*MACE Conference Call*
November 15, 2004

*Attendees*

Bob Morgan (chair) - Washington
David Wasley - UCOP
Scott Cantor - OSU
Diego Lopez - RedIRIS
Brian Gilmore - Edinburgh
Jim Jokl - Virginia
Renee Frost - Michigan/Internet2
Neal McBurnett - Internet2
Ken Klingenstein - Colorado/Internet2
Ben Chinowsky (scribe) - Internet2

*Discussion*

The recent TF-EMC2 meeting included discussions of using PKI with Grid deployments, and updates on work in various European countries. Presentations are at http://www.terena.nl/tech/task-forces/tf-emc2/meetings/nov04/agenda.html. The next meeting will start on February 16 and may run for two days.

Bob reviewed developments at the DC IETF:
- An Easycert BoF was convened to consider if IETF could do anything to increase cert deployment, and decided not.
- There was also a BoF on "better-than-nothing security", focusing on the BGP use case. IPsec and IKE are recommended here, but deploying them via approved methods (pre-shared secrets) is cumbersome, so they aren't getting deployed. The BoF reached agreement to write up some profiles on using IPsec and IKE in a less-than-ideal fashion. Bob noted that this is unusual in IETF, where a more purist approach is common.
- There was a discussion of using SAML for attribute-based authorization in SIP. Scott noted that recent Internet-Drafts related to this tend to be more about reinventing SAML than using it. In order to enable use on cellphones, SIP puts a premium on compactness.

Ken has notified the Open Source Summit organizers that no MACE members are able to attend.

NMI-R6 is planned for December. Grouper will be included; Signet will not, though there will be information on getting access to a demo version. The Authentication Roadmap and a PERMIS access control module for Shibboleth may be done in time. There will be no Grid release in this version.

Ken noted that the Internet2 Applications Strategy Council has chartered a new advisory group for real-time communications. Called RTC3, this group will operate on the MACE model, providing oversight and direction for a variety of projects such as the Internet2 Commons and the PIC and VoIP working groups. RTC3 will not be limited to middleware issues, and will not be taking over groups like VidMid-VC and I2IM which focus on the middleware aspects of real-time communications. However, it will be working with these groups, and some overlap of MACE and RTC3 membership is expected.

Finally the group reviewed recent and planned changes to MACE membership. Lynn McRae has replace Bruce Vincent as the member from Stanford. Ken is looking for MACE liaisons from the UK and Australia; he noted that there is also increasing middleware activity in France. Ken and Bob are hoping to finalize the current round of membership changes by the end of this year.