Subject: [105attendees] (re. plenary) measuring privacy, trusting devices and verifiability

From: David Lamparter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:40:51 +0200

Hi all,
(enter den of the lion)

I find this discussion about measuring privacy, IoT devices and
end-to-end encryption mildly hilarious and somewhat alarming.

The /only/ situation where I will trust (and recommend others to trust)
any device is when I have the ability to build and compare the code that
runs on it.  I normally would want to be able to change it too, but
comparing is enough.  We have reproducible builds these days, so we can
even compare the resulting binary.

And this goes all the way down to the hardware.  I'm only going to trust
it if I can look at the design and compare it, even if that means
slicing open the chip.

It's not about billions of people each doing this.  It's enough that
it's possible to do; a few people will do it and publish their results,
and by random statistical sampling each of the billions of people can
look at the maybe 10 people who did it, and make their *individual*
decision to trust or not.

In most cases this means open source, you can get into a discussion
about signed binaries / inability to modify here, but it doesn't matter
as the point relevant here is verifiability.

And with that in mind, the only question I ponder is "what's the time
span to FOSS availability on <buzzword>."  If you want to throw your
data around, be my guest and join the hype train on whatever is the
thing du jour.  Trying to make a privacy statement about smart toilet
paper with closed source firmware is building on sand.  You may have a
good grasp on the sheet you wiped your a** with, but the next one's
gonna send your data to the Martian intelligence agency.

So, should we make allowances in things like TLS for the user to break
them to do a privacy analysis?

*HELL NO.*

The thing to break (into) is the devices.  Not our protocols.

Cheers,

-David

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From: Robert Moskowitz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2019 18:51:02 -0400

Caveat.

You no longer have control of the IoT in your life.

Utility smart meters
Cars

for starters.

You want water efficient washers?  Buy NOW before they all are connected 
IoT.
Do you use heating oil?  Select your provider carefully.  They are 
putting IoT in your fuel tank.

I know things about that AMI on my electric line.  I could have opted 
out, maybe.

-- 
Standard Robert Moskowitz
Owner
HTT Consulting
C:248-219-2059
F:248-968-2824
E:[email-masked]

There's no limit to what can be accomplished if it doesn't matter who 
gets the credit

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From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2019 18:58:47 -0400

On Jul 24, 2019, at 6:40 PM, David Lamparter <[email-masked]> wrote:
> runs on it.

That’s great for you, but impractical for the average person.   The average person either has to just hope for the best, or has to pay someone who offers to provide this (what you do on your own) as a service.   There are lots of options for this—I believe it is how Canonical and Red Hat pay the bills.

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From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2019 06:18:31 -0400

How do you know you switched it off?  :)

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jul 25, 2019, at 1:31 AM, Tobias Muhanguzi <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> To a user, not tech person...the ability for me to switch off what i
> don't understand, or not fully convinced of feature on a device is
> power, and measure of security confidence...
> 
>> On 7/25/19, Ted Lemon <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> That’s great for you, but impractical for the average person.   The average
>> person either has to just hope for the best, or has to pay someone who
>> offers to provide this (what you do on your own) as a service.   There are
>> lots of options for this—I believe it is how Canonical and Red Hat pay the
>> bills.
>> 
>> 
>>

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From: Robert Moskowitz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2019 06:24:55 -0400

In some cases you can have it join an SSID that has no Internet access.  
Only Intranet.  But how many consumers know how to set up multiple SSIDs 
and what gateways support this and can you trust THEM?

This is fundamentally a no-win situation.  It is really a waste of 
braincells to even think of technical solutions.

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From: Robert Moskowitz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2019 06:31:31 -0400

https://us.cnn.com/2019/07/24/tech/nyc-cellphone-location-data-sale-ban/index.html

On 7/25/19 1:26 AM, Tobias Muhanguzi wrote:
> When it comes to security in IoT, consumers should have an opt out
> switch, and on top of that, security in design should be priority, we
> can't avoid the future, more so IoT
> ...@Richard
>
> On 7/25/19, Robert Moskowitz <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> Caveat.
>>

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From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2019 16:08:06 +0200

I would love if the IETF would think about what could be done
to empower users to audit what devices are communicating. I
very much liked how he presentation today pointed that out.

I think the way "privacy" is presented without context is as
misleading as presenting "trust" without context. IMHO, the
way encryption via e.g.: TLS is used today is mostly successful
because it protects the privacy of often questionable, exploitative
business model. But its sold as if it primarily exists because of
end user privacy. If more users understand this distinction,
maybe transparency could become as big a requirement as privacy
is made to be.

You should sart analyzing behavior of peace makers. Friend who is
also frusted about bad working software with undocumented interfaces
and data m

On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 12:40:51AM +0200, David Lamparter wrote:
> 105attendees mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/105attendees

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