Router modifications to deal with smurf

Michael Dillon michael at memra.com
Mon Apr 27 23:40:33 UTC 1998


On Mon, 27 Apr 1998, Kelly J. Cooper wrote:

> It is a known thing that this type of request doesn't meet the 
> criteria of the RFC and lots of different folks are hoping that the
> RFC will change.  I'm wondering whether there's any duplication of 
> effort to that end (or any effort at all) going on.

Nose around here http://www.ietf.org/ID.html and see if you find anything.
If not, gather one or two other folks and write up a revised RFC or better
yet, just write up a document describing the old paragraph, your proposed
change, and why you think it needs to be changed. Read this
ftp://ftp.ietf.org/ietf/1id-guidelines.txt for formatting guidlines and
when it is written submit it to internet-drafts at ietf.org

Then hang out on the IETF discussion list
http://www.ietf.org/maillist.html and answer questions. Since this is a
standards track RFC you'll need to do more than this to actually get the
RFC changed but this should start the ball rolling. 

Technically, RFC 1812 is only a proposed standard which is the lowest of
the three positions on the standards track. According to RFC 2026:

   A Proposed Standard  ...  has received
   significant community review, and appears to enjoy enough community
   interest to be considered valuable.  However, further experience
   might result in a change or even retraction of the specification
   before it advances.

It also says:

   Implementors should treat Proposed Standards as immature
   specifications.  It is desirable to implement them in order to gain
   experience and to validate, test, and clarify the specification.
   However, since the content of Proposed Standards may be changed if
   problems are found or better solutions are identified, deploying
   implementations of such standards into a disruption-sensitive
   environment is not recommended.

So basically, you can stop this RFC in its tracks by clearly stating your
objections in the form of an Internet draft and it might even be possible
to get vendors to change this before the RFC is revised because the
Internet IMHO qualifies as a disruption sensitive environment.

--
Michael Dillon                   -               Internet & ISP Consulting
http://www.memra.com             -               E-mail: michael at memra.com





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