Subject: [btns] WG Action: Conclusion of Better-Than-Nothing Security (btns)

From: IESG Secretary <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:39:18 -0700 (PDT)

The Better-Than-Nothing Security (btns) in the Security Area has
concluded. The IESG contact person is Tim Polk.

The mailing list will remain active.

This working group is closed after successfully completing the most
important items from the charter. The mailing list will be kept open
for possible questions and discussions around BTNS. In particular, this
mailing list is the preferred venue for discussion of any BTNS API
documents. If drafted, the BTNS API documents will be submitted using the
individual submission process.

The ADs would like to thank everyone who has been involved in the BTNS
specification work, the chairs, Sam Hartman who was the responsible AD
when the BTNS working group was formed, and various reviewers who
helped greatly improve the BTNS specifications.

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From: Nicolas Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:43:34 -0500

> helped greatly improve the BTNS specifications.

I second this, and also thank the current security ADs.

Nico
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From: "Laganier, Julien" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:02:19 -0700

Nicolas Williams wrote:
> > The ADs would like to thank everyone who has been involved in the
> > BTNS specification work, the chairs, Sam Hartman who was the responsible
> > AD when the BTNS working group was formed, and various reviewers who

+1

And let me add that while I am bit disappointed that we couldn't conclude the API documents, I think it is fair to say that the most important deliverables are there: the unauthenticated IPsec mode (RFC 5386), and the IPsec connection latching (RFC 5660.)

Hopefully these two useful pieces of work get implemented and leveraged on by applications in a near future. When that happens, the chances to document a proven API will IMHO greatly increase. In my experience it has never been easy to work on APIs within the IETF, especially in cases such as this where there isn't a lot of hands-on experience with interfacing applications to the network mechanism.

Thanks again to everybody that got involved in this.

--julien