Dear BACnet-IT-WG and SSPC 135,

I am considering holding a special interim meeting of the BACnet IT-WG on September 9-10.  The location would be Boston or San Jose.  The meeting would focus on several key topics related to making BACnet become more IT friendly.

As an alternative to having a special interim meeting, I am considering scheduling a series of long (1.5-2.0 hour) teleconferences that would each focus on a single topic.  Those teleconferences would be held in September and October, probably starting at 11:00 a.m. Eastern in order to allow people in Europe and Central Asia to participate.

If you have an interest in participating in either a meeting on September 9-10 or a sequence of teleconferences, please respond to me along the following lines:

- If there is an IT-WG meeting on September 9-10, I would like to attend.  The location I prefer is (Boston or San Jose).

- If there are IT-WG teleconferences in September and October, I would like to participate.  The best days of the week for me are …

Thanks,

- Jim Butler

 

Dear BACnet-IT-WG and SSPC 135,

 

I am considering holding a special interim meeting of the BACnet IT-WG on September 9-10.  The location would be Boston or San Jose.  The meeting would focus on several key topics related to making BACnet become more IT friendly.

 

As an alternative to having a special interim meeting, I am considering scheduling a series of long (1.5-2.0 hour) teleconferences that would each focus on a single topic.  Those teleconferences would be held in September and October, probably starting at 11:00 a.m. Eastern in order to allow people in Europe and Central Asia to participate.

 

If you have an interest in participating in either a meeting on September 9-10 or a sequence of teleconferences, please respond to me along the following lines:

 

- If there is an IT-WG meeting on September 9-10, I would like to attend.  The location I prefer is (Boston or San Jose).

- If there are IT-WG teleconferences in September and October, I would like to participate.  The best days of the week for me are …

 

Thanks,

 

- Jim Butler

Hi Jim,

The dates are fine. San Jose would be my preference.

Since Suresh is on vacation (and without email), I am also including
his repsonse -

San Jose would be his preference and the dates work for him too.

For a teleconference, either of us can mostly make any date given
sufficient notice.

Regards,
Chandra.

On Fri, Aug 06, 2010 at 03:49:38PM +0000, James F. Butler wrote:
> Dear BACnet-IT-WG and SSPC 135,
>
> I am considering holding a special interim meeting of the BACnet IT-WG on
September 9-10.  The location would be Boston or San Jose.  The meeting would
focus on several key topics related to making BACnet become more IT friendly.
>
> As an alternative to having a special interim meeting, I am considering
scheduling a series of long (1.5-2.0 hour) teleconferences that would each focus
on a single topic.  Those teleconferences would be held in September and
October, probably starting at 11:00 a.m. Eastern in order to allow people in
Europe and Central Asia to participate.
>
> If you have an interest in participating in either a meeting on September 9-10
or a sequence of teleconferences, please respond to me along the following
lines:
>
> - If there is an IT-WG meeting on September 9-10, I would like to attend.  The
location I prefer is (Boston or San Jose).
> - If there are IT-WG teleconferences in September and October, I would like to
participate.  The best days of the week for me are ...
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Jim Butler

I am out of the office until 09/21/2010.

Gone fishing, will respond when I return.


Note: This is an automated response to your message  "[bacnet-it-wg] RE:
IT-WG teleconference - save the date/time" sent on 9/16/2010 1:24:40 PM.

This is the only notification you will receive while this person is away.

• BACnet/WS supports a hierarchy of devices (at one address)
• You can drill down in BACnet/WS and learn/discover all the devices and all their data (doable with some effort now in BACnet/WS, better in BACnet/XML and DR-035-11 RESTful WS extensions)
  
• A stated use-case in the introduction of BACnet/XML says "An export format for tools and workstations to export or publish their knowledge of the arrangement and configuration of a device or a complete system of devices and networks."

• "Cuts through the Gordian Knot of BBMD/Virtual Router/Multiport complexity/misunderstandings/issues with a simple IT-friendly solution"
• "Reduces integrator configuration time (and errors) by automating the BACnet device configuration process"
  

Ouch!  My bad.  I'm so used to addressing BACnet emails to Frank S....   SORRY
CHARLES!  (my own father's name!)

Dave now-I-owe-two-rounds Robin


On Sep 23, 2010, at 11:25 AM, Chandrashekhar Appanna wrote:

> s/Frank/Charles :)
>
> Regards,
> Chandra.
>
> ----- Forwarded message from Dave Robin <yahoo@...> -----
>
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>> To: bacnet-it-wg@yahoogroups.com
>> From: Dave Robin <yahoo@...>
>> Mailing-List: list bacnet-it-wg@yahoogroups.com; contact
bacnet-it-wg-owner@yahoogroups.com
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>> Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 11:18:36 -0400
>> Subject: [bacnet-it-wg] What was all that back there?
>> Reply-To: bacnet-it-wg@yahoogroups.com
>>
>> BACnet-IT folks,
>>
>> As is so often the case when two people vary familiar with a topic seem to be
arguing about a fundamental issue, there is some kind of reference point
difference at work.  I believe that was all there was to my disagreement with
Frank on the call yesterday.
>>
>> Ironically, this isn't an argument about TLS at all.  But that was actually
the source of my concern.  I thought it was being portrayed that "TLS", or the
"use of certificates" automatically supported the feature of  "if one is
compromised, only that one is compromised", and that is what I objected to
because of possible deployment scenarios where that isn't actually the case.
>>
>> The thing to separate here (that wasn't made clear in our discussion, hence
the problems), is that the "acceptance" of a certificate is not done by TLS at
all.  TLS merely establishes the tunnel and then hands whatever client
certificate it received to the server *application*.  This is why the acceptance
criteria, the depth to follow the signing chain, the collection of root
certificates, etc.,  is all done by your web server or your email *application*,
not by the TLS code (you don't give a new root certificate to Windows, you give
it to IE or Firefox).  For example, it's application code in the browser that
checks whether the server's CN equals the URL, and application code in the
server that checks whether the client's OU has rights to a resource, etc.
>>
>> So, in other words, it's up to us, the BACnet *application* as to what to do
with these certificates, and since that hasn't been invented yet... Frank and I
were happily arguing from different perspectives over something that doesn't
exist!  And that's a lot more fun to do over a beer.
>>
>> The scenario I had in mind is where a large number of mobile clients are
deployed.  Having to create a unique certificate for every device was not
desirable to the deployer since the certificate alone was not sufficient for
authentication, anyway.  A unique client certificate might identify a client
account on a machine, but couldn't actually identify the person at the keyboard.
So, if additional identification (username/password/RSAtoken) was needed
*anyway*, what's the point of managing unique certificates for every device? So,
"wildcard" certificates were used that only identified the organization
information and not the CN.  Thus, the server knew that it was "one of the
family" but didn't know exactly which one.  In this case, automated processes
running on those devices (without that extra human involvement), could
impersonate each other if one was compromised.
>>
>> The above is very similar to what was done for the GNA key in Addendum g. 
Certain non-human processes needed simple "one of the family" security to talk
to each other and so the "General Network Access" key was created for those
basic operations.  Cracking one of those devices would thus allow the attacker
to look like "one of the family", and since there's no additional human input,
some basic operations could be performed.  So this is why the "Application
Specific" keys were created to allow specific entities within the device to talk
more securely to each other. Thus creating circles of trust.
>>
>> To put that division of Addendum g keys into the client certificate scenario
above, it may be that the user has two or more client certificates: the common
one for general company (or military base) web server access and a very specific
one used by a separate client application for access to a highly secured server
application (maybe not web-based at all).  Again, it's the *application's*
choice as to which certificate to use, how to interpret it, and thus what to
"accept" for a given use case.
>>
>> So, certificates are great, but they are also very flexible.  It's up to us,
the BACnet application entity that we are creating, to use them wisely.
>>
>> Thanks for a great discussion.  And my apologies for any misunderstandings. 
Next round's on me.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----