[ih] Security issues are not discussed in this memo [was: A revolution...]

[Greg Skinner]

On May 10, 2026, at 9:31 PM, Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On 11-May-26 12:09, Greg Skinner via Internet-history wrote:
> ...
>> I’m not sure what Andrew Sullivan meant by “give away.” IMO, the USG had a much more liberal attitude towards 1970s and 1980s Internet technology, as well as the Internet itself, than it did towards cryptographic technology at that time.  The history of PGP <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy> provides an example of this.  If the Internet and/or Internet technology had been subject to tighter access and export controls, neither might have (as easily) become what they are today.  (I realize there is a lot more to this, and would welcome others who have much more experience than I do in this area to comment.)
> 
> When did people start to think seriously about security (which is much more than cryptography, of course)?
> 
> It was RFC 1311 (March 1992) that introduced the infamous phrase "Security issues are not discussed in this memo" which was used quite liberally for a long time. "Security Considerations" sections in RFCs seem have become normal around 1989, but most of them were very weak for many years. (At CERN, we saw elementary attacks from about 1986, mainly via DECNET, and we first appointed a network security person in about 1988.)
> 
> Of course, by the time the PGP mess came along, it was clear that NSA and its friends were taking a lot of interest in the Internet, and we poked the hornet's nest in the mid-1990s with RFC 1984. But DARPA funding was gone by then.
> 
> Regards/Ngā mihi
>   Brian Carpenter

From what I remember, there were various mailing lists and newsgroups dating back (at least) to the 1980s where security issues were discussed.  One list, the RISKS digest, is maintained by Peter Neumann <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_G._Neumann>, who was mentioned earlier in this thread.

When the Morris worm was released in November 1988, it sparked a lot of discussion on many lists, such as the RISKS digest. [1] [2] Eventually, RFC 1135 was written about it. [3] IMO, that incident raised consciousness about security among IETF people, implementors of network protocols and services, etc.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_worm
[2] https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/risks/7/69
[3] https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1135

--gregbo