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authorThomas Voss <mail@thomasvoss.com> 2024-11-27 20:54:24 +0100
committerThomas Voss <mail@thomasvoss.com> 2024-11-27 20:54:24 +0100
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+Network Working Group IAB
+Request for Comments: 2804 IESG
+Category: Informational May 2000
+
+
+ IETF Policy on Wiretapping
+
+Status of this Memo
+
+ This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
+ not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
+ memo is unlimited.
+
+Copyright Notice
+
+ Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000). All Rights Reserved.
+
+Abstract
+
+ The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has been asked to take a
+ position on the inclusion into IETF standards-track documents of
+ functionality designed to facilitate wiretapping.
+
+ This memo explains what the IETF thinks the question means, why its
+ answer is "no", and what that answer means.
+
+1. Summary position
+
+ The IETF has decided not to consider requirements for wiretapping as
+ part of the process for creating and maintaining IETF standards.
+
+ It takes this position for the following basic reasons:
+
+ - The IETF, an international standards body, believes itself to be
+ the wrong forum for designing protocol or equipment features that
+ address needs arising from the laws of individual countries,
+ because these laws vary widely across the areas that IETF standards
+ are deployed in. Bodies whose scope of authority correspond to a
+ single regime of jurisdiction are more appropriate for this task.
+
+ - The IETF sets standards for communications that pass across
+ networks that may be owned, operated and maintained by people from
+ numerous jurisdictions with numerous requirements for privacy. In
+ light of these potentially divergent requirements, the IETF
+ believes that the operation of the Internet and the needs of its
+ users are best served by making sure the security properties of
+
+
+
+
+
+IAB & IESG Informational [Page 1]
+
+RFC 2804 IETF Policy on Wiretapping May 2000
+
+
+ connections across the Internet are as well known as possible. At
+ the present stage of our ignorance this means making them as free
+ from security loopholes as possible.
+
+ - The IETF believes that in the case of traffic that is today going
+ across the Internet without being protected by the end systems (by
+ encryption or other means), the use of existing network features,
+ if deployed intelligently, provides extensive opportunities for
+ wiretapping, and should be sufficient under presently seen
+ requirements for many cases. The IETF does not see an engineering
+ solution that allows such wiretapping when the end systems take
+ adequate measures to protect their communications.
+
+ - The IETF believes that adding a requirement for wiretapping will
+ make affected protocol designs considerably more complex.
+ Experience has shown that complexity almost inevitably jeopardizes
+ the security of communications even when it is not being tapped by
+ any legal means; there are also obvious risks raised by having to
+ protect the access to the wiretap. This is in conflict with the
+ goal of freedom from security loopholes.
+
+ - The IETF restates its strongly held belief, stated at greater
+ length in [RFC 1984], that both commercial development of the
+ Internet and adequate privacy for its users against illegal
+ intrusion requires the wide availability of strong cryptographic
+ technology.
+
+ - On the other hand, the IETF believes that mechanisms designed to
+ facilitate or enable wiretapping, or methods of using other
+ facilities for such purposes, should be openly described, so as to
+ ensure the maximum review of the mechanisms and ensure that they
+ adhere as closely as possible to their design constraints. The IETF
+ believes that the publication of such mechanisms, and the
+ publication of known weaknesses in such mechanisms, is a Good
+ Thing.
+
+2. The Raven process
+
+ The issue of the IETF doing work on legal intercept technologies came
+ up as a byproduct of the extensive work that the IETF is now doing in
+ the area if IP-based telephony.
+
+ In the telephony world, there has been a tradition of cooperation
+ (often mandated by law) between law enforcement agencies and
+ telephone equipment operators on wiretapping, leading to companies
+ that build telephone equipment adding wiretapping features to their
+ telephony-related equipment, and an emerging consensus in the
+
+
+
+
+IAB & IESG Informational [Page 2]
+
+RFC 2804 IETF Policy on Wiretapping May 2000
+
+
+ industry of how to build and manage such features. Some traditional
+ telephony standards organizations have supported this by adding
+ intercept features to their telephony-related standards.
+
+ Since the future of the telephone seems to be intertwined with the
+ Internet it is inevitable that the primary Internet standards
+ organization would be faced with the issue sooner or later.
+
+ In this case, some of the participants of one of the IETF working
+ groups working on a new standard for communication between components
+ of a distributed phone switch brought up the issue. Since adding
+ features of this type would be something the IETF had never done
+ before, the IETF management decided to have a public discussion
+ before deciding if the working group should go ahead. A new mailing
+ list was created (the Raven mailing list, see
+ http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/raven) for this discussion.
+ Close to 500 people subscribed to the list and about 10% of those
+ sent at least one message to the list. The discussion on this list
+ was a precursor to a discussion held during the IETF plenary in
+ Washington, D.C.
+
+ Twenty-nine people spoke during the plenary session. Opinions ranged
+ from libertarian: 'governments have no right to wiretap' - to
+ pragmatic: 'it will be done somewhere, best have it done where the
+ technology was developed'. At the end of the discussion there was a
+ show of hands to indicate opinions: should the IETF add special
+ features, not do this or abstain. Very few people spoke out strongly
+ in support for adding the intercept features, while many spoke out
+ against it, but a sizable portion of the audience refused to state an
+ opinion (raised their hands when asked for "abstain" in the show of
+ hands).
+
+ This is the background on the basis of which the Internet Engineering
+ Steering Group (IESG) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) was
+ asked to formulate a policy.
+
+3. A definition of wiretapping
+
+ The various legal statutes defining wiretapping do not give adequate
+ definitions to distinguish between wiretapping and various other
+ activities at the technical level. For the purposes of this memo, the
+ following definition of wiretapping is used:
+
+ Wiretapping is what occurs when information passed across the
+ Internet from one party to one or more other parties is delivered to
+ a third party:
+
+
+
+
+
+IAB & IESG Informational [Page 3]
+
+RFC 2804 IETF Policy on Wiretapping May 2000
+
+
+ 1. Without the sending party knowing about the third party
+
+ 2. Without any of the recipient parties knowing about the delivery to
+ the third party
+
+ 3. When the normal expectation of the sender is that the transmitted
+ information will only be seen by the recipient parties or parties
+ obliged to keep the information in confidence
+
+ 4. When the third party acts deliberately to target the transmission
+ of the first party, either because he is of interest, or because
+ the second party's reception is of interest.
+
+ The term "party", as used here, can refer to one person, a group of
+ persons, or equipment acting on behalf of persons; the term "party"
+ is used for brevity.
+
+ Of course, many wiretaps will be bidirectional, monitoring traffic
+ sent by two or more parties to each other.
+
+ Thus, for instance, monitoring public newsgroups is not wiretapping
+ (condition 3 violated), random monitoring of a large population is
+ not wiretapping (condition 4 violated), a recipient passing on
+ private email is not wiretapping (condition 2 violated).
+
+ An Internet equivalent of call tracing by means of accounting logs
+ (sometimes called "pen registers") that is a feature of the telephone
+ network is also wiretapping by this definition, since the normal
+ expectation of the sender is that the company doing the accounting
+ will keep this information in confidence.
+
+ Wiretapping may logically be thought of as 3 distinct steps:
+
+ - Capture - getting information off the wire that contains the
+ information wanted.
+
+ - Filtering - selecting the information wanted from information
+ gathered by accident.
+
+ - Delivery - transmitting the information wanted to the ones who want
+ it.
+
+ The term applies to the whole process; for instance, random
+ monitoring followed by filtering to extract information about a
+ smaller group of parties would be wiretapping by this definition.
+
+ In all these stages, the possibility of using or abusing mechanisms
+ defined for this purpose for other purposes exists.
+
+
+
+IAB & IESG Informational [Page 4]
+
+RFC 2804 IETF Policy on Wiretapping May 2000
+
+
+ This definition deliberately does not include considerations of:
+
+ - Whether the wiretap is legal or not, since that is a legal, not a
+ technical matter.
+
+ - Whether the wiretap occurs in real time, or can be performed after
+ the fact by looking at information recorded for other purposes
+ (such as the accounting example given above).
+
+ - What the medium targeted by the wiretap is - whether it is email,
+ IP telephony, Web browsing or EDI transfers.
+
+ These questions are believed to be irrelevant to the policy outlined
+ in this memo.
+
+ Wiretapping is also sometimes called "interception", but that term is
+ also used in a sense that is considerably wider than the monitoring
+ of data crossing networks, and is therefore not used here.
+
+4. Why the IETF does not take a moral position
+
+ Much of the debate about wiretapping has centered around the question
+ of whether wiretapping is morally evil, no matter who does it,
+ necessary in any civilized society, or an effective tool for catching
+ criminals that has been abused in the past and will be abused again.
+
+ The IETF has decided not to take a position in this matter, since:
+
+ - There is no clear consensus around a single position in the IETF.
+
+ - There is no means of detecting the morality of an act "on the
+ wire". Since the IETF deals with protocol standardization, not
+ protocol deployment, it is not in a position to dictate that its
+ product is only used in moral or legal ways.
+
+ However, a few observations can be made:
+
+ - Experience shows that tools which are effective for a purpose tend
+ to be used for that purpose.
+
+ - Experience shows that tools designed for one purpose that are
+ effective for another tend to be used for that other purpose too,
+ no matter what its designers intended.
+
+ - Experience shows that if a vulnerability exists in a security
+ system, it is likely that someone will take advantage of it sooner
+ or later.
+
+
+
+
+IAB & IESG Informational [Page 5]
+
+RFC 2804 IETF Policy on Wiretapping May 2000
+
+
+ - Experience shows that human factors, not technology per se, is the
+ biggest single source of such vulnerabilities.
+
+ What this boils down to is that if effective tools for wiretapping
+ exist, it is likely that they will be used as designed, for purposes
+ legal in their jurisdiction, and also in ways they were not intended
+ for, in ways that are not legal in that jurisdiction. When weighing
+ the development or deployment of such tools, this should be borne in
+ mind.
+
+5. Utility considerations
+
+ When designing any communications function, it is a relevant question
+ to ask if such functions efficiently perform the task they are
+ designed for, or whether the work spent in developing them is not, in
+ fact, worth the benefit gained.
+
+ Given that there are no specific proposals being developed in the
+ IETF, the IETF cannot weigh proposals for wiretapping directly in
+ this manner.
+
+ However, as above, a few general observations can be made:
+
+ - Wiretapping by copying the bytes passed between two users of the
+ Internet with known, static points of attachment is not hard.
+ Standard functions designed for diagnostic purposes can accomplish
+ this.
+
+ - Correlating users' identities with their points of attachment to
+ the Internet can be significantly harder, but not impossible, if
+ the user uses standard means of identification. However, this means
+ linking into multiple Internet subsystems used for address
+ assignment, name resolution and so on; this is not trivial.
+
+ - An adversary has several simple countermeasures available to defeat
+ wiretapping attempts, even without resorting to encryption. This
+ includes Internet cafes and anonymous dialups, anonymous remailers,
+ multi-hop login sessions and use of obscure communications media;
+ these are well known tools in the cracker community.
+
+ - Of course, communications where the content is protected by strong
+ encryption can be easily recorded, but the content is still not
+ available to the wiretapper, defeating all information gathering
+ apart from traffic analysis. Since Internet data is already in
+ digital form, encrypting it is very simple for the end-user.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IAB & IESG Informational [Page 6]
+
+RFC 2804 IETF Policy on Wiretapping May 2000
+
+
+ These things taken together mean that while wiretapping is an
+ efficient tool for use in situations where the target of a wiretap is
+ either ignorant or believes himself innocent of wrongdoing,
+ Internet-based wiretapping is a less useful tool than might be
+ imagined against an alerted and technically competent adversary.
+
+6. Security Considerations
+
+ Wiretapping, by definition (see above), releases information that the
+ information sender did not expect to be released.
+
+ This means that a system that allows wiretapping has to contain a
+ function that can be exercised without alerting the information
+ sender to the fact that his desires for privacy are not being met.
+
+ This, in turn, means that one has to design the system in such a way
+ that it cannot guarantee any level of privacy; at the maximum, it can
+ only guarantee it as long as the function for wiretapping is not
+ exercised.
+
+ For instance, encrypted telephone conferences have to be designed in
+ such a way that the participants cannot know to whom any shared
+ keying material is being revealed.
+
+ This means:
+
+ - The system is less secure than it could be had this function not
+ been present.
+
+ - The system is more complex than it could be had this function not
+ been present.
+
+ - Being more complex, the risk of unintended security flaws in the
+ system is larger.
+
+ Wiretapping, even when it is not being exercised, therefore lowers
+ the security of the system.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IAB & IESG Informational [Page 7]
+
+RFC 2804 IETF Policy on Wiretapping May 2000
+
+
+7. Acknowledgements
+
+ This memo is endorsed by the IAB and the IESG.
+
+ Their membership is:
+
+ IAB:
+
+ Harald Alvestrand
+ Randall Atkinson
+ Rob Austein
+ Brian Carpenter
+ Steve Bellovin
+ Jon Crowcroft
+ Steve Deering
+ Ned Freed
+ Tony Hain
+ Tim Howes
+ Geoff Huston
+ John Klensin
+
+
+ IESG:
+
+ Fred Baker
+ Keith Moore
+ Patrik Falstrom
+ Erik Nordmark
+ Thomas Narten
+ Randy Bush
+ Bert Wijnen
+ Rob Coltun
+ Dave Oran
+ Jeff Schiller
+ Marcus Leech
+ Scott Bradner
+ Vern Paxson
+ April Marine
+
+ The number of contributors to the discussion are too numerous to
+ list.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IAB & IESG Informational [Page 8]
+
+RFC 2804 IETF Policy on Wiretapping May 2000
+
+
+8. Author's Address
+
+ This memo is authored by the IAB and the IESG.
+
+ The chairs are:
+
+ Fred Baker, IETF Chair
+ 519 Lado Drive
+ Santa Barbara California 93111
+
+ Phone: +1-408-526-4257
+ EMail: fred@cisco.com
+
+
+ Brian E. Carpenter, IAB Chair
+ IBM
+ c/o iCAIR
+ Suite 150
+ 1890 Maple Avenue
+ Evanston IL 60201
+ USA
+
+ EMail: brian@icair.org
+
+9. References
+
+ [RFC 1984] IAB and IESG, "IAB and IESG Statement on Cryptographic
+ Technology and the Internet", RFC 1984, August 1996.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IAB & IESG Informational [Page 9]
+
+RFC 2804 IETF Policy on Wiretapping May 2000
+
+
+9. Full Copyright Statement
+
+ Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000). All Rights Reserved.
+
+ This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
+ others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
+ or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
+ and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
+ kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
+ included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
+ document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
+ the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
+ Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
+ developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
+ copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
+ followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
+ English.
+
+ The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
+ revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.
+
+ This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
+ "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
+ TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
+ BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
+ HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
+ MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Acknowledgement
+
+ Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
+ Internet Society.
+
+
+
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+IAB & IESG Informational [Page 10]
+