Subject: Fwd: W3C/IAB workshop on Strengthening the Internet Against Pervasive Monitoring (STRINT)

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2014 13:55:31 +0000

Folks, submissions are starting to roll in so this is
a reminder to send yours by Jan 15. We'll be posting
more logistics next week(-ish) as well in case you're
wondering.

Thanks,
S.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: W3C/IAB workshop on Strengthening the Internet Against
Pervasive Monitoring (STRINT)
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2013 10:48:15 -0500
From: IAB Chair <[email-masked]>
To: IETF Announce <[email-masked]>
CC: IAB <[email-masked]>, IETF <[email-masked]>

W3C/IAB workshop on Strengthening the Internet
Against Pervasive Monitoring (STRINT)
======================================

Logistics/Dates:

Submissions due: Jan 15 2014
Invitations issued: Jan 31 2014
Workshop Date: Feb 28 (pm) & Mar 1 (am) 2014
	To be Confirmed - could be all day Mar 1
Location: Central London, UK. IETF Hotel or nearby (TBC)
For queries, contact: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Send submissions to: [email-masked]
Workshop web site: http://www.w3.org/2014/strint/

The Vancouver IETF plenary concluded that pervasive monitoring
represents an attack on the Internet, and the IETF has begun to
carry out various of the more obvious actions [1] required to
try to handle this attack. However, there are additional much
more complex questions arising that need further consideration
before any additional concrete plans can be made.

The W3C and IAB will therefore host a one-day workshop on the
topic of "Strengthening the Internet Against Pervasive
Monitoring" before IETF-89 in London in March 2014, with support
from the EU FP7 STREWS [2] project.

Pervasive monitoring targets protocol data that we also need for
network manageability and security. This data is captured and
correlated with other data. There is an open problem as to how
to enhance protocols so as to maintain network manageability and
security but still limit data capture and correlation.

The overall goal of the workshop is to steer IETF and W3C work
so as to be able to improve or "strengthen" the Internet in the
face of pervasive monitoring.  A workshop report in the form of
an IAB RFC will be produced after the event.

Technical questions for the workshop include:

- What are the pervasive monitoring threat models, and what is
  their effect on web and Internet protocol security and privacy?
- What is needed so that web developers can better consider the
  pervasive monitoring context?
- How are WebRTC and IoT impacted, and how can they be better
  protected? Are other key Internet and web technologies
  potentially impacted?
- What gaps exist in current tool sets and operational best
  practices that could address some of these potential impacts?
- What trade-offs exist between strengthening measures, (e.g.
  more encryption) and performance, operational or network
  management issues?
- How do we guard against pervasive monitoring while maintaining
  network manageability?
- Can lower layer changes (e.g., to IPv6, LISP, MPLS) or
  additions to overlay networks help?
- How realistic is it to not be fingerprintable on the web and
  Internet?
- How can W3C, the IETF and the IRTF better deal with new
  cryptographic algorithm proposals in future?
- What are the practical benefits and limits of "opportunistic
  encryption"?
- Can we deploy end-to-end crypto for email, SIP, the web, all
  TCP applications or other applications so that we mitigate
  pervasive monitoring usefully?
- How might pervasive monitoring take form or be addressed in
  embedded systems or different industrial verticals?
- How do we reconcile caching, proxies and other intermediaries
  with end-to-end encryption?
- Can we obfuscate metadata with less overhead than TOR?
- Considering meta-data: are there relevant differences between
  protocol artefacts, message sizes and patterns and payloads?

Position papers (maximum of 5 pages using 10pt font or any
length Internet-Drafts) from academia, industry and others that
focus on the broader picture and that warrant the kind of
extended discussion that a full day workshop offers are the most
welcome. Papers that reflect experience based on running code
and deployed services are also very welcome. Papers that are
proposals for point-solutions are less useful in this context,
and can simply be submitted as Internet-Drafts and discussed on
relevant IETF or W3C lists, e.g. the IETF perpass list. [3]

The workshop will be by invitation only. Those wishing to attend
should submit a position paper or Internet-Draft.  All inputs
submitted and considered relevant will be published on the
workshop web page. The organisers (STREWS project participants,
IAB and W3C staff) will decide whom to invite based on the
submissions received.  Sessions will be organized according to
content, and not every accepted submission or invited attendee
will have an opportunity to present as the intent is to foster
discussion and not simply to have a sequence of presentations.

[1] http://down.dsg.cs.tcd.ie/misc/perpass.txt
[2] http://www.strews.eu/
[3] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/perpass

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 12:53:18 +0000

And as is traditional, we've added a few days:-)

Final deadline is end of Monday Jan 20 anywhere
on Earth (== 1200 UTC Jan 21). And that will be
a hard deadline.

There's also a bit more logistics stuff now at [1].

Cheers,
S.

[1] https://www.w3.org/2014/strint/

---

From: Hector Santos <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 11:58:23 -0500

What I found interesting is the itemized STRINT question:

      How realistic is it to not be fingerprintable on the web and 
Internet?

Like its a foregone conclusion it is already too late.  If we are 
literally talking about "fingerprints" well, we already have a major 
vendor, probably the most significant one at present, that has opened 
that can of worms.  Of course, I'm referring to Apple's TouchID with 
the iPhone 5S.

Part of the problem in all this is the business, social engineering 
ethics in these architectural decisions, which is increasingly more 
market related.  So I wonder if its realistic to even ponder:

     As a security rule of thumb, should systems first consider NOT 
introducing
     "fingerprints" or identification methods without having 
protection for users?

Its a different way of thinking -- sometimes you just "Don't do it" 
unless you are 100% sure you can do it right.

Its a great idea, but surely it will be leverage, exploited and 
somehow, one way or another, inevitably, besides the advertisement 
market, the government, policing agencies will want access to the huge 
database of fingerprints or "identification tokens," of course, in the 
name of security, to search a person of interest for the closest match.

The IETF has the ethics document RFC1087.  I have asked if anyone 
believes this should be updated.  Surely this is tied to PM. Odd. It 
seems odd no one doesn't seem to think it needs to be updated.  I 
don't see the PM draft reference it.  Should it? I think so, and this 
RFC1087 document SHOULD be updated.

Anyway, we will be competing with business market pressures and these 
PM related issues most likely boil down to ethical principles which 
has changed over years.  We have new a new generation of 
"Infopreneurs" who surely do not have the same mindset for design 
engineering "taboos," in fact, its natural to consider that 
unrestricted communications is the norm.

--
HLS

---

From: "Hannes Tschofenig" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 18:45:32 +0100 (CET)

Hi Hector, 
 
with fingerprinting we are actually referring to what is defined in RFC 6973 as:
 
   $ Fingerprinting:  The process of an observer or attacker uniquely
      identifying (with a sufficiently high probability) a device or
      application instance based on multiple information elements
      communicated to the observer or attacker.  See [EFF].

There has been some work on that topic by the W3C and you can find an interesting, work-in-progress document maintained by Nick Doty at: 
http://w3c.github.io/fingerprinting-guidance/
 
Fingerprinting has been discussed in the context of the Do Not Track work and is of particular interest to advertising companies. 
 
Ciao
Hannes

Gesendet: Donnerstag, 16. Januar 2014 um 16:58 Uhr
Von: "Hector Santos" <[email-masked]>
An: "Stephen Farrell" <[email-masked]>
Cc: IETF-Discussion <[email-masked]>
Betreff: Re: Fwd: W3C/IAB workshop on Strengthening the Internet Against Pervasive Monitoring (STRINT)
What I found interesting is the itemized STRINT question:

--
HLS

On 1/16/2014 7:53 AM, Stephen Farrell wrote:
> [1] https://www.w3.org/2014/strint/[https://www.w3.org/2014/strint/]
>
>> Workshop web site: http://www.w3.org/2014/strint/[http://www.w3.org/2014/strint/]
>>
>> [1] http://down.dsg.cs.tcd.ie/misc/perpass.txt[http://down.dsg.cs.tcd.ie/misc/perpass.txt]
>> [2] http://www.strews.eu/[http://www.strews.eu/]
>> [3] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/perpass[https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/perpass]
>>

---

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 18:56:38 +0100

On 16 Jan 2014, at 17:58, Hector Santos <[email-masked]> wrote:

> The IETF has the ethics document RFC1087

Whoa.

— this is an IAB document, not an IETF document
— it’s status is UNKNOWN
— if it had been assigned a more specific status, that would be HISTORIC
— it subject was about proper allocation of public resources for work-related activities:

"there is widespread dependence on the Internet
by its users for the support of day-to-day research activities.”

"The U.S. Government sponsors of this system have a fiduciary
responsibility to the public to allocate government resources wisely
and effectively."

etc.

This is from a time where large parts of every-day human reality hadn’t moved into the digital domain (and thus into the Internet) yet.  In 1989, nobody would have thought about making the point that the integrity of the digital facets of your personality is the subject of a basic human right.  We are way beyond any question about that.

Grüße, Carsten

---

From: Hector Santos <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 13:23:03 -0500

Hi Carsten,

Besides the idea my take was a little different from you, your points 
are well taken. But that may suggest the IETF now *really* does need 
an new "Ethics" document of its own.  I don't see how you separate it. 
  I guess I was among the few in 1989, who did consider these social 
engineering integrity issues in consumer product lines.

Its essentially what this proposed BCP (and reference docs) is asking, 
and this STRINT workshop (based on the itemized questions) wants us to 
consider -- asking developers (and reviewers) to have a greater look 
at the intent, the goals of proposed systems, the pros and cons, 
including conflict of interest matters, expecting engineering due 
diligence in regards to security/privacy matters. For the most part, 
question all things.

Thanks for your points.

--
HLS

On 1/16/2014 12:56 PM, Carsten Bormann wrote:
> � this is an IAB document, not an IETF document
> � it�s status is UNKNOWN
> � if it had been assigned a more specific status, that would be HISTORIC
> � it subject was about proper allocation of public resources for work-related activities:
>
> by its users for the support of day-to-day research activities.�
>
> This is from a time where large parts of every-day human reality hadn�t moved into the digital domain (and thus into the Internet) yet.  In 1989, nobody would have thought about making the point that the integrity of the digital facets of your personality is the subject of a basic human right.  We are way beyond any question about that.
>
> Gr��e, Carsten
>
>
>

-- 
HLS

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 15:01:40 -0500

It was a response to the RTM Worm.

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 12:56 PM, Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]> wrote:

> This is from a time where large parts of every-day human reality hadn’t
> moved into the digital domain (and thus into the Internet) yet.  In 1989,
> nobody would have thought about making the point that the integrity of the
> digital facets of your personality is the subject of a basic human right.
>  We are way beyond any question about that.
>
> Grüße, Carsten
>
>