Re: Moving Authentication Header (AH) to Historic

> I spent a few minutes trying to look up the precise definition of
> "Historic Documents" in the IETF standards process. Since the definition
> appears to be extremely vague and may not clearly apply in this case,

FWIW, the definition of "Historic" is in RFC 2026, and I agree with Yaron that
it's not exactly precise:

   A specification that has been superseded by a more recent
   specification or is for any other reason considered to be obsolete is
   assigned to the "Historic" level.  (Purists have suggested that the
   word should be "Historical"; however, at this point the use of
   "Historic" is historical.)

There is a subtle distinction between Obsolete and Historic - an Historic RFC
is always Obsolete, but an Obsolete RFC may not be Historic.  Before going any
further,  let me say that I strongly agree with Yaron on priorities:

> I strongly suggest that we avoid this rathole (and move to the next one),
> by adopting the proposed wording below. Manav's I-D is an Independent
> document and so its content is completely up to its author; OTOH, I'd
> rather not waste the group's energy on not-very-important process
> matters. What does matter is that implementers and standards bodies
> understand the strengths and weaknesses of our protocols.  

In order to obsolete AH, the draft header needs to say "Obsoletes: 4302", in
addition to its discussion of making RFC 4302 Historic.  Both of the foregoing
require that the draft not be Informational; I'd go further and suggest that with
suitable editing and review, this could be a Best Current Practice (BCP) RFC,
as the primary goal is to document the following as current design practice:

> > "AH should not be
> > preferred when designing new protocols and all attempts must be made
> > to use ESP-NULL"

I believe that a BCP can be used to cause a standards track RFC to become
obsolete.

Thanks,
--David
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David L. Black, Distinguished Engineer
EMC Corporation, 176 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
+1 (508) 293-7953             FAX: +1 (508) 293-7786
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