IABOPEN

Summary

The IABOPEN session at IETF 126 featured a status update on IAB activities, a liaison update focused on IEEE 802.1, progress updates on the liaison process and protocol greasing documents, an outreach report, and an invited local talk on the architectural and societal challenges of online minor protection regulations in Europe.

Key Discussion Points

1. Welcome and Status Update

Dhruv Dhody presented the 1_Welcome and Status Update slide deck.

Document Status:
- Three workshop reports were recently published as RFCs.
- The IPGO workshop report has been approved by the IAB and is moving to the RFC Editor.
- Active drafts in the IAB stream include draft-iab-liaison-mgt-rfc4052bis, draft-iab-liaison-mgt-rfc4053bis, and draft-iab-protocol-greasing.
Appeals and Help Desks: Three appeals were processed since the last IETF meeting. The IAB also hosted a "New Work Help Desk" to support community members in proposing BOFs and working groups.

2. Liaison Update: IEEE 802.1

János Farkas presented 2_Liaison Update: IEEE 802.1.

Coordination Mechanisms: The IETF and IEEE 802 coordination team meets virtually before each IETF meeting and hosts periodic joint workshops (the last was in Madrid, July 2023).
Technical Integration:
- Deterministic Networking: Coordinated efforts between IEEE 802.1 Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) (Layer 2) and IETF DetNet (Layer 3) to build a unified end-to-end architecture. DetNet leverages time synchronization provided by L2.
- Other Areas: Ongoing YANG module development, QoS exposure for non-bridges via IEEE 802.1DC, and LLDP version 2 development driven by the IETF LSVR working group.
Community Feedback: Dhruv Dhody commended the dual participation of members in both organizations, which is key to maintaining a strong relationship.

3. Liaison Process Documents Updates

Suresh Krishnan and Robert Sparks presented 3_Liaison Process Documents Updates.

Scope of Updates: These updates replace RFC 4052 and RFC 4053 (published in 2005) to align with modern practices. The main goals are to simplify text, remove low-level tooling specifications (moving them to wikis), and clarify high-level relationships.
draft-iab-liaison-mgt-rfc4052bis: Describes establishing formal liaison relationships and subsumes the role of the liaison manager from RFC 4691.
draft-iab-liaison-mgt-rfc4053bis: Covers sending and receiving liaison statements. Clarifies that sending a liaison statement does not require a formal relationship. It defines the structured fields needed for processing and maps consensus levels required by sending entities.
Next Steps: The drafts will go through IAB approval, followed by an IESG AD-sponsored last call. A feedback session was scheduled in the IAB room following the session.

4. Outreach Update

Yaroslav Rosomakho presented the 4_Outreach_Update slide deck.

Outreach Activities: Highlights included participating in operator groups (Apricot, RIPE, LACNIC, NANOG), civil society and policymaking events via ISOC, technology conferences (such as RSA, focusing on MASQUE and WebRTC), and educational forums.
Discussion and Community Feedback:
- ISOC Collaboration: Ted Hardie highlighted the usefulness of IAB and ISOC collaboration on joint policy responses, such as statements on Canadian bills C-11 and C-22.
- Academic Engagement: Brian Haberman noted that the lack of academic peer-review status for RFCs limits academic incentive to publish inside the IETF. Muhammad Usama Sardar advocated for stronger academic outreach focused on formal verification of drafts, citing security analyses on active TLS attestation specifications (e.g., draft-fossati-seat-early-attestation, draft-ritz-seat-facts, and draft-fossati-tls-attestation).
- Industry Coordination: Eliot Lear encouraged more direct outreach to industrial IoT groups (e.g., ODVA, IEC) to ensure they do not build isolated, poor implementations.

5. IAB Protocol Greasing

Tommy Pauly presented 5_Tommy_draft-iab-protocol-greasing on behalf of the authors of draft-iab-protocol-greasing.

Objective: Provide concrete protocol design guidance on establishing, implementing, and deploying greasing and protocol variability to preserve extensibility and prevent network ossification.
Core Recommendations:
- Definition: Reserve grease values within registry ranges based on field sizes, and treat those values as permanently burned.
- Implementation: Ensure randomized, unpredictable transmission of grease values and check that receivers do not accidentally special-case grease values.
- Deployment: Discusses game theory aspects, greasing the wire image (e.g., the QUIC bit), and diagnosing breakages.
Discussion:
- Yaroslav Rosomakho suggested referencing Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) greasing as a successful case study.
- Phillip Hallam-Baker cautioned that excessive greasing might inadvertently "burn" extension space needed for future deployment. Tommy Pauly agreed to clarify the trade-offs of reserving grease space.
- Dave Thaler (co-author) noted that the draft aims to include only examples that illustrate unique architectural principles, rather than compiling an exhaustive list of all greased protocols.

6. Invited Local Speaker: Protecting Minors in Social Media

Luise Biltsing from the Austrian Chamber of Labor presented 6_Invited Local Speaker.

Context: Multiple European countries have fragmented age verification requirements (ranging from 13 to 16) aiming to restrict minor access to social media.
Regulatory Landscape: Under Digital Services Act (DSA) Article 28, the European Commission released guidelines stating that simple self-declarations for 18+ content are insufficient. In July 2024, an EU-commissioned special panel suggested a minor social media restriction of 13, pushing for "safe by design" or decentralized age verification (utilizing zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) or EU Digital Identity Wallets) without collecting biometric or physical ID documents. The scope is expanding to "Social Media Plus" (including app stores, gaming, and AI chatbots).
Technical and Architectural Concerns Raised by Participants:
- Censorship & Expression: Daniel Kahn Gillmor warned that forcing platforms to filter content for minors creates a dangerous point of political and ideological censorship.
- Security and Privacy Risks: Ted Hardie highlighted that strict national implementations (like Portugal's) mandate highly invasive citizen mobile keys, which exclude certain demographics (e.g., immigrants) and introduce massive surveillance risks.
- Centralization & Monopolies: Phillip Hallam-Baker noted that complex age-verification mandates act as market entry barriers, reinforcing the monopolies of massive proprietary platforms.
- Feasibility of Circumvention: Several participants, including Martin Thomson (in chat), noted that "non-circumventable" age verification is mathematically and socially impossible without draconian surveillance mechanisms (such as continuous biometric verification).
- Engagement Strategy: Vittorio Bertola and Andrew Campling argued that since governments are moving forward with these mandates due to public demand, the technical community must engage constructively to design the least intrusive, most privacy-preserving solutions (e.g., double-blind digital wallets).

Decisions and Action Items

Liaison Management Drafts: The drafts draft-iab-liaison-mgt-rfc4052bis and draft-iab-liaison-mgt-rfc4053bis will be reviewed by the IAB for approval, then submitted to the IESG to begin the AD-sponsored IETF last call process.
Protocol Greasing: The authors of draft-iab-protocol-greasing will incorporate feedback regarding ECH greasing, add cautionary notes on over-allocating grease space to prevent protocol exhaustion, and evaluate other specialized greasing examples (e.g., draft-ietf-dnsop-grease).

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