Re: [cti] Agenda for Today's Working Call - 3/6/2018

[Mark Davidson <Mark.Davidson@nc4.com>]

Here are the notes from today’s call.

 

The call began by articulating and re-affirming goals for STIX 2.1:

STIX 2.1 will be a strong technical specification that contributes to improving the defensive posture of organizations and institutions that support our societies by:

 

1.       Promoting interoperability along key features, such as internationalization, malware, CoA, etc.

2.       Permitting rapid feature iteration, for instance by creating an extension process, so that we can adapt to the evolving threat landscape

3.       Including necessary backward breaking changes

4.       Enabling broad marketplace adoption

5.       Minimizing backward breaking changes for new work, through meeting the TC-approved “definition of done”

 

We also identified, for the purposes of the call, some terms to use when describing the status of issues:

1.       TODO – The TC generally believes the feature is valuable, but has not started work

2.       In Progress – The TC is under active deliberation to define a feature

3.       Text Complete – The TC agrees on the text for a feature, and is ready to begin validating it through software implementations

4.       In Test – The TC is in the process of validating that the feature works in software

5.       Done – The feature is complete

 

After some deliberation, the perspective on the call identified that the critical question facing the TC is:

How do we enable rapid implementation of features that are already text complete without committing ourselves to untested text?

 

This is the question that, if left unanswered, will stall development of the STIX/TAXII 2.1 specifications indefinitely. Call participants were able to brainstorm some proposals, along with the common objections that have been raised. Most notably, I believe we need to find an answer to the critical question and move forward with specification development, even if the answer has known flaws. As a group, we must find a way to move forward.

 

The answers brainstormed on the call (and shortly after in slack), along with their known objections, are:

1. Use version number on individual STIX objects, i.e., stix2.1-csd01
   • This potentially introduces an explosion of version numbers, resulting in interoperability issues
2. Use version numbers in the MIME type, i.e., application/stix+json; version=2.1-csd01
   • Multiple objections have been raised in various conversations, including slack, email, and GitHub
3. Do not make any special distinction for individual drafts
   • Objections relate to non-interoperability across draft versions
4. Create an extension mechanism and use that
   • Objections largely center around wanting to make sure key capabilities are in STIX 2.1
5. Create a new STIX 2.0 CSD-03 that includes the changes in spec necessary for extensions going forward. This CSD would then be used as the basis for all 2.1 objects to be added using extensions in a 2.1CSD01

 

The CTI TC’s must deliberate and select an answer to the critical question, and must proceed in unison once an answer is selected. Please debate the value of the various solutions, and continue to propose new ones.

 

Thank you.

-Mark

 

From: <cti@lists.oasis-open.org> on behalf of Mark Davidson <Mark.Davidson@nc4.com>
Date: Tuesday, March 6, 2018 at 12:08 PM
To: "cti@lists.oasis-open.org" <cti@lists.oasis-open.org>
Subject: [cti] Agenda for Today's Working Call - 3/6/2018

 

All,

 

The past week has generated a lot of discussion and varying perspectives on how best to proceed with development of STIX/TAXII 2.1. While there is general agreement on the goals for STIX/TAXII 2.1, the implementation of these goals has uncovered some vigorously debated tradeoffs that warrant further discussion.

 

On today’s working call we will:

1.      Articulate and re-affirm the goals for STIX/TAXII 2.1

2.      Clearly identify the tradeoffs identified through goal implementation and discuss them constructively

3.      Consider a proposed solution for moving forward

4.      Arrive at a concrete proposal that we can use for the duration of STIX/TAXII 2.1 development

 

Thank you.

Mark Davidson | Engineering

Mark.Davidson@nc4.com

NC4 Soltra 
1225 S. Clark Street, Suite 1103 
Arlington, VA 22202 
www.soltra.com

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