XSF Discussion - 2013-12-04

http://webrtchacks.com/trickle-ice/

"Things get complicated for SIP because it has neither of the above: it has neither the reliable discovery mechanisms of XMPP, nor the mandatory support for trickling that WebRTC comes with."

poor old sip

:'(

heh

speaking of which, would it be helpful to finish off the Server IP Check XEP?

Oh, hadn't seen that there was a new version of that

newish, anyway

all it really does is give you a hint that your IP address might not be what you think it is, thus the acronym "sic" ;-)

Clever :)

I love clever acronyms -- maybe I should've gone into marketing or advertising ;-)

Board meeting in 5 minutes, I suspect it may be a fast one

why do you suspect so? ;-)

i'm just being an optimist

We can soon correct that one, though.

http://webrtchacks.com/trickle-ice/ mentions Jingle Relay Nodes -- another spec we need to update

What with SRTP-DTLS and stuff, a relay is unable to snoop on the conversation, I suppose?

you can buy those!?!

bear, Don't know, but you should be able to. Then again, I also want a hex bit pencil and pen set, and I can't find those anywhere.

ralphm, simon, dwd, laura?

hi

Here

sweet! everyone ready to start?

go

wow, cool, text from Laura appeared before she joined the chatrom

+o

stpeter, Then your client had a MUC sync failure.

yea, I just noticed she was not in the admin affiliates list

so made the change just as she was responding

stpeter, You saw the role change as a entry.

anyway

topics for today?

Bear: I'd like to add a discussion about the XSF involvement with the securing of XMPP to the agenda.

on the agenda:

Simon, Good call.

GSoC update

FOSDEM quick update

Google outreach response/update

and XSF being active with the XMPP ubiquitous security thingy

ok, first item - GSoC

let's make this a Kev inspired meeting then - 30 minutes and done

i'll do minutes later tonight

the mailing list had quite a response

+1 for a fast meeting.

so I want to make sure tonight the gsoc wiki page has items

and then poke the responders to start updating it

yeah, looks good

i'll do that tonight

then we should mail out to the list(s) too?

It'd be nice to get some concrete support and suggestions.

+1

ok -happy to start adding concrete when the page is ready.

yes, if you all want, email me what lists I should target and I'll do them (or volunteer to help cover them)

yea, that is better, update the wiki wth the lists and then we can coordinate

anything else on GSoC ?

(as to agenda items, I'd like to chat briefly about the various liaison relationships that might be forming)

Bear: happy with that for GSOC / nothing else

isn't that like g outreach?

ok, next item - google outreach results

my take is that we are hitting a possible political stonewall ?

Well, no.

Update: Email doesn't reach google people/ G+ does. Ade pinged a couple of people inside google and "they are aware of what is happening" was the most I could get out.

The wheels of Google grind slowly, etc.

I'd tried to email quite a few people including their head of open souce Chris DiBona. Nothing back.

It's not so much a political stonewall, it's just the momentum of the juggernaut is hard to change.

i'd note https://twitter.com/juberti/status/401971677321367552 as well

I did reach out to Justin Uberti and he said he would find out if it's possible / feasible for them to support s2s encryption

What about we take a different approach - of asking that they enable TLS without cert checking. But at this point I'm somewhat inclinded to say fuckit.

ok, so my question would be this then: do we continue with another round of polite-behind-the-scenes contacts or do we start getting noisier on the G+ scene?

Simon, I don't think we've got anywhere close to that yet.

Simon: that is what I suggested to Justin as a good place to start

bear, I'm nervous about becoming confrontational in public.

stpeter: they have it implemented. It worked a couple of years ago

but, to Dave's point, we don't even know if they have anyone working on Talk any longer

fippo: ah, I had forgotten about that

bear, I think the counter-reaction would be bad, basically.

I see no reason for a confrontation

What might be interesting is to try to get Google participation from the Chris DiBona/Ade types at the SUmmit.

I wasn't suggesting bashing

ideally we can bring along Google, although IMHO it might not happen as quickly as we'd like

I was suggesting just taking some of the questions to G+ and starting a dialog

I know it'll be too late for the 4th Jan test day, but getting to chat face to face might prove much more effective.

and BTW it's not just Google -- other providers like GMX and Dreamhost are relevant here, too

stpeter: i'll poke some people about GMX again.

bear, I think it'd end up a disaster, TBH. We just cannot control how other people pitch into a public conversation.

I can go an know on GMX's door here in Munich.

Simon: :-)

dwd: agreed

ok, so the push back i'm hearing is that we keep it direct until the first test day is over?

and then regroup?

that seems reasonable

Right, but I'd reiterate that if we can ply some Googlers with beer in Brussels I think it'd lubricate more than throats.

:)

dwd: and london :-)

the point is that we are effectively not having a conversation, not even no-comment

Sounds good. A nice report from the first test day explaining how we've tried to reach out to some of the larger providers wouldn't go amiss too.

ralphm, Well, we've had a to, and a fro. It's not great, but it's a start.

those googlers we are talking to are not involved

ralphm: methinks I'll post on +

dwd: agreed

My post on G+ got an instant reaction.

Simon: yes

dwd: I chat with Ade all the time, that's easy

ok, so the status is "still poking" with more pokes to happen and to keep it on a one-to-one level for now and let the sleeping giant that is our awesome membership quiet for the moment?

posting and linking to http://xmpp.net/result.php?domain=gmail.com&type=server (when it's finished testing).

heh

simon: use google.com instead

Hmmm. xmpp.net isn't over https. No irony there.

it doesn't force https

heh

we can fix that

let's

But I digress...

ok, moving on

ok, done with that topic?

(I will try to resurrect some DreamHost contacts)

ralphm - can you give a quick FOSDEM update?

no change

I'd like us to talk about the security effort though as part of the XSF. This security stuff is important to get right. At the moment we spoke about it at the summit, in the board meetings and in the mailing lists. If it's purely Peter's manifesto and the XSF isn't endorsing that, then we look indecicive. And this stuff is important and we should be endorsing it.

nicely quick - thanks ralph

Simon: FWIW, I don't think the manifesto as it stands is 'right'.

I can't think of a more important cause that we should be focusing on and championing.

kev - what part of the manifesto do you not agree with?

Simon, I'd be concerned that too many of the operators are not committed to it - in part because of the Google (and GMX, and ... ) issues.

the non-technical bits?

Or put another way, is there anything more important than focusing on security right now?

I've sent an Isode position to Peter a few weeks back to give him a chance to comment before making such a thing publicly.

Simon, Think of the children.

personally I'm not really a fan of manifesto as communication method, but it's been good as a way to start the conversation and set some goals

But my personal position, which may or may not be similar to Isode's, is that it states the requirements too firmly without nuance.

i.e., can we endorse the testing and interoperability of the Security Test Day without waving the manifesto as our flag?

bear, Not really. Or at least, we can, but nobody will understand that.

There are significant (non-Internet) deployments that do not need, or should not have, TLS, and the manifesto simply says they need to use TLS. If the XSF endorses that, it's saying it doesn't recognise any of these deployments as valid, and that was Not Be Good.

Kev: likely something is lost in my inbox and I need to reply, sorry about that

a) write a manifesto b) decide that security is an important selling point for XMPP c) XSF announces secure connections on the network test days. d) XMPP is secure.

What about seeing the manifesto as a work-in-progress?

Maybe we can change the effort to an informational XEP and then have XSF announce test days

Look for engagement through involevemt?

Laura: I definitely see it that way, but it perhaps hasn't been presented properly

stpeter: I think you replied saying "Will look at this", and then lost it, then :)

I personally see the manifesto as a kind of bargaining position. It's a statement of our ideal for internet services.

The trouble is, the way it's worded leaves little compromise.

Does it say that clearly? "This is a statement of our ideal…" etc?

dwd: But because it places requirements on software, not just deployment, that is not clear.

Kev: as to non-Internet deployments, the manifesto doesn't talk about those since it's about the public XMPP network

I can get behind the XSF creating a best-practices XEP and then starts to support interop testing to implement it

Kev: The manifesto calls for securing public servers that interconnect - don't think it mentions "behind the firewall" installs.

stpeter: No, it's about software too.

And I think that lack of compromise is seen as worrying by a considerable portion of the deployed servers out there.

Kev: yes, we need the software to support the features and configuration options that make it possible for public XMPP services to encrypt traffic

stpeter: Yes, but some of the software points are not 'support', they're 'do'.

I see it more as "if you want to talk to my users, you jolly well ought to take their privacy seriously and use TLS"

Simon, Right, but that's not what it says.

I am not opposed to the ideas in the manifesto, but the wording is Not Quite Right to my eye.

stpeter: You have some comments on this in your inbox :)

Please tell me it actually uses the phrase "you jolly well ought to"

:)

Kev: I'm sure

anyway

Laura, No, it says "you must and I will not compromise".

THough I paraphrase.

Scary

What about "we will help you to…"?

Kev: the only "do" I see is "no more SSLv2 and SSLv3", but I think the "and SSLv3" can be removed -- it's SSLv2 that is bad

More encouraging?

in any case, this is not the place to wordsmith

and 27 minutes have gone by in this meeting :-)

stpeter: Are you happy for me to share the mail more widely, or would you like to read it first?

action item for me is to review all feedback and propose changes to the manifesto

OK.

My original point is that the XSF needs to be seizing this moment to fix security on s2s links (I don't care what you do on your c2s links)

Kev: I'm fine with public discussion -- transparency is always better IMHO

stpeter, Right. But I think the point is that it's not clear that the XSF can wholeheartedly support it in its current form, which is unfortunate, because the goals of it seem very well aligned.

can we get some wordsmithing on this in the lists and take this up again next week?

dwd: I'm not sure what it means for the XSF to support such a thing -- does that mean the membership needs to vote, or can the Board voice its support?

bear: sure

Simon, "Do this or go home" has the unfortunate problem that many people seem happy enough to take the latter option, judging by the lists.

the idea is very much to give us some aspirational goals, *not* to split the network!!

stpeter, I would argue that the Board shoudl probably judge consensus, rather than ask for a formal vote in most cases.

dwd: I was thinking about that. And yes, there are some vocal opponents. But I think we risk loosing the voice of the vast majority of silent suporters that would like secure connections.

but the text in the manifesto about unauthenticated encryption seems to make this uncontroversial

stpeter, " the idea is very much to give us some aspirational goals" - right, totally behind you on this. I think it's the absolutism, as it were, that's causing the discomfort.

ok, if we can get the wordsmithing fixed

dwd: OK, I will revisit the text and see if I can propose some scrubbing to remove any remaining traces of absolutism

I think the manifest is right - this is a network and at some point one has to force the issue - it's been many years now and the state of XMPP security has rumbled on in an insecure hodgepodge.

then we will have a chance next week to talk about what/how we as the board can get the membership to support the effort?

Simon: yes, *but* IMHO we should be able to at least get to unauthenticated encryption using even anonymous DH

bear: yes

stpeter, +1.

heh

that sounds like a best-practices XEP for sure

so people can be pointed to it as a HOW-TO once they get their F from xmpp.net

bear: i pestered dwd about starttls+dialback already

If we're done with this, does that mean we're done-done?

(peter: what's happening on Jabber.org's upgrade?)

ok, that was the last agenda item

quick update about the liaison agreements

any agenda bashing?

I have received communication from the UPnP Forum about a liaison agreement with them

I'm working on this with someone from Cisco who is involved in UPnP Forum

we'll do a bit of back and forth in the next day or two

then I think I can send a proposed document to the Board

they have a template for such things, we just need to fill in some of the details

I haven't really reviewed it yet, just received it yesterday

but it's in the works

and you saw my note about their UPnP Cloud initiative

so that's all good, I think

I need to follow up with both ISO TC 122 and IEC TC 57

I apologize for taking last week off ;-)

any more text on that?

that = ISO and IEC?

upnp+xmpp

apart from the news page

oh, BTW, UPnP Forum is very interested in conformance / compliance testing and might be able to contribute code in this area for XMPP stuff

stpeter, Do we have to approve your vacation time as your management?

ralphm: I have two presentations (PPT format) that I can probably share -- the rest has all been verbal chats I've had with some folks at UPnP Forum

right

they've had quite a few technical questions about MUC, pubsub, security, naming, etc.

even Jingle stuff

I think they basically want to accomplish the vision that Dirk Meyer was working on a few years ago

cool

yep

My children are hungry; but I think we just ask the Council to select some folk in readiness on the assumption Peter will sort out the legal mumbo jumbo.

yes

cool, sounds like a +1 to peter's plan

we can discuss more next week

I just wanted to provide a quick update

next week, same time and place?

Someone (COuncil or us) should put out a call for volunteers to serve on these things.

(to members@)

seems like a Council thing

bear, Yes.

let's put that on their agenda for next week's Council meeting :-)

stpeter, Happy for it to be Council, they're doing the selection.

WFM

k, i'll send an email to membership@ asking council to add it to agenda

ok, we are done then - thanks all!

Doesn't that effectively act as a call for volunteers?

nope, just a public way of getting it on the council agenda

:)

Yes, just make sure that anything going on Council agends reaches me via email please (either directly, to council@ or to members@ with a clear subject line) so I notice it.

+1

yay

k, i'll write up the minutes after work using the new Kev method

super

thanks, all!

good discussion

and the i'll do the calendar additions for next week

thanks all

yep, thanks everyone

Bye all

it's great to see such passion about XMPP after all these years :-)

+1

So, post meeting...Board could use more bios :)

I'm happy to put them in place if people send them to me, or everyone probably has access to do it themselves.

Tried to log in to do mine but couldn\t get in. I have my password - is the user name email address?

It didn't like me

I don't believe so - who created your account?

Bug them about it :)

laura: your username is "laura" and the email is listed as "laura.gill@surevine.com"

Thank you bear

*makes note to do my homework*

Laura: hopefully these meetings aren't too crazy for you -- we have a certain style of communicating and it can be difficult to follow, I think :-)

it does take some getting used to

At least we don't communicate by yelling (much) :)

hmph, I have a dentist appointment next Wednesday morning, I am not sure how I schedule such a thing at that time :(

do you want a schedule change before/after?

I can provide information by email beforehand and the Board can proceed, I think

k

maybe I can join via mobile or show up early and use their wifi

I'm up for sliding the meeting up an hour if the others are ok with it

I'm going to see if (a) the dentist has wifi or (b) I can move the appointment

Hahahaha

if we have a 30-minute meeting, we should be fine :-)

Sentences you never expect to see "I'm going to see if the dentist has wifi".

heh yeah

I'll work it out on my end

Board calendar updated

Thanks bear.

yw

the gsoc wiki page has been created by jabberjocke - \o/

kev: the agenda for the next meeting is going to be pretty heavy

three submissions from me ;-)

Yay.

dwd, can you expand "with strong identity being considerably more prevalent that it was"? (assuming s/that/than/)

We have a big push for proper certificates that seems to be working.

But you know, I thought I'd make it sound exciting and technical.

So now we need to get the discussion over to the security list somehow

and then jingle, and the WG list

:P