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Security Dispatch (secdispatch)

WG Name Security Dispatch
Acronym secdispatch
Area Security Area (sec)
State Active
Charter charter-ietf-secdispatch-01 Approved
Document dependencies
Additional resources Zulip Stream, wiki
Personnel Chairs Daniel Kahn Gillmor, Rifaat Shekh-Yusef
Area Director Roman Danyliw
Mailing list Address secdispatch@ietf.org
To subscribe https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/secdispatch
Archive https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/secdispatch/
Chat Room address https://zulip.ietf.org/#narrow/stream/secdispatch

Charter for Working Group

The Security Dispatch working group is a DISPATCH-style WG (see
[RFC7957]) chartered to consider proposals for new work in the SEC
area and if the work is appropriate for the IETF and there is
sufficient interest, identify, or help create, an appropriate venue
for the work. In order to help the proposed new work succeed, the
working group aims to assist the proposed new work in:

  1. Providing a clear problem statement, motivation and deliverables.
  2. Ensuring that there has been adequate mailing list discussion reflecting
    sufficient interest, a sufficient number of individuals have expressed a
    willingness to contribute, and there is WG consensus before the proposed new
    work can be dispatched.
  3. Looking for and identifying commonalities and
    overlap amongst published or ongoing protocol work and the proposed new work.
    Such commonalities may indicate the possibility of reusing existing protocols
    or elements thereof published by other WGs, or expanding and/or refactoring the
    scope of deliverables in an existing active WG.
  4. Protecting the architectural
    integrity of IETF protocols and ensuring that new work has general
    applicability.
  5. Ensuring that the new work considers and seeks to improve
    security and privacy.

Precedence will be given to documents which have evidence of interest in the
form of active drafts and list discussion.

Options for handling new work include:

  • Directing the work to an existing WG.
  • Developing a proposal for a BOF.
  • Developing a charter for a new WG.
  • Making recommendations that documents be AD-sponsored (which ADs may or may
    not choose to follow).
  • By agreement with SEC ADs, processing simple administrative documents.
  • Deferring the decision for the new work.
  • Rejecting the new work.

The WG will attempt to come to a prompt resolution of the appropriate
disposition of each proposal, either on the mailing list or
or during the WG meeting where it is presented.

If the group decides that a particular topic needs to be addressed by a new WG,
the normal IETF chartering process will be followed, including, for instance,
IETF-wide review of the proposed charter. Proposals for large work efforts
SHOULD lead to a BOF where the topic can be discussed in front of the entire
IETF community. The SECDISPATCH WG will not do any protocol work. Specifically,
SECDISPATCH will always opt to find a location for technical work; the only
work that SECDISPATCH is not required to delegate (or defer, or reject) is
administrative work such as IANA actions. Documents progressed as AD-sponsored
would typically include those that do not have general applicability to IETF
protocols, but rather are only applicable to specific use cases and network
deployments, for which the scope must be clearly specified.

Proposed new work may be deferred in cases where the WG does not have enough
information for the chairs to determine consensus. New work may be rejected in
cases where there is not sufficient WG interest or the proposal has been
considered and rejected in the past, unless a substantially revised proposal is
put forth, including compelling new reasons for accepting the work.

A major objective of the SECDISPATCH WG is to provide timely, clear
dispositions of new efforts. Thus, where there is consensus to take on new
work, the WG will strive to quickly find a home for it. While most new work in
the SEC area is expected to be considered in the SECDISPATCH working group,
there may be times where that is not appropriate. At the discretion of the area
directors, new efforts may follow other paths beside SECDISPATCH. For example
work may go directly to BoFs (this is appropriate in cases of major new work
which would clearly need a new WG), may be initiated in other working groups
when it clearly belongs in that group, or may be directly AD sponsored.