Current Hostname Practice Considered Harmful
draft-ietf-intarea-hostname-practice-05

[Ballot comment]
You may want to add a security consideration for incident responders.  When researching an incident, it is common practice to grab the current name of a IP and associated DNS information.  This information gets passed to other incident response teams or those involved in tracking/researching attack related information.  The attackers are already changing DNS entries, this will make it easier for them and harder for incident handlers to track and manage incidents.

Thanks for your work on this draft.

(Via drafts-lastcall-comment@iana.org): IESG/Authors/WG Chairs:

The IANA Services Operator has reviewed draft-ietf-intarea-hostname-practice-03.txt, which is currently in Last Call, and has the following comments:

We understand that this document doesn't require any registry actions.

While it's often helpful for a document's IANA Considerations section to remain in place upon publication even if there are no actions, if the authors strongly prefer to remove it, we do not object.

If this assessment is not accurate, please respond as soon as possible.

Thank you,

Sabrina Tanamal
IANA Services Specialist
PTI

The following Last Call announcement was sent out:

From: The IESG
To: "IETF-Announce"
CC: draft-ietf-intarea-hostname-practice@ietf.org, "Wassim Haddad" , int-area@ietf.org, suresh.krishnan@ericsson.com, Wassim.Haddad@ericsson.com, intarea-chairs@ietf.org
Reply-To: ietf@ietf.org
Sender:
Subject: Last Call:  (Current Hostname Practice Considered Harmful) to Informational RFC


The IESG has received a request from the Internet Area Working Group WG
(intarea) to consider the following document:
- 'Current Hostname Practice Considered Harmful'
  as Informational RFC

The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
ietf@ietf.org mailing lists by 2017-01-19. Exceptionally, comments may be
sent to iesg@ietf.org instead. In either case, please retain the
beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.

Abstract


  Giving a hostname to your computer and publishing it as you roam from
  one network to another is the Internet equivalent of walking around
  with a name tag affixed to your lapel.  This current practice can
  significantly compromise your privacy, and something should change in
  order to mitigate these privacy threads.

  There are several possible remedies, such as fixing a variety of
  protocols or avoiding disclosing a hostname at all.  This document
  describes some of the protocols that reveal hostnames today and
  sketches another possible remedy, which is to replace static
  hostnames by frequently changing randomized values.




The file can be obtained via
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-intarea-hostname-practice/

IESG discussion can be tracked via
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-intarea-hostname-practice/ballot/


No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.

(1) What type of RFC is being requested (BCP, Proposed Standard, Internet Standard, Informational, Experimental, or Historic)? Why is this the proper type of RFC? Is this type of RFC indicated in the title page header?

=> The requested RFC is “Informational" as the document does not describe a new protocol nor update an existing one. The type of RFC is indicated in the title page header. The WG has chosen to publish the document as Informational standard since it does not introduce any new protocol. It is explicitly stated in the document that further studies are required before a mature solution can be implemented

(2) The IESG approval announcement includes a Document Announcement Write-Up. Please provide such a Document Announcement Write-Up. Recent examples can be found in the "Action" announcements for approved documents. The approval announcement contains the following sections:

Technical Summary:

      => The document describes some of the protocols that reveal hostnames today and sketches another possible remedy,  which is to replace static hostnames by frequently changing randomized values
  Working Group Summary:

=> The document has been approved for adoption as WG draft by the intarea WG. It has been reviewed by a small number of people who are active in the intarea WG and authors updated the document accordingly. The document has been subject for a short email discussion. There was positive consensus and no dissent and no point of controversy. The draft has not been reviewed by any  directorate nor review teams nor from other SDOs.

Document Quality:

Are there existing implementations of the protocol?

=> Am not aware of any implementation

Have a significant number of vendors indicated their plan to implement the specification?

=> Am not aware of any such plans

Are there any reviewers that merit special mention as having done a thorough review, e.g., one that resulted in important changes or a conclusion that the document had no substantive issues?

=> There was no point of controversy in any reviews

If there was a MIB Doctor, Media Type or other expert review, what was its course (briefly)? In the case of a Media Type review, on what date was the request posted?

=> Not applicable

Personnel:

Who is the Document Shepherd? Who is the Responsible Area Director?

            => Document Shepherd: Wassim Haddad
                Responsible Area Director: Suresh Krishnan

(3) Briefly describe the review of this document that was performed by the Document Shepherd. If this version of the document is not ready for publication, please explain why the document is being forwarded to the IESG.

    => Document Shepherd did a thorough review of the document and concluded that the document is ready for publication. Therefore, the document is forwarded to IESG for approval for publication as Informational RFC.

(4) Does the document Shepherd have any concerns about the depth or breadth of the reviews that have been performed?

    => Document Shepherd believes that the document is ready for publication

(5) Do portions of the document need review from a particular or from broader perspective, e.g., security, operational complexity, AAA, DNS, DHCP, XML, or internationalization? If so, describe the review that took place.

    => Document Shepherd believes the document does not need such review

(6) Describe any specific concerns or issues that the Document Shepherd has with this document that the Responsible Area Director and/or the IESG should be aware of? For example, perhaps he or she is uncomfortable with certain parts of the document, or has concerns whether there really is a need for it. In any event, if the WG has discussed those issues and has indicated that it still wishes to advance the document, detail those concerns here.

    => Document Shepherd has no issues with the document

(7) Has each author confirmed that any and all appropriate IPR disclosures required for full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79 have already been filed. If not, explain why?

    => Yes. Each author has confirmed that any and all appropriate IPR disclosures required for full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79 have already been filed

(8) Has an IPR disclosure been filed that references this document? If so, summarize any WG discussion and conclusion regarding the IPR disclosures.

    => No IPR disclosure has been filed.

(9) How solid is the WG consensus behind this document? Does it represent the strong concurrence of a few individuals, with others being silent, or does the WG as a whole understand and agree with it?

    => The draft received a weak positive consensus and no dissent and no point of controversy from anyone

(10) Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme discontent? If so, please summarise the areas of conflict in separate email messages to the Responsible Area Director. (It should be in a separate email because this questionnaire is publicly available.)

    => No threats were issued as there was no dissent nor point of controversy

(11) Identify any ID nits the Document Shepherd has found in this document. (See http://www.ietf.org/tools/idnits/ and the Internet-Drafts Checklist). Boilerplate checks are not enough; this check needs to be thorough

    => Document Shepherd found no nits in the document except that some references need to be updated:
        - Outdated reference: draft-ietf-dhc-anonymity-profile has been published as RFC 7844
                - Outdated reference: draft-ietf-dhc-dhcp-privacy has been published as RFC 7819
                - Outdated reference: draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-privacy has been published as RFC 7824
(12) Describe how the document meets any required formal review criteria, such as the MIB Doctor, media type, and URI type reviews.

    => The document does not require reviews related to MIB

(13) Have all references within this document been identified as either normative or informative?

    => All references within the document have been identified as informative

(14) Are there normative references to documents that are not ready for advancement or are otherwise in an unclear state? If such normative references exist, what is the plan for their completion?

    => The document cites only informational references

(15) Are there downward normative references references (see RFC 3967)? If so, list these downward references to support the Area Director in the Last Call procedure.

    => There are no downward normative reference(s)

(16) Will publication of this document change the status of any existing RFCs? Are those RFCs listed on the title page header, listed in the abstract, and discussed in the introduction? If the RFCs are not listed in the Abstract and Introduction, explain why, and point to the part of the document where the relationship of this document to the other RFCs is discussed. If this information is not in the document, explain why the WG considers it unnecessary.

    => The document does not change the status of any existing RFC

(17) Describe the Document Shepherd's review of the IANA considerations section, especially with regard to its consistency with the body of the document. Confirm that all protocol extensions that the document makes are associated with the appropriate reservations in IANA registries. Confirm that any referenced IANA registries have been clearly identified. Confirm that newly created IANA registries include a detailed specification of the initial contents for the registry, that allocations procedures for future registrations are defined, and a reasonable name for the new registry has been suggested (see RFC 5226).

    =>  The document does not require assistance nor IANA consideration

(18) List any new IANA registries that require Expert Review for future allocations. Provide any public guidance that the IESG would find useful in selecting the IANA Experts for these new registries.

    => Not applicable

(19) Describe reviews and automated checks performed by the Document Shepherd to validate sections of the document written in a formal language, such as XML code, BNF rules, MIB definitions, etc.

    =>  Document shepherd has reviewed all sections. No formal language