Words from the IAB Chair – July 2011

At the March 2011 IETF meeting, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) selected new leadership for both the IAB and the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF). Lars Eggert was named chair of the IRTF, succeeding Aaron Falk. I was named IAB chair, succeeding Olaf Kolkman. The IAB would like to express its gratitude to both Aaron and Olaf for their years of dedicated service to the community.

The IETF 80 Technical Plenary focused on the evolution of browser functionality and some of the implications for the future of applications. Jon Peterson organized the session, which included presentations by IAB alumni Harald Alvestrand, Leslie Daigle, and Jonathan Rosenberg as well as Henry Thompson from the W3C TAG.

Since IETF 79, the IAB has been involved in two workshops. The first was the Internet Privacy Workshop, which was held in December 2010 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Sponsored by the IAB, the Internet Society, MIT, and W3C, the workshop focused on how to ensure that the architecture and technology of the Internet, including the Web, are developed in a way that respects user privacy. The issue of privacy was covered from a number of perspectives, including legal/regulatory and technical. Technical discussions addressed all levels of the stack, including network layer privacy (Tor) and issues associated with privacy on the Web. The workshop minutes have been posted. Alissa Cooper will be editing the workshop report.

The second workshop, Interconnecting Smart Objects with the Internet, was held in Prague, Czech Republic, in March 2011. Participants explored design considerations for protocols running on constrained devices, such as energy efficiency. Hannes Tschofenig is working on the minutes of that workshop and will be editing the workshop report.

The IAB has both appointed the RFC Series Oversight Committee (RSOC) and issued an RFC Editor Model (Version 2) draft. The draft, which is under discussion on the RFC Interest list ([email protected]) as well as within the IAB, reflects a year of experience with RFC 5620 (RFC Editor Model Version 1). That document is being edited by Joel Halpern.

With respect to the evolution of the IANA function, the IAB provided comments in response to the National Telecommunications and Information Association’s Request for Comments on the IANA Functions. It also published RFC 6220: Defining the Role and Function of IETF Protocol Parameter Registry Operators. Kudos to the RFC Editor team for handling the expedited publication, despite the compressed time frame.

As I write this, the IAB has just completed its annual retreat, held 12–13 May 2011 at Verisign in Sterling, Virginia, USA. Danny McPherson handled the logistics. The major focus of the retreat was the IAB’s work plan for the next 12 months and the refinement of the programme structure laid out by the IAB a year ago. In the next edition of the IETF Journal, we will talk about the retreat in more detail.