Subject: [Raven] Notes from the IETF meeting discussion on wiretapping

From: Declan McCullagh <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 08:26:58 -0500

>Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 04:25:07 +0100
>To: Declan McCullagh <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>
>From: Jacob Palme <[email-masked]>
>Subject: Notes from the IETF meeting discussion on
> wiretapping
>
>Notes from the plenary discussion in the IETF meeting,
>Wednesday October 10 at 20:30 to 21:45 p.m.
>
>(This is notes of what various people said at the meeting,
>not my personal opinions unless explicitly specified.)
>
>IPV6 was not designed for wiretapping. The truth is that MEGACO
>is working on IP Telephony. Traditional voice networks tend to
>support wiretapping, Internet traditionally has not. Question:
>Should the IETF support protocol features whose use is specific
>to wiretapping? (Many functions meant for other uses can also be
>used for wiretapping, even though they were not made for that.
>It is not reasonable to exclude a useful functions just because
>they might be used for wiretapping.)
>
>The IESG (Internet Engineering Steering Group) discussed
>this, and found that this was a metaquestion, not to be
>decided by an individual working group. Instead, a mailing
>list (called RAVEN) was set up to try to get a sense of the
>community views. Since it was started in October, it has
>got 453 members and 266 messages. Two thirds of people who
>stated their views , 2/3 were opposed to wiretapping, 1/3
>abstained, only a few people favored wiretapping.
>
>Notes from the mailing list:
>
>Those who are in favor: "The IETF can ensure it is auditable",
>"We have to do it, let's do it in the IETF".
>
>Opponents: "Over my dead body", "Violates my human rights",
>"Weakens security" (can be misused by hackers).
>
>Voices heard during the discussion (many hundreds of people
>participated):
>Very emotional discussion, applause for everyone who spoke
>against wiretapping:
>
>-- "Let them do their dirty work, but do not help them."
>-- "What is meant by 'legal' wiretapping?".
>-- "Wiretapping cannot be made secure and will make protocols
>    much more complex. It can be done wrong in many ways."
>-- "How it started: the FBI went after our own, we reacted."
>-- "Meaningless set up a working group on wiretapping, we would
>    never be able to get any consensus conclusions in such a group."
>-- "Our moral ground is not as high as we like to think it is,
>    since we have invented various features which makes wiretapping
>    easy."
>-- "It is easy to do the tap, it is hard to restrict what the
>    tap can do."
>-- "There is no legal requirement on us to put wiretapping into
>    the protocols (in the U.S, may be different in other countries."
>-- "The telephone industri went through this, they tried to
>    desist, but did not succeed in doing this."
>-- "You have to explain to people the risks entailed with making
>    protocol features for wiretapping."
>-- "This cannot be done right and we do not need to do it."
>-- "Define the protocols to make it difficult to add wiretapping
>    in the future."
>-- "Laws are different in different countries, for example in
>    Sweden it is illegal to mention a person's name in an email
>    without permisson from that person - difficult to specify
>    wiretapping protocols to be right according to the law in
>    different countries." (my comment: This is true, but no one
>    obeys that silly law, and no law enforcement agency is
>    trying to uphold it.)
>-- "The core issue is if people are being wiretapped, how many,
>    how often. Today it is difficult, timeconsuming, expensive, and
>    that restricts the amount of wiretapping. If we made wiretapping
>    effortless and trivial for governments, we would risk getting
>    much more use of wiretapping."
>-- "Are you going to make it possible for anybody to do
>    wiretapping? Should we enable every intelligent high school
>    student to be able to do wiretapping?"
>-- "The law enforcement community is forcing us to make
>    unreliable networks".
>-- "It is not the task of IETF to design protocols to the needs
>    of every law in every different country."
>-- "What is going on outside the U.S.? ETSI in Europe has done a
>    lot of work in this area. ANSI has started to raise the issue in
>    international standards activities."
>-- "All internet future protocols should not be mandated to
>    contain a wireapping feature. Do not overreact, you do not have
>    to answer every question put in front of you."
>-- "Some people said 'if we cannot do this right, we should not
>    do it.' Well, thinking about what we have done in other protocol
>    design issues..." (laughter)
>-- "Equipment is more and more moved to the ends of the
>    networks, into people's homes, and end-to-end encrypted
>    communication cannot be wiretapped in the middle."
>-- "This discussion is fundamentally silly, since wiretapping is
>    the same as conference calls, and we have to design features to
>    support conference calls." (no applause)
>-- "In the U.S. a wiretap must be approved by a judge, and you
>    have to show probable cause."
>
>Question: Do we want the IETF to support special protocol
>features whose sole use is for wiretapping, which the user is
>not told about.
>
>Show of hands: About 10 % yes, 10 % abstain, 80% no.
>(I was one of the 10 % who voted yes!)
>
>About a thousand people participated in the meeting and
>participates in this show of hands.
>
>Alternative question: Should we implement features to make it
>easy for people to find out if they are wiretapped? Should we
>design features that disable wiretapping? 50 % yes, 50 %
>abstain.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Jacob Palme <[email-masked]> (Stockholm University and KTH)
>for more info see URL: http://www.dsv.su.se/jpalme/

_______________________________________________
raven mailing list
[email-masked]
http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/raven

---

From: "chefren" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 20:59:09 +0100

> >Very emotional discussion, applause for everyone who spoke

Applause, you mean ad-hoc conclusions, in a serious 
discussion? Let's see..

> >-- "Let them do their dirty work, but do not help them."

Ah, law enforcers do dirty work, of course. We should 
strongly encrypt the law as soon as possible so nobody can 
misuse it!

> >-- "What is meant by 'legal' wiretapping?".

Legal, according to a "legge", Latin/Italian for law. In 
our democracies laws are made by people who were selected 
by the people, we. So legal wiretaps are based upon the 
will of the people.

> >    much more complex. It can be done wrong in many ways."

If you start messing with existing protocols you are 
definitely on the wrong route.

What's needed is a new protocol. An auditable version of 
tcpdump.

> >-- "How it started: the FBI went after our own, we reacted."

? (Probably because of my bad English)

> >    never be able to get any consensus conclusions in such a group."

I think that if people against IPSEC would have been 
working in the "IPSEC-group" concensus wouldn't be reached 
there too. I still don't get it why all those activists are 
"busy" here. It's pretty simple to point out they cannot be 
against a "secure tcpdump" and they still start screaming 
on each mentioning of the word t.p.

> >    since we have invented various features which makes wiretapping

Nonsense I think. I't what people DO with or without 
special technology. Listening in with ears can be wrong too.

> >-- "It is easy to do the tap, it is hard to restrict what the

Nope. If you make the tapbox sealed, open architecture and 
open source, to the contrary. It will be very difficult to 
make the box doing something else than the architecture and 
programs allow.

> >    the protocols (in the U.S, may be different in other countries."

"Us" in the way of "is there anybody else besides Us". Yes there are
hundreds of milions of people with other laws and some 
fully and open democratic countries allow taps for law 
enforcement.

> >    desist, but did not succeed in doing this."

Truth. And it would be pretty bad if democratic governments 
should have to allow things under their eyes and power that 
they definitely don't want.  

> >    protocol features for wiretapping."

Yes, please tell me what's the risk of a certified, new 
restricted version of tcpdump.

> >-- "This cannot be done right and we do not need to do it."

Who's "we"? And what cannot be done right? If there are no 
needs, where was the discussion about?

> >-- "Define the protocols to make it difficult to add wiretapping

Add encryption? That's OK, encryption has nothing to do 
with it. Law enforcement is also happy with encrypted taps. 
As a matter of fact they are used to it. In their world 
"white bread" often means coke and so in. Fortunately they 
don't always need a 3d real-time representation of a crime, 
fingerprints can be enough.

> >    obeys that silly law, and no law enforcement agency is

Laws might be different but in practice it's pretty simple 
to add those options to the tapbox. If the tapbox and 
protoco's are designed well they should be elementary and 
simple and don't need much options.

> >    how often.

That's seems to be an issue for governments and not for us.

> >    Today it is difficult, timeconsuming, expensive, and
> >    effortless and trivial for governments, we would risk getting much
> >    more use of wiretapping."

Ah, economics. Where is stated that law enforcers may not 
use economics (and organized crimine may)???

> >    student to be able to do wiretapping?"

If he has an order for his boss the communication provider 
who has received a warrant: Yes it should be so simple to 
do a tap that about anybody can set one without errors.

> >-- "The law enforcement community is forcing us to make

Didn't understood or knew of thet auditable tcpdump 
proposal.

> >    of every law in every different country."

No but almost all judges in this world know about quality 
when it is about proof. An auditable version of tcpdump has 
a higher quality of proof than just tcpdump.

> >    international standards activities."

True. ETSI standard looks like "ISDN", and I Still Dont 
Need it...

> >    to answer every question put in front of you."

Agree. We only need ONE auditable tapping protocol nothing 
more and nothing less.

> >    design issues..." (laughter)

hihi...

> >    communication cannot be wiretapped in the middle."

Yes it can be tapped, and indeed it cannot be decrypted for 
use in courts because that would start a race to even 
stronger encryption.

> >    support conference calls." (no applause)

Essentially ONE feature I think.

> >    have to show probable cause."

As almost everywhere else for law enforcement I think.

> >(I was one of the 10 % who voted yes!)

Thanks!

(If I may ask, would you have voted so before the Raven 
discussion and the probably new "audited tcpdump" idea?)

> >design features that disable wiretapping? 50 % yes, 50 %

Without quantum mechanics or One Time Path I don't know 
tricks to make it "easy" for people to find out if they are 
wiretapped.

+++chefren