Minutes/Internet Engineering Commitee/2014-06-18

Meeting Log This page contains a transcript or log of a meeting that occurred on 18th of June 2014. It should be used for reference only and does not need to be edited.

19:47 <@jscinoz> Hello
20:00 < DanielJ> :-)
20:03 <@jscinoz> So, my apologies for not being terribly organised, unfortunately there's been so much stuff going on lately. I'll ensure to hvae a proper agenda for the next meeting, but as for this one, I suppose it'd be prudent to just figure out if there's any issues people've come across that could be relevant to the committee?
20:06 -!- David [[email protected]] has joined #ppau-iec
20:06 <@jscinoz> Hey David 
20:06 < David> BAM
20:07 < David> hmm
20:08 < David> cannot chat
20:09 < DanielJ> ?
20:09 <@jscinoz> What do you mean?
20:11 <@jscinoz> Should we perhaps postpone this in that case?
20:14 < David> yay
20:14 < David> can see now
20:15 < David> close quassel client, open quassel client ;)
20:15 <@jscinoz> Ah I see, so how have you been?
20:15 < David> shit
20:15 < David> hah
20:15 < DanielJ> :-(
20:15 < David> pulled my achilles
20:16 < DanielJ> ouch
20:16 <@jscinoz> That's not what you want :(
20:16 < David> at the same time wife Has influenza B
20:16 < David> and 4 weeks until baby number 3 due
20:17 <@jscinoz> Ah, quite a lot ot be happening at once...
20:17 < David> wife's whole family has flu B, no baby sitter s, my mum moved to Melbourne and my dad is useless ;)
20:18 < David> so good times all around, enough about me though 
20:19 < DanielJ> :-(
20:20 <@jscinoz> Still, hope things get easier for you soon.
20:21 < DanielJ> so this is the ToR eh? https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Internet_Engineering_Committee/Terms_of_Reference  *has a quick read again*
20:23 <@jscinoz> Yeah, honestly, not too much has been done since that was written, I've been pretty busy with moving, and while i'm settled in now, had a lot on my plate with work, and roommate drama
20:23 -!- mode/#ppau-iec [+v David] by jscinoz
20:23 -!- mode/#ppau-iec [+v poedgirl] by jscinoz
20:23 <@jscinoz> poedgirl: are you around, by the way?
20:25 <+David> nothing terrible in there
20:28 <+poedgirl> uhh, sort of
20:30 <+David> so.... agenda?
20:30 <@jscinoz> Right, so, the only big thing to determine now: Does this meeting time suit you? Or would an alternate time be better?
20:31 < DanielJ> http://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/iec-minutes-20140618  (such as it is) ;-P
20:31 <@jscinoz> Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to put one together, but there will be for the next one. The only item, which DanielJ helpfully added is to confirm whether this meeting time suits. Other than  that, this is fairly freeform
20:31 <+David> I like later, my kids suck, but quassel makes this not completely terrible
20:31 <@jscinoz> Would later work for you poedgirl? You're in WA, iirc, so it's actually quite a bit earlier for you, isn't it?
20:32 <+David> I'm on the floor of my kids bedroom ushering them to sleep currently
20:33 <+David> 830 or 9 eastern would. bee my preference but I understand if this is too late
20:34 <+poedgirl> yeah that's fine
20:35 <@jscinoz> Alright, so 9PM AEST works for everyone?
20:36 <+David> yes
20:37 <@jscinoz> Alright, I'll update the calendar entry when I have teh chance. Fortnightly meetings work fine for everyone?
20:37 <+David> as for days, as. long as its not overlapping with general or NC I'm good 
20:38 <@jscinoz> What day is general usually? NC is thursday, so we're good on that front
20:38 < DanielJ> general is tuesdays
20:38 < DanielJ> agian fortnightly like NC
20:39 <+David> Tuesday general, yesterday was last one
20:39 <@jscinoz> Ah, so i guess we'll keep it on wednesday if there's no objections?
20:40 <+David> none here
20:42 < DanielJ> i need to duck away, but will gladly compile the remaining minutes from the log if need be, should be back shortly anyway, but dont hold anything up for me
20:44 <+David> cheers DanielJ 
20:45 <+David> anything we want to discuss today?
20:45 <+David> net neutrality is boiling up
20:46 <+David> fttn trials delayed
20:46 <+David> etc?
20:47 <@jscinoz> There was the whole EME clusterfuck with mozilla
20:47 <@jscinoz> Or really EME in general
20:50 <+David> ah yes way to support their own irrelevance
20:51 <+David> I don't think it will achieve anything
20:52 <+David> just another worthless drm 
20:53 <@jscinoz> Unfortunately now, all major borwsers support it, and while mozilla's is the safest (heavily sandboxed, per-site device IDs to minimise tracking), we have the potential for it becoming something almost required
20:53 <@jscinoz> if many sites start requiring it, the average end user doesn't care about the philosophy of DRM, they only care that the content they're after isn't available on their platform
20:54 <@jscinoz> I foresee this being particularly bad for the adoption of desktop linux
20:54 <+David> it will breed more pirates
20:54 <+David> I dislike desktop Linux aesthetically, but yes
20:55 <+David> what's the hold up there exactly?
20:56 <@jscinoz> Programmers suck at UX :P
20:56 <+David> codec licencing?
20:56 <@jscinoz> Oh sorry, you mean with EME specifically?
20:56 <+David> yes
20:56 <+David> eme on *nix
20:57 <@jscinoz> Basically, the actual decryption of content is handled by a binary CDM (Content Decryption Module)
20:57 <@jscinoz> These, like browse rplugins, are OS ABI and CPU architecture dependent.
20:58 <+David> ah
20:58 <+David> yeah that's poo
20:59 <+David> android will have fun with that
20:59 <@jscinoz> Yeah, Android would probably be okay, considering market-share
21:00 <@jscinoz> but it will mean  things will become more homogenous, and will hamper innovation (tnew cpu archs, like the arm64bit one)
21:01 <+David> so do we put together something on this
21:01 <+David> some wiki materials maybe
21:02 <@jscinoz> In theory, yes, but I'm not sure what more we could add to the discussion. Pretty much every point against it was detailed on the w3c lists through the standardisation process, FSF have bitched about it, EFF may have (can't recall)
21:02 <@jscinoz> What would be the goal of the wiki materials? To explain to non-technical people why this is bad?
21:03 <+David> is it worth while?
21:04 <+David> a grouping of resources and party reasoning may be useful in the future
21:04 < Brendan> jscinoz: make it platform independent at least.
21:04 < Brendan> that could be argued.
21:04 < Brendan> you point out that we are fundamentally against this, but if you're going to be completely evil, do it in a way that isn't crippling.
21:04 <+David> html5 based, not plugin reliant
21:05 < Brendan> that doesn't make sense.
21:05 <@jscinoz> That's the best part, they can implement EME and still say "hey look, we're html5!"
21:05 < Brendan> lol
21:05 <@jscinoz> it still uses <video> and <audio>
21:05 < Brendan> yes 
21:05 <+David> bleh
21:05 <@jscinoz> it breaks the fundamental nature of the web, that it should work and look (more or less) the same everywhere
21:05 <+David> could not the decryption part be handled there?
21:08 <@jscinoz> At a technical levle yes, JS crypto is pretty widespread and used for security-critical applications (cryptocurrency wallets). I believe the binary nature of CDMs the simply another security-through-obscurity farce
21:10 <@jscinoz> But, at the end of the day, unless they've managed to figure out cryptographic obfuscation (assumed impossible, but not proven either way), the key's gonna end up in memory
21:10 <@jscinoz> so it really is nothing more than a roadblock
21:11 <@jscinoz> It's in the same vein as internet censorship - any technical person can trivially evade it, but the vast majority of people are quite easily dissuaded by trivial inconveniences
21:13 <+David> Only takes one pirate to decrypt and seed though
21:14 <+David> So really another push towards piracy
21:15 <@jscinoz> Yep, so it really doesn't accomplish much. All it does is hamper innovation (since you can be sure that movie studios and the like won't license their content to distributors who don't use some form of DRM) and inconvenience legitimate consumers (limiting device choice)
21:15 <@jscinoz> there's also the tracking issue
21:15 <@jscinoz> there's a unique hardware id generated by the host environment that's used as the identifier against which content purchases are associated
21:16 <@jscinoz> as far as i'm aware, mozilla are the only ones to do this in a privacy preserving way - they provide a different hardware id to each unique origin
21:17 <+David> Yeah that last part is more concerning
21:18 <@jscinoz> It's becoming increasingly hard to avoid tracking on the web, aside from the obvious (cookies, localstorage, indexedb, flash cookies, etc) things like font fingerprinting  are starting to be used
21:22 <+David> So I guess action item, compile wiki page on EME including party lines and supporting documents
21:23 <+David> To be used as a resource for future policy/pr/educating
21:23 <+David> Revisit next meeting
21:24 <+David> Ultimately these meetings should be used for decision, with discussion mainly taking place outside the meeting, then they don't drag on
21:25 <@jscinoz> Sure, so just to summarise then:
21:25 <@jscinoz> Meeting time to be moved to 9pm every other wednesday
21:25 <@jscinoz> Wiki article on EME to be written, with party lines and supporting documents
21:25 <@jscinoz> Was that it?
21:26 <+David> Yup
21:28 <@jscinoz> Alright then, is there some formal rpocess to conclude this then?
21:29 <+David> Vote to end meeting
21:30 < Brendan> nah they can just close
21:30 < Brendan> NC votes.
21:30 <+David> :)
21:30 < Brendan> "they" being the chair
21:31 <@jscinoz> In future, should we have the voting bot in here?
21:36 <+David> So...
21:37 <@jscinoz> Meeting closed?
21:37 <+David> Done :)