaliation, by concern about social ostracism, or merely
    by a desire to preserve as much of one’s privacy as possible.
    Whatever the motivation may be, at least in the field of literary
    endeavor, the interest in having anonymous works enter the
    marketplace of ideas unquestionably outweighs any public interest
    in requiring disclosure as a condition of entry.  Accordingly, an
    author’s decision to remain anonymous, like other decisions
    concerning omissions or additions to the content of a publication,
    is an aspect of freedom of speech protected by the First
    Amendment." --- McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 1995.

However, free speech rights are those which a government is not
allowed to abograte via the unique coercive means made available to it
(i.e., prison, fines, etc.).  Free speech does not imply that anyone
wishing to avail themselves of their "free speech rights" gets to use
anyone's printing press or radio station or television station or IETF
wg mailing list to broadcast their "free speech" to the those that
have no interest in listening to it.  Nor does it give people the
right to use a bullhorn to loudly blare their opinions in a
residential neighborhood at 3am in the morning.

So free speech rights is a red herring, in terms of whether or not any
decision made by the IETF would violate LB's fundamental human rights
(assming he really is in the EU), since the IETF is not a state actor,
and he is perfectly free to spout his views about the multilingual
internet in plenty of other fora.

In terms of whether or not there is value added by allowing anonymous
contributions in IETF wg mailing lists, issues arround copyright and
the IETF's patent disclosure rules seem to mitigate any posible value
in a standards context, and while I wouldn't suggest making a big deal of
requiring identity verification for every single working group
participant, if there is reasonable cause for a working group chair to
believe that someone is using a pseudonym to evade an RFC 3683 PR
action, that the IETF reasonable proof of a real-life identity.

Certainly some of the claims made by "LB" of this being done with the
support of "our two direct commercial competitors in his WG" can not
be evaluated while "LB" tries to hide behind a shield of anonymity.

   	     	   	      	      - Ted

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 10:47:39 +0100

On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 08:45:19AM -0700,
 Christian Huitema <[email-masked]> wrote 

> Does the IETF have a policy regarding misrepresented identities?

I don't know but, in this case, the problem is not that he used a
pseudonym (after all, noone here knows if my name is really Stéphane
Bortzmeyer), the problem is that he used *two* identities, the second
one being setup only to workaround a PR-action.

If a WG chair asks for five reviewers for an I-D, what will you think
if they are all the same person under different identities? 

There is no written rule today, because, before He Who Must Not Be
Named, noone was twisted enough to act that way.

> the one hand, using pseudonyms is a form of free speech. 

Nothing to do with the use of pseudonyms. That's a red herring.

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:36:24 -0400

I cannot find one.  It seem to be a hole than needs filled.

Russ

At 11:45 AM 3/23/2008, Christian Huitema wrote:
>implications for our standard process? What about copyrights and patents?
>
>-- Christian Huitema

---

From: "Wes Beebee (wbeebee)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:12:16 -0400

The closest I could find was:

"Working groups SHOULD ensure that their associated mailing list is
 manageable.  For example, some may try to circumvent the revocation
 of their posting rights by changing email addresses; accordingly it
 should be possible to restrict the new email address."

from page 5 of RFC 3683.  Misrepresented identities may fall under the 
same banner as changing email addresses for the purposes of RFC 3683.

- Wes Beebee

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
Russ Housley
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 11:36 AM
To: Christian Huitema
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: RE: [Ltru] Possible RFC 3683 PR-action

Russ

At 11:45 AM 3/23/2008, Christian Huitema wrote:
>necessarily something we want to encourage. What are the implications 
>for our standard process? What about copyrights and patents?
>
>-- Christian Huitema

---

From: LB <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:56:15 +0100

Cher Russ,
The debate about me is depressing. Only signatories to the PR-action
against JFC Morfin are interested. They are not very credible. Their
doctrine is globalization: internationalization of the medium
(Unicode), localization of the terminal (CLDR) and identification of
linguistic context (RFC 4646). This approach is consistent with the
early structuralist theories of Chomsky. It removes language barriers
between IBM and its foreign clients. It is limited in its capacity and
number of languages. It is unable of multilingualism (all languages
architecturally supported as English). It is incapable to scale
towards a semantic internet. You see it with IDNA.

I wanted to publish multilingual books according the pedagogy of
cybernetic (Wienner, Coufignal, Perret, etc.). It was evident that I
did not have to start from the texts in languages, but from the
semantics to be expressed in languages. Not being a linguist (I do not
speak English: I use Google and Prompt, and I read again so-so) I
committed to the vision of JFC Morfin: the approach of enunciation,
repositories (MDRS), brain to brain interintelligibility, etc. Errors
of the WG-LTU were of principle. The danger was in its vagueness (JFC
Morfin made it corrected), confusion towards ISO 3166 (which was
corrected last summer at ISO) and in its lack of integration of IDNA
(what falls to me after JFC was released from Harald Alvestrand's
list).

I knew that I would be attacked in "IVFT." I thought that this would
be based on technical (and I have communicated very little). Not on
rather ridiculous ad hominems and word games that we should have
passed the age for a very long time. In fact it has been courteous and
very nice on the part of everyone except the "clique" (I think that's
the technical term) of our religious opponents. This is why:

-- Except further provocations I do not intend to appeal
-- I shall not prove my identity separately from all the other IETF
-- I will encourage my friends to publish Drafts for testing a
multilingual and Semantic Internet without pollution, excluding
technical and political pressure,
-- If we or our texts are subject to exclusion for reasons not
technically documented this will be visible to all.

--
LB

---

From: Tamir Melamed <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 19:21:51 -0400

On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 08:45:19AM -0700, Christian Huitema wrote a message which included:
>using pseudonyms is a form of free speech
 
I am not familiar with the specifics of this case but in the internet world pseudonyms is very common. 
I agree that in a standard setting body hiding identities isn't a good practice and I would recommend to that the WG chair or the IESG Area Director will have the authority to ask for the identity of a member. We don't have to invoke that but it could be an addition to RFC 3683.

Tamir Melamed > Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 10:47:39 +0100> From: [email-masked]> To: [email-masked]> Subject: Re: Possible RFC 3683 PR-action> CC: [email-masked]> > On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 08:45:19AM -0700,> Christian Huitema <[email-masked]> wrote > a message of 12 lines which said:> > > Does the IETF have a policy regarding misrepresented identities?> > I don't know but, in this case, the problem is not that he used a> pseudonym (after all, noone here knows if my name is really Stéphane> Bortzmeyer), the problem is that he used *two* identities, the second> one being setup only to workaround a PR-action.> > If a WG chair asks for five reviewers for an I-D, what will you think> if they are all the same person under different identities? > > There is no written rule today, because, before He Who Must Not Be> Named, noone was twisted enough to act that way.> > > In the particular incident, it is assumed that the person using the> > name of a famous French aviation pioneer is in fact someone else. On> > the one hand, using pseudonyms is a form of free speech. > > Nothing to do with the use of pseudonyms. That's a red herring.> > > _______________________________________________> IETF mailing list> [email-masked]> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 05:08:31 +0100

> I cannot find one.  It seem to be a hole than needs filled.
Solution space:

At the time when I was assistant chair of the ICANN DNSO General 
Assembly, we had this exact problem with the many identities of "Jeff 
Williams"; he had enough pseudo-personalities on the list that he would 
sometimes claim to have a majority, jut from his own postings.

We resolved that by imposing a rule that when someone challenged whether 
a person was distinct from another person, that person had to prove to 
*someone* trusted by the community (not necessarily the accuser or the 
chairs) that these identities were distinct, for instance by offering 
copies of legal ID, or any other means convincing to that individual.

In the case of "Jeff Williams", the only evidence produced was phone 
calls from various identities with similar-sounding voices, so all but 
one of his identities were barred from the list.

It's not a pretty problem, but it's eminently solvable - and without 
impinging much on the ability to speak anonymously.

                        Harald

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:53:15 +0100

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 05:08:31AM +0100,
 Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 28 lines which said:

> we had this exact problem with the many identities of "Jeff
> Williams"; he had enough pseudo-personalities on the list that he
> would sometimes claim to have a majority, jut from his own postings.

Since IETF does not vote, it is certainly not an issue here?

---

From: Theodore Tso <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:32:58 -0400

> Since IETF does not vote, it is certainly not an issue here?

Well, it can be an issue in terms of determining rough consensus.
Suppose you have 100 sock puppets all with gmail or hotmail accounts,
all claiming that some approach which all of the key technologists and
experts in the field and RFC authors have rejected, is really the
right way to go.  We can do straw polls in face to face meetings, but
in theory, all decisions are supposed to be confirmed on the mailing
list.  

Suppose 100 (presumed) sock puppets who all just happen to have the
same fracturered logic and writing styles as JFC show up on LTRU and
claim that they are driving consensus.  RFC 3683 evasion aside, it
could certainly cause cause problems for a working group chair who is
trying to determine consensus, such that said chair might want to
confirm whether or not 100 posters to the mailing list, all with
pseudonyms derived from the name of of French pioneers/heros, were in
fact distinct people.

After all, they could all argue that the nonsense they are spouting is
in fact deep received wisdom, and it's a minority of the working group
who don't understand their reasoning, and so therefore the positions
of their Great Leader JFC, is in fact rough consensus.   :-)

						- Ted

---

From: "Frank Ellermann" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:29:07 +0100

Theodore Tso wrote:
 
> Suppose you have 100 sock puppets all with gmail or hotmail accounts

Wait a moment, I don't know about hotmail accounts, but for gmail
it is possible to have corresponding "google pages", a profile, a
jabber account, etc., and the task to check how plausible this is
is not harder than for many similar accounts at other providers.

If you consider it as likely that an entity claiming to be Frank
Ellermann exists and created some <http://purl.net/xyzzy> pages,
then you'd find that this entity redirected all rev="made" links
plus a "contact" link on <http://purl.net/xyzzy/privacy.htm> to
the Reply-To gmail address of this article.  You'd also find that
http://hmdmhdfmhdjmzdtjmzdtzktdkztdjz.googlepages.com/index.html
(derived from the horrible local part) confirms that theory.

It's also possible to submit mails using SMTP or rather RFC 4409
with Gmail accounts, in that case you'd see a normal source IP
in the header, not the "anonymous" Web mail IP.  FWIW, it is of
course no rocket science to arrange an "unsuspicious" source IP.

> the positions of their Great Leader JFC, is in fact rough
> consensus.   :-)

Yes, but faking a plausible legend would be hard work, and it is
tough luck when other folks simply challenge a "missing" legend:
<http://article.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.ltru/9269/match=jfc+wrote>
  
 Frank

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:40:38 -0500

I've been carefully not posting in this thread for a while, but can't 
control myself today. (So I'm not particularly arguing with Ted's points, 
his e-mail is just the the latest e-mail in the thread)

My apologies in advance.

As Ted said, "in theory, all decisions are supposed to be confirmed on the 
mailing list", but I haven't seen anyone point out the reason why - because 
we also think it's important to have very few barriers to participation in 
the IETF, so we don't require attendance at any face-to-face meeting, ever.

So I'm not sure how we verify identities when anyone we question can just 
post from an e-mail account at an ISP in Tierra del Fuego, and say "the next 
time you're in the tip of South America, come by and verify my identity".

Harald's algorithm ("must prove that you exist to SOMEbody") might be the 
best alternative available, but it does back away from "anybody, anywhere 
can participate".

We're not good at writing process text, and I would especially appreciate it 
if whatever mechanism we finally approve doesn't require participants to 
post under their "legal name" - I do not; I don't use my first name, and 
"Spencer" is my middle name.

So my suggestion is that the community spend a little more time trying to 
figure out

o how widespread, and how frequent, a problem this is,

o how much damage Spencer and 100 sock puppets can actually cause,

o whether this damage is important enough to justify IESG time fixing the 
situation, and finally

o how much MORE damage "Spencer and 100 sock puppets" can cause than 
"Spencer and 100 meat puppets[1]" can cause.

I'm guessing that people who would be offended by "Spencer and 100 invisible 
friends" would react the same way if

o I hired 100 unemployed Bear Sterns executives to post "Spencer is right, 
you should do X" on the mailing list, or if

o I asked 100 friends to do the same thing from their work e-mail addresses, 
or if

o I go to another engineering society and ask 100 of THEM to do the same 
thing from their work e-mail addresses (and we've already had to deal with 
this, most recently with a letter-writing campaign explaining to us that we 
must not approve standards with patented technology)

... but at some level, if you're going to prevent DoS attacks from sock 
puppets, you'll need to be prepared to do the same thing when "meat puppets" 
attack.

The IETF is still a meritocracy, not a democracy. Bad ideas are still bad 
ideas, even if lots of people have them. Binary numbering still uses two 
values (zero and one), no matter how many drafts say something else.

Working group chairs have two responsibilities - to be fair, and to make 
progress. When these responsibilities collide, it's not going to be pretty, 
but Russ's point - we actually do know how to resolve conflicts in the 
IETF - is critical, because the alternative is that work just stops.

Sometimes we just need to make a decision and move on. If you were right, 
but couldn't convince the WG chair(s), AD, IESG or IAB that you were right, 
and couldn't convince enough people to sign a recall petition - well, next 
time, do a better job of convincing convincing people.

IMO, of course.

Spencer, who should probably be posting as "Sanson"...

[1] I mean "real people", of course.

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:45:48 -0400

>Since IETF does not vote, it is certainly not an issue here?

This is not totally true.  A WG Chair or Area Director cannot judge 
rough consensus if they are unsure if the portion of the population 
that is representing a dissenting view is one person or many 
different people.  This is especially true when there are a large 
number of silent observers.

Russ

---

From: Theodore Tso <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:38:25 -0400

> time you're in the tip of South America, come by and verify my identity".

Well, usually someone who says, "I think you should do <foo>", follows
it up with, "because of <bar>, and while the alternate choice has
upside <quux>, I believe the engineering tradeoff is such that <bar>
is far more important than <quux>".  So usually it doesn't matter
whether someone is posting from Sunnyvale or McMurdo Station.  So
often, in practice, it doesn't matter.

So I think I would certainly grant your argument that most of the time
it doesn't matter, which is probably why we haven't spent a lot of
time trying to come up with detailed procedures for how to deal with
the situation.  I certainly think an ad hoc approach such as what the
LTRU wg co-chairs chose, with consultation with their AD, was the
right way to go, and if "LB", whoever he is, wants to challenge their
procedure, let him go up the appeal chain.

> time, do a better job of convincing convincing people.

No argument here.  In fact, I'd argue that the justification *for* PR
actions is to make progress, when someone who doesn't understand that
they've lost a particular battle by not being a part of the rough
consensus can't let ago, and move on....

							- Ted

---

From: John Levine <[email-masked]>
Date: 25 Mar 2008 15:44:46 -0000

>o how widespread, and how frequent, a problem this is,

In terms of the number of people, it's tiny.  I can only think of
three incorrigibly abusive people that bother the IETF, and even if I
polled everyone here to name candidates, I doubt that I'd run out of
fingers.

On the other hand, the amount of time that they waste is enormous,
because they abuse processes designed to deal with people whose
misbehavior is ambiguous and temporary, which theirs is not.  If
someone doesn't get the hint to behave after one or two taps on the
wrist, they'll never get it and it's a waste of time to keep grinding
through processes to re-re-re-eject them.  In view of the fact that
the same people come back to annoy us year after year after year, we
really need efficient ways to make them go away permanently.  I also
observe that they tend to have, ah, characteristic writing styles that
makes it rather easy to recognize when they've grown another
personality.

So rather than inventing yet more complex rules, I would be inclined
to have a much simpler rule that says that if a group's leader sees
mail from someone who is obviously You Know Who or You Know Who Else
already subject to 3683, just block it and send out a one sentence
notice reporting it.  Then return to useful work.

Regards,
Glenn Curtiss

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:03:51 -0400

The PR-Action related aspects of a person using a bogus identity seem 
easy to address, perhaps using the mechanism that Harald 
suggested.  However, the implications on IPR are much harder.  In the 
IETF, posting to a maillist and speaking at a meeting are two ways of 
making contributions.  If we have the ability to speak
anonymously, how can the contributions be traced to a real person or 
company to support their IPR
warranties/licenses.

This leads me to a conclusion that we need a clear policy stating 
that communications need to be linked to the real, verifiable persons 
making them.

Many people use gmail (and the like) email accounts without any 
attempt to hide their identity.  In fact may people participate with 
more than one email address without causing any confusion.  So, I see 
the need for a lightweight process to validate an identity whenever 
there is a suspected abuse.

Russ

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:33:18 -0500

Hi, Russ,

> that communications need to be linked to the real, verifiable persons

OK, this is restating the point that I first thought about replying to, but
stopped myself the first time.

What problem is anonymous posting causing, that would not also be caused by
(for example) Spencer posting a draft saying

"By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any
applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware
have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes
aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79"

... if I won't disclose them?

Or Spencer posting an IPR statement that my IETF Sponsor Organization
does/does not have IPR that applies to a specific draft, and would/would not
be willing to execute licenses with specific terms ...

... if none of my statements are true?

I have a small imagination, but I'm having a hard time visualizing a
solution for this problem that doesn't include the words "organizational
membership". If we had that, no problem - you wouldn't accept IPR statements
from me, you'd accept them from my IETF Sponsor Organization, or at a
minumum, you'd assume that my IETF Sponsor Organization would fire me AND
sure me in court, if I misbehaved.

But we don't have organizational members, and if we did, the IETF would be a
very different place.

Could someone make some suggestions about how we would actually know that
communications are linked to real, verifiable persons making them? Ignoring
forged e-mail, etc. of course.

Spencer

---

From: "Darryl \(Dassa\) Lynch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 07:44:48 +1100

Spencer Dawkins wrote:
|| I've been carefully not posting in this thread for a while,
|| but can't control myself today. (So I'm not particularly
|| arguing with Ted's points, his e-mail is just the the latest e-mail
|| in the thread) 
|| 
|| My apologies in advance.
|| 
|| As Ted said, "in theory, all decisions are supposed to be
|| confirmed on the mailing list", but I haven't seen anyone
|| point out the reason why - because we also think it's
|| important to have very few barriers to participation in the
|| IETF, so we don't require attendance at any face-to-face
|| meeting, ever.
|| 
|| So I'm not sure how we verify identities when anyone we
|| question can just post from an e-mail account at an ISP in
|| Tierra del Fuego, and say "the next time you're in the tip
|| of South America, come by and verify my identity".
<SNIP>

My understanding is there is a system of peer validation in operation.  If a
contributor only posts once or twice, they are less likely to be taken
seriously than someone who posts regularly and often, especially when first
starting to participate.

The damage done by sock puppets and stooges is minimised in such systems as
they are fairly quickly recognised for what they are.

It is more a matter of judging the content of contributions rather than the
contributor.

Darryl (Dassa) Lynch

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:48:56 +1300

On 2008-03-26 04:44, John Levine (or somebody) wrote:
...
> notice reporting it.  Then return to useful work.

Unfortunately this could be seriously unfair if the someone is
in fact not You Know Who but someone with very similar opinions
and lingusitic quirks. Declaring the mail to be off-topic or an
attempt to re-open an existing consensus would be fine.

> ... if I won't disclose them?

IANAL, but I believe that the difference is that if you falsely make
such a representation, it should be enough to strike down your patent
in court. I'd guess that even if you make it using a pseudonym,
and that can be proved, the same is true. But I think we'd need our
lawyer to take this point any further.

    Brian