[Ndn-interest] NDN protocol principles: no privacy?

[Mark Stapp]

Hi Gene,
Absolutely - I don't think there's a three- or ten-word "definition" 
that I've seen. but I do think it would be a valuable principle - in the 
sense of a high-level goal or fundamental basis for evaluating 
alternatives. RFC 6973 takes a nice approach, for example, by offering 
definitions of some technical properties and mechanisms, but not trying 
to formulate an overall definition of "privacy". The editors there say 
that the body of the document, the discussion of the tradeoffs and 
alternatives, is the best way they could come up with to approach that 
abstraction. in practical terms, as you know well I think there's been 
an over-reliance on opportunistic caching in ICN generally, and as a 
result observability and correlation are defined to be positive 
properties of ICN communication rather than harmful ones.

I think I understand your beauty-pageant analogy - but I don't agree 
that it applies. It would have been different (to me, anyway) if there 
had been a 'principle', even it had been vague or anodyne. I really felt 
that it was worth commenting when there was no statement whatsoever - 
that felt like a real gap (again, to me).

most of these six "principles" sounded like "mechanisms" to me - the 
list felt like the end of a discussion about alternatives and the best 
ways to implement an architecture, rather than the start of one. it 
sounded like "we're tired of questions about LPM in the PIT, so we're 
going to stop calling that a possible mechanism and start calling it an 
inevitable, immutable, unquestionable 'principle'".

Thanks,
Mark

On 3/12/16 5:30 PM, GTS wrote:
> Hi Mark,
>
> I'm a huge fan of privacy and a lot of my research privacy-related.
> But, I can't define "privacy". I wonder if anyone can do it precisely
> and succinctly?
> Might be because it's an amorphous and fluid notion.
>
> Perhaps if NDN folks were to include *privacy* as one of their guiding
> principles,
> it'd be like a stereotypical beauty pageant contestant who,
> when asked about her (or his?) ideals, comes up with something
> like: "Peace on Earth"?
> :-)
>
> On a less serious note, whenever I see things like codified "principles"
> (a notion similar to "commandments"), I can't help but think of a new
> ideology
> or a new cult being started.
>
> Cheers,
> Gene
>