User Services Area Director: o Joyce Reynolds: jkrey@isi.edu Area Summary reported by Joyce Reyolds/Information Sciences Institute Two BOFs and ten active working groups in the User Services Area of the IETF met in Seattle, Washington. Distribution and Announcement BOF (DAWG) The Distribution and Announcement BOF (DAWG) met to consider how effectively the output of the User Services Area reaches its intended audience. The goal was to determine if sufficient information was getting to Interet users, especially new Internet users. If that goal was not being met, the group would try to find new avenues for reaching the users. It was determined that the goal is indeed being met. With the various archive retrieval services (e.g., Gopher, WWW), documents are easily obtainable over the Internet. The many books now available reach the new user audience quite well. No further work needs to be done in this area. Telecommuting BOF (TELEWORK) The Telework BOF met to discuss telework and the technologies which could enable more widespread choice of work locations and times. Projections by a recent DOE/DOT study suggests that the telecommuting population within the US will grow by one million people a year through the year 2000, and two million a year thereafter. The hope of the BOF was that Internet-style technology could enable a more rapid exponential growth, and thus promote a better set of work alternatives for everyone. Most of the discussion centered on the experience of people in the computer and networking industry, and the need for support for others. Integrated Directory Services Working Group (IDS) The IDS Working Group is chartered to facilitate the integration and interoperability of current and future directory services into a unified directory service. This work will unite directory services based on a heterogeneous set of directory services protocols (X.500, WHOIS++, etc.). In addition to specifying technical requirements for the integration, IDS will also contribute to the administrative and maintenance issues of directory service offerings by publishing guidelines on directory data integrity, maintenance, security, and privacy and legal issues for users and administrators of directories. FYI 11, RFC 1292 is out but needs to be substantially revised as it refers to documents as Proposed Standards which are not. Sri Sataluri has volunteered to help Barbara Jennings on the Directory Data Management in the US paper. Erik Huizer's papers on ``Privacy Laws in Europe'' and ``Overview of Data Protection Policies'' will be sent out very soon, and a new paper on a ``Code of Conduct for Directory Services on the Internet'' needs to be produced; a team has been assembled to do that. Marco Hernandez's paper on an ``Overview of Directory Services'' may be similar to other efforts, and the User Services Area should review it. The WHOIS++ implementation catalog is not out yet but will be by 1 July. The X.500 pilot project catalog will be put into RFC form by Allen Cargille and Linda Millington. IDS's charter will be revised to reflect its new role in the White Pages Directorate; the group will be dissolved and will reform under a new name; Tim Howes and Chris Weider will revise the charter. The new group will deal with data management policy, legal issues, and protocol independent quality issues. Integration of Internet Information Resources Working Group (IIIR) IIIR is chartered to facilitate interoperability between Internet information services, and to develop, specify, and align protocols designed to integrate the plethora of Internet information services (WAIS, archie, Prospero, etc.) into a single ``virtually unified information service.'' The vision paper and transponder paper by Chris Weider will be modified as recommended in Houston and submitted as RFC material in the next several weeks. The Z39.50 paper is also ready to go and will be submitted. The WAIS and Z39.50 protocol paper will be submitted as an Informational RFC and a new version detailing how WAIS uses the 1993 version of Z39.50 will be submitted before Toronto. Gopher+ will also be submitted as an Internet-Draft in the next month or so. The Format Types registry list has been set up. HTML and HTTP will both be resubmitted as Internet-Drafts on their way to Informational RFCs. Karen Sollins gave a presentation on the general architecture work that had been done by a small architecture group; they will write something up and submit it as soon as possible. The quality assurance work will be spun off into a separate working group. The charter will be revised to reflect the new work on architecture and will get rid of the ``Query Routing Protocol'' work. Internet School Networking Working Group (ISN) The ISN Working Group is chartered to facilitate the connection of the United States' K-12 (Kindergarten through twelfth grade) schools, public and private, to the Internet, and school networking in general. Joyce Reynolds reviewed the charter and summarized milestones for March and July 1994. Activities are on time for this and the next IETF. FYI 22, RFC 1578 on ``FYI on Questions and Answers -- Answers to Commonly Asked `Primary and Secondary School Internet User' Questions,'' and the Internet-Draft on ``K-12 Internetworking Guidelines'' were published. Status reports were given on the ISN tasks of ``Define the information to be included in an on-line database of educational people involved in networking, recommend a process for collecting and updating the data, and coordinate with a directory services provider to implement the database,'' and ``write a set of two documents, one aimed at connection providers and the other aimed at educational sites, providing guidelines for bringing educational sites on-line. Included will be a broad definition of connection providers.'' Bill Manning presented the Acceptable Use Policies (AUP) draft document that Don Perkins and he had developed and circulated on the isn-wg mailing list. It was published as an Internet-Draft on 5 April (draft-ietf-isn-aup-00.txt). Gene Hastings presented a document authored by himself and Bob Carlitz, ``Stages of Internet Connectivity for School Networking,'' and distributed copies. The group agreed that the document should be put on-line as an Internet-Draft. Gene Hastings and Joyce Reynolds will work on getting author approval, etc., and to proceed to publish this document as an Internet-Draft. There was a discussion of the Gargano-Wasley Internet-Draft. It was agreed by the working group that the document would be submitted for FYI RFC publication. The Network Information Services Infrastructure Working Group (NISI) NISI is exploring the requirements for common, shared Internet-wide network information services. The goal is to develop an understanding for what is required to implement an information services ``infrastructure'' for the Internet. The NISI Working Group met and enjoyed a record number of participants. There were many non-US participants, and participants from a wide variety of organizations. Pat Smith is stepping down as co-chair of NISI due to increasing responsibilities at Merit, which leave her less time for co-chairing. Her leadership has been greatly appreciated and will be sorely missed. Thank you, Pat. Debbie Hamilton of the DS InterNIC reported on the transition of the NIC profile information listing points of contact for approximately 75 NICs from an X.500 database at Merit to a site provided by the InterNIC. Some discussion took place regarding the preferred format and access methods for the information, and volunteers for helping to flesh out presentation and updating were taken. The ever-pending ``NIC Relationships'' document was deemed too complicated and perspective-specific to be worth any more effort and the group voted to kill it. Some discussion took place regarding the submitted document, ``Network Information Center Guidelines'' and whether it fulfilled the goal of updating RFC 1302. Consensus was that it was worth being published as an Informational RFC, but the question of whether it updated RFC 1302 was moot since no one else was going to update RFC 1302 anyway. This question will be taken up between the chair and the area director. The group finished up with an interesting discussion of outreach and trying to define user needs (customer needs assessment). It was decided to try to actually telephone contacts in the NIC Profiles list, which would have the double advantage of working on updating the information and finding out if there were any needs NISI should be addressing. Volunteers were recruited to do the calling and, first, to figure out what we'd like to know. This effort will form the basis of deciding future NISI tasks, if any. Network Training Materials Working Group (TRAINMAT) The Network Training Materials Working Group is chartered to enable the research community to make better use of networked services. Towards this end, the working group will work to provide a comprehensive package of ``mix and match'' training materials for the broad academic community which will: 1) enable user support staff to train users to use networked services and 2) provide users with self-paced learning material. In the first instance, it will not deal with operational training. This working group is the IETF component of a joint RARE/IETF group working on network training materials. o The Catalog of Network Training Materials Margaret Isaacs produced a catalog of training materials at Newcastle. Those catalog entries were mapped into the ``trainmat'' templates. At the last IETF, several fields of the template were revised. The information needs to be updated. A list of entries was circulated around the room so volunteers could sign up to complete the remaining entries. The target date for completion is one month after the revised template is sent out. o Review of Available Materials Where are the gaps? Information is needed about PPP/SLIP for Mac/PC platforms: installation information, and information on why a direct connection is needed (and what is a direct connection versus asynchronous serial connection). Information is also needed about installation of the different servers (Gopher, WAIS, Mosaic, etc.); tips about configuration/menu setup/etc. would also be helpful. o Using the Network to Deliver Training Some would like to experiment with using MBone/multicasting to deliver video training. Insufficient quality is a concern (current frame rate is around 5-10 frames per second), as is the need for high-end equipment to receive the broadcast, and time zone differences. Networked Information Retrieval Working Group (NIR) NIR is chartered to increase the useful base of information about networked information retrieval tools, their developers, interested organizations, and other activities that relate to the production, dissemination, and support of NIR tools. NIR is a cooperative effort of the IETF, RARE, and CNI. This meeting represented the last for the NIR Working Group. The current status of CNIDR and RARE was briefly discussed. The group decided to cancel further development of an NIR tool checklist based on the fact that it would provide very little informational return. The approximately 200 page NIR report has been individually reviewed, compiled, and formatted as an RFC and sent up to the area director for review and submission as an RFC. A discussion of information service quality issues rounded out the meeting with a commitment to continue the work in IIIR and possibly to spin off a new group if so desired by interested parties. Uniform Resource Identifiers Working Group (URI) URI is chartered to define a set of standards for the encoding of system independent resource location and identification information for the use of Internet information services. In short, the URI group came, saw, cowered, then conquered. Consensus was reached on URLs. The current URL draft will be reposted as an Internet-Draft, to be followed by the same document with the minor changes agreed upon by the group. That document will then be wordsmithed to bring it into conformance with accepted Internet-Draft requirements. URNs are well on their way to acceptance, with some minor issues regarding naming authority tags to be resolved. This could well occur on the list before the next IETF. The functional requirements list being developed in parallel is being discussed on the list, and some minor changes are in order. The group began preliminary discussions over the functional requirements of URCs, with several conformant drafts being prepared at the end of the IETF. User Documents Revisions Working Group (USERDOC2) The USERDOC2 Working Group is preparing a revised bibliography of on-line and hard copy documents, reference materials, and training tools addressing general networking information and how to use the Internet. The target audience includes those individuals who provide services to end users and end users themselves. A revision of FYI 3 was distributed, and was generally approved by the group with some minor revisions. As soon as FYI 3 is completed, a revision of the short bibliography for novices, FYI 19, will be developed as well to reflect the many new sources of material that have become available since last year. The goal is to have FYI 19 revised and completed by the next IETF. The future of the working group, already raised in the earlier USWG session, was again discussed. Plans are to conclude the USERDOC2 Working Group after the next IETF, when both FYIs 3 and 19 will be completed. User Services Working Group (USWG) The USWG provides a regular forum for people interested in all user services to identify and initiate projects designed to improve the quality of information available to end-users of the Internet. A report was given on IETF User Services Area activities, including working groups coming to closure and new working groups starting up, new publications, and current user services related Internet-Drafts postings. A short review of a proposed draft, ``A Primer on Internet and TCP/IP Tools,'' was conducted. Scott Williamson and Mark Kosters gave a slide presentation on Referral WHOIS Protocol (RWHOIS). The proposed protocol development of RWHOIS will be nested in Tim Howes' Access and Synchronization of the Internet Directory Working Group (ASID), and functionality, requirements, document developments, etc., in the User Services Area. Joyce K. Reynolds was renominated to serve on the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) as User Services Area Director for the next two years. Joyce opened the rest of the session to discussion and focus of where USWG and the User Services Area would like to proceed in the next two years. WHOIS and Network Information Lookup Service Working Group (WNILS) The purpose of WNILS is to expand and define the standard for WHOIS services, to resolve issues associated with the variations in access, and to promote a consistent and predictable service across the network. Two of the WHOIS++ Internet-Drafts are ready for submission as RFCs with Proposed Standard status, ``Recommended Modifications to the WHOIS Protocol,'' and ``The Distributed WHOIS++ model - Centroids.'' The WHOIS++ architecture paper by Peter Deutsch has been updated by Rickard Stoultz and Timothy Patrik. Rickard and Timothy provided an overview of the revisions they made to the WHOIS++ architecture document based upon implementation experience. They reported that they have five WHOIS++ servers with centroids running in Sweden. Discussion related to closing down WNILS will occur via electronic mail and should be completed by the next IETF meeting.