Internet Society © 1992–2017
Internet Standards and how to get involved
What’s Happening at the IETF?
Kevin Meynell
Content & Resource Manager
meynell@isoc.org
23 November 2017
Presentation title – Client name
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Disclaimer
Two important points:
No-one really speaks for the IETF
I am speaking about the IETF as an individual participant
https://trac.tools.ietf.org/group/iesg/trac/wiki/SpeakingForIetf
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Mission of the IETF
Make the Internet work better by producing
high quality, relevant technical documents
that influence the way people
design, use, and manage the Internet
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The Internet is a global community
— First meeting in 1986
— Large open international community of network engineers, operators, vendors
and researchers concerned with development and smooth operation of the
Internet
— Volunteers participate on an individual basis to develop and refine protocols that
are useful to operators, manufacturers and vendors utilising the Internet who
support the work of the IETF
— Produce open standards known as Request for Comments (RFCs)
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IETF Standards make the Internet work
TCP/IP
— IPv4 (RFC791) and IPv6
(RFC2460…)
— TCP (RFC675…) and UDP
(RFC768)
E-Mail
— SMTP (RFC5321), IMAP
(RFC3501)
Network and Routing
— BGP (RFC4271), OSPF 5
DNS
— DNS (RFCs 1034, 1035…)
— DNSSEC (RFCs 4033, 4034 &
4035)
— DANE (RFCs 6698, 7671…)
Web
— HTTP (RFC2616…)
Security
— TLS (RFCs 5246 & 6176)

The Internet Engineering Task Force
— http://www.ietf.org/
— Anyone can participate in the mailing lists and discussions
— Anyone can submit a ‘draft’ document
(known as an Internet Draft or I-D)
— Working Groups debate and discuss drafts
— Documents progress through the standards process to become RFCs
— Primary venue for all communication is e-mail
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Working Groups and Areas
— 135 Working Groups
– Each working group has 2 or 3 Co-Chairs
— Working Groups have a Charter that defines:
– Purpose
– Deliverables
– Timeframe
— Working Groups are created, re-chartered and concluded
— Activities organized into 7 Areas
– Each area has 2 or 3 Area Directors (ADs)
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IETF Areas - http://www.ietf.org/iesg/area.html
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• Application protocols and architectures
• Real-time (and non-real-time) communication
Applications and Real-Time (ART)
• Mechanisms related to data transport on the Internet
• Congestion control
Transport (TSV)
• Routing and signalling protocols
Routing
(RTG)
• IPv4/IPv6, DNS, DHCP, VPNs, mobility
Internet
(INT)
• Network management
• Operations: IPv6, DNS, security, routing
Operations and Management (OPS)
• Security protocols and mechanisms, including cryptography
Security
(SEC)
• Activities focused on supporting and updating IETF processes
General
(GEN)

Working Groups - by Area
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ART, 40
GEN, 1
INT, 19
OPS, 17
RTG, 25
SEC, 19
TSV, 13

IETF Meetings
— Three times each year
— Move around the world to different locations
— Continuation of discussions on e-mail lists
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IETF 100: 11-17 November 2017, Singapore
— http://www.ietf.org/meeting/100/
— 1,620 on-site participants from 50+ countries
— 1 from Serbia (remotely)!
— IETF Hackathon and Codesprint (12-13 Nov 2017)
Held to encourage developers to discuss, collaborate and develop utilities,
ideas, sample code and solutions that show practical implementations of IETF
standards
— ISOC posts about IETF 100 at:
– https://www.internetsociety.org/tag/ietf100/
– https://www.internetsociety.org/events/ietf/ietf-100/ 11

Next Meeting: IETF 101
— 17-23 March 2018, London
https://www.ietf.org/meeting/101/
— Remote participation available:
– Audio streams
– Web conferencing systems
– Jabber chat rooms
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IETF Fellowship Programme
Fellowships available to enable people to attend IETF meetings
http://www.internetsociety.org/what-we-do/education-and-leadership-
programmes/ietf-and-ois-programmes/internet-society-fellowship
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IETF Policy Programme
Fellowships available for regulators to attend IETF meetings and learn about
IETF standards and processes
https://www.internetsociety.org/what-we-do/education-and-leadership-
programmes/ietf-and-ois-programmes/internet-society-fellowship-5
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IPv6 Activities
— IPv6 now common across most working groups
— Some key groups:
– IPv6 Operations (v6ops) WG – provides operational guidance on deploying
and operating IPv6 in new and existing networks.
– IPv6 Maintenance (6man) WG – upkeep and advancement of IPv6 protocol
specifications and addressing architecture.
– Home Networking (homenet) WG – developing networking protocols for
small residential networks.
– Sunsetting IPv4 (sunset4) WG – discusses transition of IPv4 to IPv6 with
view to deprecating IPv4.
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DNS/DNSSEC Activities
— DNS Operations (dnsop) WG – provides operational guidance on DNS
software and services, administration of DNS zones, and DNSSEC.
— DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities (dane) WG - developing
mechanisms and techniques to allow establishment of cryptographically secured
communications using information in the DNS.
— DNS PRIVate Exchange (DPRIVE) WG – developing mechanisms to provide
confidentiality to DNS transactions using TLS and/or DTLS.
— DNS over HTTPS (DOH) WG – developing mechanisms to provide
confidentality between DNS clients and recursive resolvers using HTTPS where
TLS and DTLS have problems.
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Routing Activities
— Secure Inter-Domain Routing (sidr) WG – improving the security of the routing
infrastructure through the RPKI and BGPSEC specifications
— SIDR Operations (sidrops) WG – developing operation guidance on deploying
and operating SIDR in new and existing networks.
— Global Routing Operations (grow) WG – considers the operational problems
with the IPv4 and IPv6 global routing systems,including route leaks.
— Inter-Domain Routing Working Group (idr) WG – improving the robustness
and scalability of BGP by IPv4 and IPv6.
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Trust, Identity and Privacy Activities
— Transport Layer Security (tls) WG – developing a cryptographic protocol to
provide privacy and data integrity between communicating computer
applications.
— Using TLS in Applications (uta) WG - developing definitions for using TLS
with application protocols, best practices for clients and servers, and guidance
for developers.
— Automated Certificate Management Environment (acme) WG – developing
REST-based specifications for automating digital certificate issuance, validation,
revocation and renewal. The basis of the Let’s Encrypt service.
— Public Notary Transparency (trans) WG – developing mechanisms to allowing
detection of mis-issued certificates.
— CURves, Deprecating and a Little more Encryption (curves) WG –
developing new cryptographic security, including new algorithms for DNSSEC
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Summary
— The IETF makes the Internet work better
— It has a fundamental role in Internet administration
— It has international scope, but local relevance
— It has an open, inclusive and well-established structure
— Your participation is critical to the success of the IETF
— More information:
http://www.ietf.org/newcomers.html
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Thank you.
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