[ih] Very early days of the IANA

[Craig Partridge]

> I have some memories to contribute that go back a bit further.
> 
> There was an ad-hoc discussion at a speaker's meal (no idea if it was
> breakfast or lunch) at an Interop in San Jose (sorry, don't remember which
> one, but it was one of the first ones), and IIRC I think the participants
> included me, Craig Patridge (definitely), Phill Gross (likely), Vint
> (possibly) and Scott Bradner (possibly). The topic was how to get
> manufacturers to actually fix security bugs, and we discussed the
> possibility of using liability issues to light a fire under them. (As in,
> the manufacturer is notified of a bug, they don't move expeditiously to
> fix it, someone suffers losses as a result of a breakin which uses it,
> then the manufacturer might be liable for losses as a result.)
> 
> I had an existing relationship with someone at the Washington office of
> Hale and Dorr (at that point, the law firm I was using) whose name I
> cannot remember since I'm tired (I can trivially look it up if it's
> important), which I had formed through using them to put together a
> sentencing memo for the court in the RTM 'worm' case. I volunteered to
> have them look into the issue.
> 
> Hale and Dorr promptly produced a fairly good-sized tome (which I can
> probably locate a copy of, if it's important) on liability issues, and
> they then raised the issue of _standards body_ liability. It was a kind of
> 'good news - bad news' thing, in that standards body members (especially
> of an ad-hoc group like the IETF) as individuals _could_ be liable... but
> there were some fairly easy steps we could take (and there's a famous case
> involving, IIRC, boiler-making standards to set precedent) to make us
> pretty immune. (Not against a suit being filed, since you can't stop that,
> but against losing such a suit.)
> 
> This was all revealed to a group of us (including me, Vint (pretty
> definitely), Scott Bradner (possibly), and a few others) at the Washington
> offices of Hale and Dorr. The notion that we all could be personally
> liable was something of a shock - I remember fairly vividly the expression
> on Vint's face, and his verbal reaction, when that sunk in!

I remember being in that room in DC.

As I recall the meeting actually had two parts.  There was still some
discussion of the RTM case (sentencing was to happen soon) and the
liability discussion.  Scott B. and I had to recuse ourselves from the
RTM discussion (as we were friends of RTM).  Robert was sentenced in May
of 1990 (according to the New York Times) so the meeting had to be at least
several weeks before.

Thanks!

Craig