It is increasingly important to ensure that all Internet applications receive certain minimum security assurances [RFC 7202]. For many years now, the IETF has required that the protocols it publishes have built-in security mechanisms [RFC 3552]. In order for users to benefit from these mechanisms, however, they need to be deployed by the operators of Internet applications.

It always surprises me how little time there seems to be between IETF meetings, at least by the time the meeting is upon us. IETF 93 in Prague was no exception. Still, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) had plenty to report to the community.

Most people think of the IETF as software and protocols, but at IETF 93, a CrypTech workshop gave participants the opportunity to work together on open source hardware: cryptographic engines developed by a multinational team designed to restore the public's trust in cryptography.

In 2003, Request for Comment (RFC) 3535, “Overview of the 2002 IAB Network Management Workshop”¹ documented the outcomes of a dialog between network operators and protocol developers about focusing the IETF on future network management work. The workshop identified 14 operator requirements and identified ‘ease of use’ as a key requirement for any new network management system.

In IETF Journal, Vol. 10, Issue 1, I wrote about the activities of the IETF Education Team (http://ietf.org/edu/). Since then, in addition to organizing the Sunday tutorials and Working Group (WG) chair sessions, we’ve reviewed our portfolio, our training methods, the audiences we’ve reached, and the topics we’ve covered. It brought up a number of questions: Should we keep the Sunday tutorials?

The IETF and the IAB have long been engaged in activities to rebuild user trust and strengthen the Internet in the face of pervasive monitoring and potential product vulnerabilities. The Managing Radio Networks in an Encrypted World (MaRNEW) workshop (https://www.iab.org/activities/workshops/marnew/) was the latest in a series of collaborative activities. 

At the Bits-N-Bites session at IETF 93 in Prague, something quite remarkable was demonstrated: a streamed football match that you could pan and zoom with finger gestures on a touch screen—and still get (high definition) HD at full zoom. The app in itself was pretty neat, but the responsiveness was the remarkable thing; it seemed to stick to your finger as you panned or pinched.

Proponents of Intent-Based Network Modeling (IBNEMO) held two bar–Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) meetings during IETF 93 in Prague. Many people are interested in standardizing a minimal language capable of expressing intent in networking configurations and work on this topic is ongoing via various projects using the OpenDayLight platform. Our aim is to define a minimal set of commands that can cover 80 percent of the intent expressions needed in network configurations (figure 1).