Session Date/Time: 22 Jul 2024 20:00

irtfopen

Summary

The IRTF Open meeting at IETF 120 in Vancouver featured an overview of the IRTF's activities, including research groups, RFC publications, and travel grants. The meeting also covered the IRTF code of conduct development and the upcoming ACM IRTF applied networking research workshop. The main focus of the meeting were three Applied Networking Research Prize (ANRP) winning talks on network configuration testing, DNS error analysis, and key transparency for encrypted messaging.

Key Discussion Points

IRTF Overview: Colin Perkins, the IRTF chair, presented an overview of the IRTF's role in long-term internet research, highlighting its focus on research papers and publications rather than standards development.
IRTF Code of Conduct: The progress on the IRTF code of conduct, focusing on ethical research conduct and anti-harassment policies, was discussed. A last call for comments is expected soon.
ANRP Prize-Winning Talks:
- NetCOF: Test Coverage for Network Configurations: Zijang Zhu presented NetCOF, a tool for computing test coverage for network configurations to improve network reliability. There was discussion about using formal methods for verification instead of testing and whether high coverage leads to a false sense of security. Standardization of configuration coverage was proposed.
- Extending DNS Errors: Yerhenya presented work on extending DNS errors for identifying the root cause of DNS failures at scale. The consistency of EDNS implementation across various resolvers and the prevalence of lame delegations were key findings. There was discussion about pushback from people using obscure configurations.
- Parakeet: Practical Key Transparency for End-to-End Encrypted Messaging: Jessly Malvey presented Parakeet, a practical key transparency implementation for end-to-end encrypted messaging, focusing on preventing server cheating and providing anti-active revocation guarantees. The discussion centered on the witnesses to ensure key validity and protocol scalability.

Decisions and Action Items

IRTF Code of Conduct: Participants were encouraged to read the draft IRTF code of conduct and provide feedback to the IRSG. The IRSG will issue a last call for comments soon.
IRTF Chair Nomination: Interested individuals were encouraged to consider nominating themselves for the IRTF chair role.

Next Steps

Attend the ACM IRTF applied networking research workshop.
Follow the development of the IRTF code of conduct and provide feedback.
Consider nominating applied networking research for next year's ANRP prize.
Zijang Zhu proposed an informal discussion during the BRIC session.