idnits 2.17.00 (12 Aug 2021) /tmp/idnits5978/draft-irtf-hrpc-research-14.txt: Checking boilerplate required by RFC 5378 and the IETF Trust (see https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info): ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- No issues found here. Checking nits according to https://www.ietf.org/id-info/1id-guidelines.txt: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- No issues found here. Checking nits according to https://www.ietf.org/id-info/checklist : ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ** The abstract seems to contain references ([RFC6973]), which it shouldn't. Please replace those with straight textual mentions of the documents in question. Miscellaneous warnings: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- == The copyright year in the IETF Trust and authors Copyright Line does not match the current year == Line 251 has weird spacing: '...locking the p...' == Line 257 has weird spacing: '...sorship techn...' == Line 314 has weird spacing: '...ltering the p...' -- The document date (July 16, 2017) is 1763 days in the past. Is this intentional? Checking references for intended status: Informational ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Looks like a reference, but probably isn't: '1' on line 3440 -- Looks like a reference, but probably isn't: '2' on line 3442 -- Looks like a reference, but probably isn't: '3' on line 3444 == Unused Reference: 'RFC4033' is defined on line 3164, but no explicit reference was found in the text -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 226 (Obsoleted by RFC 247) -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 760 (Obsoleted by RFC 791) -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 2460 (Obsoleted by RFC 8200) -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 3536 (Obsoleted by RFC 6365) -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 3979 (Obsoleted by RFC 8179) -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 4941 (Obsoleted by RFC 8981) -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 5246 (Obsoleted by RFC 8446) -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 7626 (Obsoleted by RFC 9076) Summary: 1 error (**), 0 flaws (~~), 5 warnings (==), 12 comments (--). Run idnits with the --verbose option for more detailed information about the items above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Human Rights Protocol Considerations Research Group N. ten Oever 3 Internet-Draft ARTICLE 19 4 Intended status: Informational C. Cath 5 Expires: January 17, 2018 Oxford Internet Institute 6 July 16, 2017 8 Research into Human Rights Protocol Considerations 9 draft-irtf-hrpc-research-14 11 Abstract 13 This document aims to propose guidelines for human rights 14 considerations, similar to the work done on the guidelines for 15 privacy considerations [RFC6973]. If you want to apply this work to 16 your own, you can directly go to Section 6. The rest of the document 17 explains the background of the guidelines and how they were 18 developed. 20 This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is 21 published for informational purposes. 23 This informational document has consensus for publication from the 24 Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) Human Right Protocol 25 Considerations Research Group. It is the first milestone in a longer 26 term research effort and has been reviewed both by the research group 27 and by individuals from outside the research group. Many of the 28 topics discussed are still under discussion in the research group and 29 will be subjects of continuing research. 31 Status of This Memo 33 This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the 34 provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 36 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 37 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute 38 working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- 39 Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 41 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 42 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 43 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 44 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 46 This Internet-Draft will expire on January 17, 2018. 48 Copyright Notice 50 Copyright (c) 2017 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the 51 document authors. All rights reserved. 53 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal 54 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents 55 (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of 56 publication of this document. Please review these documents 57 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect 58 to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must 59 include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of 60 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as 61 described in the Simplified BSD License. 63 Table of Contents 65 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 66 2. Vocabulary used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 67 3. Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 68 4. Literature and Discussion Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 69 5. Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 70 5.1. Data Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 71 5.1.1. Discourse analysis of RFCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 72 5.1.2. Interviews with members of the IETF community . . . . 16 73 5.1.3. Participant observation in Working Groups . . . . . . 16 74 5.2. Data analysis strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 75 5.2.1. Identifying qualities of technical concepts that 76 relate to human rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 77 5.2.2. Relating human rights to technical concepts . . . . . 18 78 5.2.3. Map cases of protocols, implementations and 79 networking paradigms that adversely impact human 80 rights or are enablers thereof . . . . . . . . . . . 21 81 6. Model for developing human rights protocol considerations . . 39 82 6.1. Human rights threats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 83 6.2. Guidelines for human rights considerations . . . . . . . 41 84 6.2.1. Connectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 85 6.2.2. Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 86 6.2.3. Content agnosticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 87 6.2.4. Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 88 6.2.5. Internationalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 89 6.2.6. Censorship resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 90 6.2.7. Open Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 91 6.2.8. Heterogeneity Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 92 6.2.9. Anonymity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 93 6.2.10. Pseudonymity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 94 6.2.11. Accessibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 95 6.2.12. Localization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 96 6.2.13. Decentralization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 97 6.2.14. Reliability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 98 6.2.15. Confidentiality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 99 6.2.16. Integrity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 100 6.2.17. Authenticity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 101 6.2.18. Adaptability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 102 6.2.19. Outcome Transparency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 103 7. Document Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 104 8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 105 9. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 106 10. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 107 11. Research Group Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 108 12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 109 12.1. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 110 12.2. URIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 111 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 113 1. Introduction 115 "There's a freedom about the Internet: As long as we accept the 116 rules of sending packets around, we can send packets containing 117 anything to anywhere." 119 [Berners-Lee] 121 "The Internet isn't value-neutral, and neither is the IETF." 123 [RFC3935] 125 The evergrowing interconnectedness of Internet and society increases 126 the impact of the Internet on the lives of individuals. Because of 127 this, the design and development of the Internet infrastructure also 128 has a growing impact on society. This has led to a broad recognition 129 that human rights [UDHR] [ICCPR] [ICESCR] have a role in the 130 development and management of the Internet [HRC2012] [UNGA2013] 131 [NETmundial]. It has also been argued that the Internet should be 132 strengthened as a human rights enabling environment [Brown]. 134 This document aims to expose the relation between protocols and human 135 rights, propose possible guidelines to protect the Internet as a 136 human-rights-enabling environment in future protocol development, in 137 a manner similar to the work done for Privacy Considerations in 138 [RFC6973], and to increase the awareness in both the human rights 139 community and the technical community on the importance of the 140 technical workings of the Internet and its impact on human rights. 142 Open, secure and reliable connectivity is necessary (although not 143 sufficient) to exercise human rights such as freedom of expression 144 and freedom of association [FOC], as defined in the Universal 145 Declaration of Human Rights [UDHR]. The purpose of the Internet to 146 be a global network of networks that provides unfettered connectivity 147 to all users and for any content [RFC1958]. This objective of 148 stimulating global connectivity contributes to the Internet's role as 149 an enabler of human rights. The Internet has given people a platform 150 to exchange opinions, gather information, and it has enabled people 151 of different backgrounds and genders to participate in the public 152 debate, it has also allowed people to congregate and organize. Next 153 to that, the strong commitment to security [RFC1984] [RFC3365] and 154 privacy [RFC6973] [RFC7258] in the Internet's architectural design 155 contribute to the strengthening of the Internet as a human rights 156 enabling environment. One could even argue that the Internet is not 157 only an enabler of human rights, but that human rights lie at the 158 basis of, and are ingrained in, the architecture of the networks that 159 make up the Internet. Internet connectivity increases the capacity 160 for individuals to exercise their rights, the core of the Internet, 161 its architectural design is therefore closely intertwined with the 162 human rights framework [CathFloridi]. The quintessential link 163 between the Internet's infrastructure and human rights has been 164 argued by many. [Bless] for instance argues that, 'to a certain 165 extent, the Internet and its protocols have already facilitated the 166 realization of human rights, e.g., the freedom of assembly and 167 expression. In contrast, measures of censorship and pervasive 168 surveillance violate fundamental human rights.' [Denardis15] argues 169 that 'Since the first hints of Internet commercialization and 170 internationalization, the IETF has supported strong security in 171 protocol design and has sometimes served as a force resisting 172 protocol-enabled surveillance features.' By doing so, the IETF 173 enabled the manifestation of the right to privacy, through the 174 Internet's infrastructure. Additionally, access to freely available 175 information gives people access to knowledge that enables them to 176 help satisfy other human rights, as such the Internet increasingly 177 becomes a pre-condition for human rights rather than a supplement. 179 Human rights can be in conflict with each other, such as the right to 180 freedom of expression and the right to privacy. In such cases the 181 different affected rights need to be balanced. In order to do this 182 it is crucial that the rights impacts are clearly documented in order 183 to mitigate the potential harm. Making that process tangible and 184 practical for protocol developers is what this research aims to 185 ultimately contribute to. Technology can never be fully equated with 186 a human right. Whereas a specific technology might be strong enabler 187 of a specific human right, it might have an adverse impact on another 188 human right. In this case decisions on design and deployment need to 189 take this into account. 191 The open nature of the initial technical design and its open 192 standards, as well as developments like open source, fostered freedom 193 of communication. What emerged was a network of networks that could 194 enable everyone to connect and to exchange data, information and 195 code. For many, enabling such connections became a core value. 196 However as the scale and the commercialization of the Internet grew, 197 topics like access, rights and connectivity are forced to compete 198 with other values. Therefore, important human rights enabling 199 characteristics of the Internet might be degraded if they're not 200 properly defined, described and protected as such. And, the other 201 way around, not protecting human right enabling characteristics could 202 also result in (partial) loss of functionality and connectivity, and 203 other inherent parts of the Internet's architecture of networks. New 204 protocols, particularly those that upgrade the core infrastructure of 205 the network, should be designed to continue to enable fundamental 206 human rights. 208 The IETF has produced guidelines and procedures to ensure and 209 galvanize the privacy of indiduals and security of the network in 210 protocol development. This document aims to explore the possibility 211 of the development of similar procedures for guidelines for human 212 rights considerations to ensure that protocols developed in the IETF 213 do not have an adverse impact on the realization of human rights on 214 the Internet. By carefully considering the answers to the questions 215 posed in the Section 6 part of this document, document authors should 216 be able to produce a comprehensive analysis that can serve as the 217 basis for discussion on whether the protocol adequately protects 218 against specific human rights threats, and potentially stimulate 219 authors to think about alternative design choices. 221 2. Vocabulary used 223 In the discussion of human rights and Internet architecture concepts 224 developed in computer science, networking, law, policy-making and 225 advocacy are coming together [Dutton],[Kaye],[Franklin], [RFC1958]. 226 The same concepts might have a very different meaning and 227 implications in other areas of expertise. In order to foster a 228 constructive interdisciplinary debate, and minimize differences in 229 interpretation, the following glossary is provided, building as much 230 as possible on existing definitions, and where these were not 231 available definitions have been developed. 233 Accessibility Full Internet Connectivity as described in [RFC4084] 234 to provide unfettered access to the Internet 236 The design of protocols, services or implementation that provide 237 an enabling environment for people with disabilities. 239 The ability to receive information available on the Internet 241 Anonymity The condition of an identity being unknown or concealed. 242 [RFC4949] 244 Anonymous A state of an individual in which an observer or attacker 245 cannot identify the individual within a set of other individuals 246 (the anonymity set). [RFC6973] 248 Authenticity The property of being genuine and able to be verified 249 and be trusted. [RFC4949] 251 Blocking the practice of preventing access to resources in the 252 aggregate [RFC7754]. Both blocking and filtering can be 253 implemented at the level of "services" (web hosting or video 254 streaming, for example) or at the level of particular "content." 255 [RFC7754] 257 Censorship technical mechanisms, that include both blocking and 258 filtering, that certain political or private actors around the 259 world use to block or degrade Internet traffic. For further 260 details on the various elements of Internet censorship see [hall] 262 Censorship resistance Methods and measures to mitigate Internet 263 censorship. 265 Confidentiality The property that data is not disclosed to system 266 entities unless they have been authorized to know the data. 267 [RFC4949]. 269 Connectivity The extent to which a device or network is able to 270 reach other devices or networks to exchange data. The Internet is 271 the tool for providing global connectivity [RFC1958]. Different 272 types of connectivity are further specified in [RFC4084]. 274 The combination of the end-to-end principle, interoperability, 275 distributed architecture, resilience, reliability and robustness 276 are the enabling factors that result in connectivity to and on the 277 Internet. 279 Content agnosticism Treating network traffic identically regardless 280 of content. 282 Decentralized Implementation or deployment of standards, protocols 283 or systems without one single point of control. 285 End-to-End The principle that application-specific functions should 286 not be embedded into the network and thus stay at the end-points: 288 in many cases, especially when dealing with failures, the right 289 decisions can only be made with the corresponding application- 290 specific knowledge, which is available at the end-points not in 291 the network. 293 The end-to-end principle is one of the key architectural 294 guidelines of the Internet. The argument in favor of the end-to- 295 end approach to system design is laid out in the fundamental paper 296 by Saltzer, Reed, and Clark [Saltzer] [Clark]. In it, the authors 297 argue in favor of radical simplification: systems designers should 298 only build the essential and shared functions into the network, as 299 most functions can only be implemented at network end points. 300 Building features into the network for the benefit of certain 301 applications, will come at the expense of others. As such, as a 302 general system designers should attempt to steer clear of building 303 anything into the network that is not a bare necessity for its 304 functioning. Following the end-to-end principle is crucial for 305 innovation, as it makes innovation at the edges possible without 306 having to make changes to the network, and the robustness of the 307 network. Various aspects of end-to-end connectivity are further 308 elaborated on in [RFC2775]. 310 Federation The possibility of connecting autonomous and possibly 311 centralized systems into single system without a central 312 authority. 314 Filtering the practice of preventing access to specific resources 315 within an aggregate [RFC7754]. 317 Heterogeneity The Internet is characterized by heterogeneity on many 318 levels: devices and nodes, router scheduling algorithms and queue 319 management mechanisms, routing protocols, levels of multiplexing, 320 protocol versions and implementations, underlying link layers 321 (e.g., point-to-point, multi-access links, wireless, FDDI, etc.), 322 in the traffic mix and in the levels of congestion at different 323 times and places. Moreover, as the Internet is composed of 324 independent organizations and Internet service providers, each 325 with their own separate policy concerns,there is a large 326 heterogeneity of administrative domains and pricing structures. 327 As a result, the heterogeneity principle proposed in [RFC1958] 328 needs to be supported by design. [FIArch] 330 Human rights Human rights are principles and norms that are 331 indivisible, interrelated, unalienable, universal, and mutually 332 reinforcing that have been codified in national and international 333 bodies of law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights [UDHR] 334 is the most well-known document in the history of human rights. 335 The apirations from this documents were later codified into 336 treaties such as the [ICCPR] and the [ICESCR], after which 337 signatory countries were obliged to reflect them in their national 338 bodies of law. There is also a broad recognition that not only 339 states have an obligations vis a vis human rights, but non-state 340 actors do so as well. 342 Integrity The property that data has not been changed, destroyed, or 343 lost in an unauthorized or accidental manner. [RFC4949]. 345 Interoperable A property of a documented standard or protocol which 346 allows different independent implementations to work with each 347 other without any restriction on functionality. 349 Internationalization (i18n) The practice of making protocols, 350 standards, and implementations usable in different languages and 351 scripts (see Localization). 353 "In the IETF, "internationalization" means to add or improve the 354 handling of non-ASCII text in a protocol" [RFC6365]. A different 355 perspective, more appropriate to protocols that are designed for 356 global use from the beginning, is the definition used by W3C: 358 "Internationalization is the design and development of a product, 359 application or document content that enables easy localization for 360 target audiences that vary in culture, region, or language." 361 [W3Ci18nDef] 363 Many protocols that handle text only handle one charset (US- 364 ASCII), or leave the question of encoding up to local guesswork 365 (which leads, of course, to interoperability problems) [RFC3536]. 366 If multiple charsets are permitted, they must be explicitly 367 identified [RFC2277]. Adding non-ASCII text to a protocol allows 368 the protocol to handle more scripts, hopefully all of the ones 369 useful in the world. In today's world, that is normally best 370 accomplished by allowing Unicode encoded in UTF-8 only, thereby 371 shifting conversion issues away from ad hoc choices. 373 Localization (l10n) The practice of translating an implementation to 374 make it functional in a specific language or for users in a 375 specific locale (see Internationalization). 377 (cf [RFC6365]): The process of adapting an internationalized 378 application platform or application to a specific cultural 379 environment. In localization, the same semantics are preserved 380 while the syntax may be changed. [FRAMEWORK] 382 Localization is the act of tailoring an application for a 383 different language or script or culture. Some internationalized 384 applications can handle a wide variety of languages. Typical 385 users only understand a small number of languages, so the program 386 must be tailored to interact with users in just the languages they 387 know. The major work of localization is translating the user 388 interface and documentation. Localization involves not only 389 changing the language interaction, but also other relevant changes 390 such as display of numbers, dates, currency, and so on. The 391 better internationalized an application is, the easier it is to 392 localize it for a particular language and character encoding 393 scheme. 395 Open standards Conform with [RFC2026]: Various national and 396 international standards bodies, such as ANSI, ISO, IEEE, and ITU- 397 T, develop a variety of protocol and service specifications that 398 are similar to Technical Specifications defined here. National 399 and international groups also publish "implementors' agreements" 400 that are analogous to Applicability Statements, capturing a body 401 of implementation-specific detail concerned with the practical 402 application of their standards. All of these are considered to be 403 "open external standards" for the purposes of the Internet 404 Standards Process. 406 Openness Absence of centralized points of control - a feature that 407 is assumed to make it easy for new users to join and new uses to 408 unfold [Brown]. 410 Permissionless innovation The freedom and ability to freely create 411 and deploy new protocols on top of the communications constructs 412 that currently exist. 414 Privacy The right of an entity (normally a person), acting in its 415 own behalf, to determine the degree to which it will interact with 416 its environment, including the degree to which the entity is 417 willing to share its personal information with others. [RFC4949] 419 The right of individuals to control or influence what information 420 related to them may be collected and stored and by whom and to 421 whom that information may be disclosed. 423 Privacy is a broad concept relating to the protection of 424 individual or group autonomy and the relationship between an 425 individual or group and society, including government, companies 426 and private individuals. It is often summarized as "the right to 427 be left alone" but it encompasses a wide range of rights including 428 protections from intrusions into family and home life, control of 429 sexual and reproductive rights, and communications secrecy. It is 430 commonly recognized as a core right that underpins human dignity 431 and other values such as freedom of association and freedom of 432 speech. 434 The right to privacy is also recognized in nearly every national 435 constitution and in most international human rights treaties. It 436 has been adjudicated upon both by international and regional 437 bodies. The right to privacy is also legally protected at the 438 national level through provisions in civil and/or criminal codes. 440 Reliability Reliability ensures that a protocol will execute its 441 function consistently as described and function without unexpected 442 result. A system that is reliable degenerates gracefully and will 443 have a documented way to announce degradation. It also has 444 mechanisms to recover from failure gracefully, and if applicable, 445 allow for partial healing [dict]. 447 Resilience The maintaining of dependability and performance in the 448 face of unanticipated changes and circumstances [Meyer]. 450 Robustness The resistance of protocols and their implementations to 451 errors, and to involuntary, legal or malicious attempts to disrupt 452 its mode of operations. [RFC0760] [RFC0791] [RFC0793] [RFC1122]. 453 Or framed more positively, a system can provide functionality 454 consistently and without errors despite involuntary, legal or 455 malicious attempts to disrupt its mode of operations. 457 Scalability The ability to handle increased or decreased system 458 parameters (e.g., number of end-systems, users, data flows, 459 routing entries. etc.) predictably within defined expectations. 460 There should be a clear definition of its scope and applicability. 461 The limits of a system's scalability should be defined. Growth or 462 shrinkage of these parameters is typically considered by orders of 463 magnitude. 465 Strong encryption / cryptography Used to describe a cryptographic 466 algorithm that would require a large amount of computational power to 467 defeat it. [RFC4949]. In the modern usage of the definition 'strong 468 encryption' this refers to an amount of computing power current not 469 available, not even to major state-level actors. 471 Transparency In this context transparency is linked to the 472 comprehensibility of a protocol in relation to the choices it 473 makes for both user and protocol developers and implementers and 474 to its outcome. 476 outcome transparency, is linked to the comprehensibility of the 477 effects of a protocol in relation to the choices it makes for both 478 user and protocol developers and implementers, including the 479 comprehensibility of possible unintended consequences of protocol 480 choices (e.g. lack of authenticity may lead to lack of integrity 481 and negative externalities) 483 3. Research Questions 485 The Human Rights Protocol Considerations Research Group (hrpc) in the 486 Internet Research Taskforce (IRTF) embarked on its mission to answer 487 the following two questions which are also the main two questions 488 which this documents seeks to answer: 490 1. How can Internet protocols and standards impact human rights, 491 either by enabling them or by creating a restrictive environment? 493 2. Can guidelines be developed to improve informed and transparent 494 decision making about potential human rights impact of protocols? 496 4. Literature and Discussion Review 498 Protocols and standards are regularly seen as merely performing 499 technical functions. However, these protocols and standards do not 500 exist outside of their technical context nor outside of their 501 political, historical, economic, legal or cultural context. This is 502 best exemplified by the way in which some Internet processes and 503 protocols have become part and parcel of political processes and 504 public policies: one only has to look at the IANA transition, the RFC 505 on pervasive monitoring or global innovation policy for concrete 506 examples [Denardis15]. According to [Abbate]: "protocols are 507 politics by other means". This statement would probably not garner 508 IETF consensus, but it nonetheless confers that protocols are based 509 on decision making, most often by humans. In this process the values 510 and ideas about the role that a particular technology should perform 511 in society is embedded into the design. Often these design decisions 512 are part pure-technical, and part inspired by certain world view of 513 how technology should function that is inspired by personal, 514 corporate and political views. Within the community of IETF 515 participants there is a strong desire to solve technical problems and 516 minimize engagement with political processes and non-protocol related 517 political issues. 519 Since the late 1990's a burgeoning group of academics and 520 practitioners researched questions surrounding the societal impact of 521 protocols, and the politics of protocols. These studies vary in 522 focus and scope: some focus on specific standards [Davidsonetal] 523 [Musiani], others look into the political, legal, commercial or 524 social impact of protocols [BrownMarsden] [Lessig], [Mueller] and yet 525 others look at how the engineers' personal set of values get 526 translated into technology [Abbate] [CathFloridi] [Denardis15] 527 [WynsbergheMoura]. 529 Commercial and political influences on the management of the 530 Internet's infrastructure are well-documented in the academic 531 literature and will thus not be discussed here [Benkler] [Brownetal] 532 [Denardis15] [Lessig] [Mueller] [Zittrain]. It is sufficient to 533 say that the IETF community consistently tries to push back against 534 the standardization of surveillance and certain other issues that 535 negatively influence end-users' experience of and trust in the 536 Internet [Denardis14]. The role human rights play in engineering, 537 infrastructure maintenance and protocol design is much less clear. 539 It is very important to understand how protocols and standards impact 540 human rights. In particular because Standard Developing 541 Organizations (SDOs) are increasingly becoming venues where social 542 values (like human rights) are discussed, although often from a 543 technological point of view. These SDOs are becoming a new focal 544 point for discussions about values-by-design, and the role of 545 technical engineers in protecting or enabling human rights 546 [Brownetal] [Clarketal] [Denardis14] [CathFloridi] [Lessig] 547 [Rachovitsa]. 549 In the academic literature five clear positions can be discerned, in 550 relation to the role of human rights in protocol design and how to 551 account for these human rights in protocol development: Clark et al. 552 argue that there is a need to 'design for variation in outcome, so 553 that the outcome can be different in different places, and the tussle 554 takes place within the design (...) [as] Rigid designs will be 555 broken; designs that permit variation will flex under pressure and 556 survive [Clarketal].' They hold that human rights should not be 557 hard-coded into protocols because of three reasons: first, the rights 558 in the UDHR are not absolute. Second, technology is not the only 559 tool in the tussle over human rights. And last but not least, it is 560 dangerous to make promises that can't be kept. The open nature of 561 the Internet will never, they argue, be enough to fully protect 562 individuals' human rights. 564 Conversely, Brown et al. [Brownetal] state that 'some key, universal 565 values - of which the UDHR is the most legitimate expression - should 566 be baked into the architecture at design time.' They argue that 567 design choices have offline consequences, and are able to shape the 568 power positions of groups or individuals in society. As such, the 569 individuals making these technical decisions have a moral obligation 570 to take into account the impact of their decisions on society, and by 571 extension human rights. Brown et al recognise that values and the 572 implementation of human rights vary across the globe. Yet they argue 573 that all members of the United Nations have found 'common agreement 574 on the values proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human 575 Rights. In looking for the most legitimate set of global values to 576 embed in the future Internet architectures, the UDHR has the 577 democratic assent of a significant fraction of the planet's 578 population, through their elected representatives." 580 The main disagreement between these two academic positions lies 581 mostly in the question on whether a particular value system should be 582 embedded into the Internet's architectures or whether the 583 architectures need to account for a varying set of values. 585 A third position that is similar to that of Brown et al., is taken by 586 [Broeders] who argues that 'we must find ways to continue 587 guaranteeing the overall integrity and functionality of the public 588 core of the Internet.' He argues that the best way to do this is by 589 declaring the backbone of the Internet - which includes the TCP/IP 590 protocol suite, numerous standards, the Domain Name System (DNS), and 591 routing protocols - a common public good. This is a different 592 approach than that of [Clarketal] and [Brownetal] because Broeders 593 does not suggest that social values should (or should not) be 594 explicitly coded into the Internet, but rather that the existing 595 infrastructure should be seen as an entity of public value. 597 Bless and Orwat [Bless] represent a fourth position. They argue that 598 it is too early to make any definitive claims, but that there is a 599 need for more careful analysis of the impact of protocol design 600 choices on human rights. They also argue that it is important to 601 search for solutions that 'create awareness in the technical 602 community about impact of design choices on social values. And work 603 towards a methodology for co-design of technical and institutional 604 systems.' 606 Berners-Lee and Halpin argue that the Internet could lead to even new 607 capacities, and these capacities may over time be viewed as new kinds 608 of rights. For example, Internet access may be viewed as a human 609 right in of itself if it is taken to be a pre-condition for other 610 rights, even if it could not have been predicted at the declaration 611 of the UNHDR after the end of World War 2.[BernersLeeHalpin]. 613 It is important to contextualize the technical discussion with the 614 academic discussions on this issue. The academic discussions also 615 are important to document as they inform the position of the authors 616 of this document. The Research Groups position is that hard-coding 617 human rights into protocols is complicated and changes with the 618 context. At this point is difficult to say whether hard-coding human 619 rights into protocols is wise or feasible. Additionally, there are 620 many human rights, but that not all are relevant for ICTs. A partial 621 catalog, with references to sources, of human rights related to ICTs 622 can be found here [Hill2014]. It is however important to make 623 conscious and explicit design decisions that take into account the 624 human rights protocol considerations guidelines developed below. 625 This will contribute to the understanding of the impact protocols can 626 have on human rights, both for developers and for users. In 627 addition, it contributes to the careful consideration of the impact 628 that a specific protocol might have on human rights and that concrete 629 design decisions are documented in the protocol. 631 Pursuant to the principle of constant change, since the function and 632 scope of the Internet evolves, so does the role of the IETF in 633 developing standards. Internet standards are adopted on the basis of 634 a series of criteria, including high technical quality, support by 635 community consensus, and their overall benefit to the Internet. The 636 latter calls for an assessment of the interests of all affected 637 parties and the specifications' impact on the Internet's users. In 638 this respect, the effective exercise of the human rights of the 639 Internet users is a relevant consideration that needs to be 640 appreciated in the standardization process insofar as it is directly 641 linked to the reliability and core values of the Internet. [RFC1958] 642 [RFC0226] [RFC3724] 644 This document details the steps taken in the research into human 645 rights protocol considerations by the hrpc research group to clarify 646 the relation between technical concepts used in the IETF and human 647 rights. This document sets out some preliminary steps and 648 considerations for engineers to take into account when developing 649 standards and protocols. 651 5. Methodology 653 Mapping the relation between human rights, protocols and 654 architectures is a new research challenge, which requires a good 655 amount of interdisciplinary and cross organizational cooperation to 656 develop a consistent methodology. 658 The methodological choices made in this document are based on the 659 political science-based method of discourse analysis and ethnographic 660 research methods [Cath]. This work departs from the assumption that 661 language reflects the understanding of concepts. Or as [Jabri] 662 holds, policy documents are 'social relations represented in texts 663 where language is used to construct meaning and representation'. 664 This process happens in 'the social space of society' [Schroeder] and 665 manifests itself in institutions and organizations [King], exposed 666 using the ethnographic methods of semi-structured interviews and 667 participant observation. Or in non-academic language, the way the 668 language in IETF/IRTF documents describes and approaches the issues 669 they are trying to address is an indicator for the underlying social 670 assumptions and relations of the engineers to their engineering. By 671 reading and analyzing these documents, as well as interviewing 672 engineers and participating in the IETF/IRTF working groups, it is 673 possible to distill the relation between human rights, protocols and 674 the Internet's infrastructure as it pertains to the work of the IETF. 676 The discourse analysis was operationalized using qualitative and 677 quantitative means. The first step taken by the authors and 678 contributors was reading RFCs and other official IETF documents. The 679 second step was the use of a python-based analyzer, using the tool 680 Big Bang, adapted by Nick Doty [Doty] to scan for the concepts that 681 were identified as important architectural principles (distilled on 682 the initial reading and supplemented by the interviews and 683 participant observation). Such a quantitative method is very precise 684 and speeds up the research process [Richie]. But this tool is unable 685 to understand 'latent meaning' [Denzin]. In order to mitigate these 686 issues of automated word-frequency based approaches, and to get a 687 sense of the 'thick meaning' [Geertz] of the data, a second 688 qualitative analysis of the data set was performed. These various 689 rounds of discourse analysis were used to inform the interviews and 690 further data analysis. As such the initial rounds of quantitative 691 discourse analysis were used to inform the second rounds of 692 qualitative analysis. The results from the qualitative interviews 693 were again used to feed new concepts into the quantitative discourse 694 analysis. As such the two methods continued to support and enrich 695 each other. 697 The ethnographic methods of the data collection and processing 698 allowed the research group to acquire the data necessary to 'provide 699 a holistic understanding of research participants' views and actions' 700 [Denzin] that highlighted ongoing issues and case studies where 701 protocols impact human rights. The interview participants were 702 selected through purposive sampling [Babbie], as the research group 703 was interested in getting a wide variety of opinions on the role of 704 human rights in guiding protocol development. This sampling method 705 also ensured that individuals with extensive experience working at 706 the IETF in various roles were targeted. The interviewees included 707 individuals in leadership positions (Working Group (WG) chairs, Area 708 Directors (ADs)), 'regular participants', individuals working for 709 specific entities (corporate, civil society, political, academic) and 710 represented various backgrounds, nationalities and genders. 712 5.1. Data Sources 714 In order to map the potential relation between human rights and 715 protocols, the HRPC research group gathered data from three specific 716 sources: 718 5.1.1. Discourse analysis of RFCs 720 To start addressing the issue, a mapping exercise analyzing Internet 721 infrastructure and protocols features, vis-a-vis their possible 722 impact on human rights was undertaken. Therefore, research on the 723 language used in current and historic RFCs and mailing list 724 discussions was undertaken to expose core architectural principles, 725 language and deliberations on human rights of those affected by the 726 network. 728 5.1.2. Interviews with members of the IETF community 730 Over 30 interviews with the current and past members of the Internet 731 Architecture Board (IAB), current and past members of the Internet 732 Engineering Steering Group (IESG) and chairs of selected working 733 groups and RFC authors were done at the IETF92 Dallas meeting in 734 March 2015. To get an insider understanding of how they view the 735 relationship (if any) between human rights and protocols to play out 736 in their work. Several of the participants opted to remain 737 anonymous, if you are interested in this data set please contact the 738 authors. 740 5.1.3. Participant observation in Working Groups 742 By participating in various working groups, in person at IETF 743 meetings and on mailinglists, information was gathered about the 744 IETFs day-to-day workings. From which general themes, technical 745 concepts, and use-cases about human rights and protocols were 746 extracted. This process started at the IETF91 meeting and continues 747 today. 749 5.2. Data analysis strategies 751 The data above was processed using three consecutive strategies: 752 mapping protocols related to human rights, extracting concepts from 753 these protocols, and creation of a common glossary (detailed under 754 Section 2). Before going over these strategies some elaboration on 755 the process of identifying technical concepts as they relate to human 756 rights needs to be given: 758 5.2.1. Identifying qualities of technical concepts that relate to human 759 rights 761 5.2.1.1. Mapping protocols and standards to human rights 763 By combining data from the three data sources named above, an 764 extensive list of protocols and standards that potentially enable the 765 Internet as a tool for freedom of expression and association was 766 created. In order to determine the enabling (or inhibiting) features 767 we relied on direct references of such impact in the RFCs, as well as 768 input from the community. On the basis of this analysis a list of 769 RFCs that describe standards and protocols that are potentially 770 closely related to human rights was compiled. 772 5.2.1.2. Extracting concepts from selected RFCs 774 Identifying the protocols and standards that are related to human 775 rights and create a human rights enabeling environment was the first 776 step. For that we needed to focus on specific technical concepts 777 that underlie these protocols and standards. On the basis of this 778 list a number of technical concepts that appeared frequently was 779 extracted, and used to create a second list of technical terms that, 780 when combined and applied in different circumstances, create an 781 enabling environment for excercising human rights on the Internet. 783 5.2.1.3. Building a common vocabulary of technical concepts that impact 784 human rights 786 While interviewing experts, investigating RFCs and compiling 787 technical definitions several concepts of convergence and divergence 788 were identified. To ensure that the discussion was based on a common 789 understanding of terms and vocabulary, a list of definitions was 790 created. The definitions are based on the wording found in various 791 IETF documents, and if these were unavailable definitions were taken 792 from definitions from other Standards Developing Organizations or 793 academic literature, as indicated in the vocabulary section. 795 5.2.1.4. Translating Human Rights Concepts into Technical Definitions 797 The previous steps allowed for the clarification of relations between 798 human rights and technical concepts. The steps taken show how the 799 research process zoomed in, from compiling a broad lists of protocols 800 and standards that relate to human rights to extracting the precise 801 technical concepts that make up these protocols and standards, in 802 order to understand the relationship between the two. This sub- 803 section presents the next step: translating human rights to technical 804 concepts by matching the individuals components of the rights to the 805 accompanying technical concepts, allowing for the creation of a list 806 of technical concepts that when partially combined can create an 807 enabling environment for human rights. 809 5.2.1.5. List technical terms that when partially combined can create 810 an enabling environment for human rights 812 On the basis of the prior steps the following list of technical 813 terms, that when partially combined can create an enabling 814 environment for human rights, such a freedom of expression and 815 freedom of association, was drafted. 817 Architectural principles Enabling features 818 and system properties for user rights 820 /------------------------------------------------\ 821 | | 822 +=================|=============================+ | 823 = | = | 824 = | End to end = | 825 = | Reliability = | 826 = | Resilience = Access as | 827 = | Interoperability = Human Right | 828 = Good enough | Transparency = | 829 = principle | Data minimization = | 830 = | Permissionless innovation = | 831 = Simplicity | Graceful degradation = | 832 = | Connectivity = | 833 = | Heterogeneity support = | 834 = | = | 835 = | = | 836 = \------------------------------------------------/ 837 = = 838 +===============================================+ 840 figure 1 - relation between architectural principles and enabling 841 features for user rights. 843 5.2.2. Relating human rights to technical concepts 845 The combination of the technical concepts that have been gathered the 846 steps above have been grouped according to their impact on specific 847 rights as they have been mentioned in the interviews done at IETF92 848 as well as study of literature (see literature and discussion review 849 above). 851 This analysis aims to assist protocol developers in better 852 understanding the roles specific technical concepts have with regards 853 to their contribution to an enabeling environment for people to 854 excise their human rights. 856 This analysis does not claim to be a complete or exhaustive mapping 857 of all possible ways in which a protocols could potentially impact 858 human rights, but it presents an initial concept mapping based on 859 interviews and literature and discussion review. 861 +-----------------------+-----------------------------------------+ 862 | Technical Concepts | Rights potentially impacted | 863 +-----------------------+-----------------------------------------+ 864 | Connectivity | | 865 | Privacy | | 866 | Security | | 867 | Content agnosticism | Right to freedom of expression | 868 | Internationalization | | 869 | Censorship resistance | | 870 | Open Standards | | 871 | Heterogeneity support | | 872 +-----------------------+-----------------------------------------+ 873 | Anonymity | | 874 | Privacy | | 875 | Pseudonymity | Right to non-discrimination | 876 | Accessibility | | 877 +-----------------------+-----------------------------------------+ 878 | Content agnosticism | | 879 | Security | Right to equal protection | 880 +-----------------------+-----------------------------------------+ 881 | Accessibility | | 882 | Internationalization | Right to political participation | 883 | Censorship resistance | | 884 | Connectivity | | 885 +-----------------------+-----------------------------------------+ 886 | Open standards | | 887 | Localization | Right to participate in cultural life, | 888 | Internationalization | arts and science & | 889 | Censorship resistance | Right to education | 890 | Accessibility | | 891 +-----------------------+-----------------------------------------+ 892 | Connectivity | | 893 | Decentralization | | 894 | Censorship resistance | Right to freedom of assembly | 895 | Pseudonymity | and association | 896 | Anonymity | | 897 | Security | | 898 +-----------------------+-----------------------------------------+ 899 | Reliability | | 900 | Confidentiality | | 901 | Integrity | Right to security | 902 | Authenticity | | 903 | Anonymity | | 904 | | | 905 +-----------------------+-----------------------------------------+ 906 figure 2 - relation between specific technical concepts with regards 907 to their contribution to an enabeling environment for people to 908 exercise their human rights 910 5.2.3. Map cases of protocols, implementations and networking paradigms 911 that adversely impact human rights or are enablers thereof 913 Given the information above, the following list of cases of 914 protocols, implenentations and networking paradigms that adversely 915 impact or enable human rights was formed. 917 It is important to note that the assessment here is not a general 918 judgment on these protocols, nor an exhaustive listing of all the 919 potential negative or positive impacts on human rights they might 920 have. When they were conceived, there were many criteria to take 921 into account. For instance, relying on an centralized service can be 922 bad for freedom of speech (it creates one more control point, where 923 censorship could be applied) but it may be a necessity if the 924 endpoints are not connected and reachable permanently. So, when we 925 say "protocol X has feature Y, which may endanger the freedom of 926 speech", it does not mean that protocol X is bad and even less that 927 its authors were evil. The goal here is to show, with actual 928 examples, that the design of protocols have practical consequences 929 for some human rights and these consequences have to be considered in 930 the design phase. 932 5.2.3.1. IPv4 934 The Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4), also known as 'layer 3' of 935 the Internet, and specified as a common encapsulation and protocol 936 header, is defined in [RFC0791]. The evolution of Internet 937 communications led to continued development in this area, 938 encapsulated in the development of version 6 (IPv6) of the protocol 939 in [RFC2460]. In spite of this updated protocol, we find that 25 940 years after the specification of version 6 of the protocol, the older 941 v4 standard continues to account for a sizeable majority of Internet 942 traffic, and most of the issues discussed here (with the big 943 exception of NAT, see Address Translation) are valid for IPv4 as well 944 as IPv6. 946 The Internet was designed as a platform for free and open 947 communication, most notably encoded in the end-to-end principle, and 948 that philosophy is also present in the technical implementation of 949 the Internet Protocol. [RFC3724] While the protocol was designed to 950 exist in an environment where intelligence is at the end hosts, it 951 has proven to provide sufficient information that a more intelligent 952 network core can make policy decisions and enforce policy-based 953 traffic shaping and restricting the communications of end hosts. 955 These capabilities for network control and limitations of the freedom 956 of expression by end hosts can be traced back to the IPv4 design, 957 helping us to understand which technical protocol decisions have led 958 to harm of this human rights. A feature that can harm freedom of 959 expression as well as the right to privacy through misuse of the 960 Internet Protocol is the exploitation of the public visibility of the 961 host pairs for all communications, and the corresponding ability to 962 discriminate and block traffic as a result of that metadata. 964 5.2.3.1.1. Network visibility of Source and Destination 966 The IPv4 protocol header contains fixed location fields for both the 967 source and destination IP addresses [RFC0791]. These addresses 968 identify both the host sending and receiving each message, and allow 969 the core network to understand who is talking to whom, and to 970 practically limit communication selectively between pairs of hosts. 971 Blocking of communication based on the pair of source and destination 972 is one of the most common limitations on the ability for people to 973 communicate today, [caida] and can be seen as a restriction of the 974 ability for people to assemble or to consensually express themselves. 976 Inclusion of an Internet-wide identified source in the IP header is 977 not the only possible design, especially since the protocol is most 978 commonly implemented over Ethernet networks exposing only link-local 979 identifiers [RFC0894]. 981 A variety of alternative designs do exist, such as the Accountable 982 and Private Internet Protocol [APIP] and Hornet [Hornet] as well as 983 source routing. The latter would allow for the sender to choose a 984 pre-defined (safe) route and spoofing of the source IP address, which 985 are technically supported by the IPv4 protocol, but neither are 986 considered good practice on the Internet [Farrow]. While projects 987 like [torproject] provide an alternative implementation of anonymity 988 in connections, they have been developed in spite of the IPv4 989 protocol design. 991 5.2.3.1.2. Address Translation and Mobility 993 A major structural shift in the Internet which undermined the 994 protocol design of IPv4, and significantly reduced the freedom of end 995 users to communicate and assemble is the introduction of network 996 address translation. [RFC3022] Network address translation is a 997 process whereby organizations and autonomous systems connect two 998 networks by translating the IPv4 source and destination addresses 999 between the two. This process puts the router performing the 1000 translation into a privileged position, where it can decide which 1001 subset of communications are worthy of translation, and whether an 1002 unknown request for communication will be correctly forwarded to a 1003 host on the other network. 1005 This process of translation has widespread adoption despite promoting 1006 a process that goes against the stated end-to-end process of the 1007 underlying protocol [natusage]. In contrast, the proposed mechanism 1008 to provide support for mobility and forwarding to clients which may 1009 move, encoded instead as an option in the IP protocol in [RFC5944], 1010 has failed to gain traction. In this situation the compromise made 1011 in the design of the protocol resulted in a technology that is not 1012 coherent with the end-to-end principles and thus creates an extra 1013 possible hurdle for freedom of expression in its design, even though 1014 a viable alternative exists. There is a particular problem 1015 surrounding NATs and VPN (as well as other connections used for 1016 privacy purposes) as NATs sometimes cause VPNs not to work. 1018 5.2.3.2. DNS 1020 The Domain Name System (DNS) [RFC1035], provides service discovery 1021 capabilities, and provides a mechanism to associate human readable 1022 names with services. The DNS system is organized around a set of 1023 independently operated 'Root Servers' run by organizations which 1024 function in line with ICANN's policy by answering queries for which 1025 organizations have been delegated to manage registration under each 1026 Top Level Domain (TLD). The DNS is organized as a rooted tree, and 1027 this brings up political and social concerns over control. Top Level 1028 domains are maintained and determined by ICANN. These namespaces 1029 encompass several classes of services. The initial name spaces 1030 including '.Com' and '.Net', provide common spaces for expression of 1031 ideas, though their policies are enacted through US based companies. 1032 Other name spaces are delegated to specific nationalities, and may 1033 impose limits designed to focus speech in those forums both to 1034 promote speech from that nationality, and to comply with local limits 1035 on expression and social norms. Finally, the system has recently 1036 been expanded with additional generic and sponsored name spaces, for 1037 instance '.travel' and '.ninja', which are operated by a range of 1038 organizations which may independently determine their registration 1039 policies. This new development has both positive and negative 1040 implications in terms of enabling human rights. Some individuals 1041 argue that it undermines the right to freedom of expression because 1042 some of these new gtlds have restricted policies on registration and 1043 particular rules on hate speech content. Others argue that precisely 1044 these properties are positive because they enable certain (mostly 1045 minority) communities to build safer spaces for association, thereby 1046 enabling their right to freedom of association. An often mentioned 1047 example is an application like .gay [CoE]. 1049 DNS has significant privacy issues per [RFC7626]. Most notable the 1050 lack of encryption to limit the visibility of requests for domain 1051 resolution from intermediary parties, and a limited deployment of 1052 DNSSEC to provide authentication, allowing the client to know that 1053 they received a correct, "authoritative", answer to a query. In 1054 response to the privacy issues, the IETF DNS PRIVate Exchange 1055 (DPRIVE) Working Group is developing mechanisms to provide 1056 confidentiality to DNS transactions, to address concerns surrounding 1057 pervasive monitoring [RFC7258]. 1059 Authentication through DNSSEC creates a validation path for records. 1060 This authentication protects against forged or manipulated DNS data. 1061 As such DNSSEC protects the directory look-up and makes hijacking of 1062 a session harder. This is important because currently interference 1063 with the operation of the DNS is becoming one of the central 1064 mechanisms used to block access to websites. This interference 1065 limits both the freedom of expression of the publisher to offer their 1066 content, and the freedom of assembly for clients to congregate in a 1067 shared virtual space. Even though DNSSEC doesn't prevent censorship, 1068 it makes it clear that the returned information is not the 1069 information that was requested, which contributes to the right to 1070 security and increases trust in the network. It is however important 1071 to note that DNSSEC is currently not widely supported or deployed by 1072 domain name registrars, making it difficult to authenticate and use 1073 correctly. 1075 5.2.3.2.1. Removal of records 1077 There have been a number of cases where the records for a domain are 1078 removed from the name system due to political events. Examples of 1079 this removal includes the 'seizure' of wikileaks [bbc-wikileaks] and 1080 the names of illegally operating gambling operations by the United 1081 States Immigrations and Customs Enforcement unit (ICE). In the first 1082 case, a US court ordered the registrar to take down the domain. In 1083 the second, ICE compelled the US-based registry in charge of the .com 1084 TLD to hand ownership of those domains over to the US government. 1085 The same technique has been used in Libya to remove sites in 1086 violation of "our Country's Law and Morality (which) do not allow any 1087 kind of pornography or its promotion." [techyum] 1089 At a protocol level, there is no technical auditing for name 1090 ownership, as in alternate systems like [namecoin]. As a result, 1091 there is no ability for users to differentiate seizure from the 1092 legitimate transfer of name ownership, which is purely a policy 1093 decision of registrars. While DNSSEC addresses network distortion 1094 events described below, it does not tackle this problem. 1096 (While mentioning alternative techniques, this is not a comparison of 1097 DNS with Namecoin: the latter has its own problems and limitations. 1098 The idea here is to show that there are several possible choices, and 1099 they have consequences for human rights.) 1101 5.2.3.2.2. Distortion of records 1103 The most common mechanism by which the DNS system is abused to limit 1104 freedom of expression is through manipulation of protocol messages by 1105 the network. One form occurs at an organizational level, where 1106 client computers are instructed to use a local DNS resolver 1107 controlled by the organization. The DNS resolver will then 1108 selectively distort responses rather than request the authoritative 1109 lookup from the upstream system. The second form occurs through the 1110 use of deep packet inspection, where all DNS protocol messages are 1111 inspected by the network, and objectionable content is distorted, as 1112 can be observed in Chinese network. 1114 A notable instance of distortion occurred in Greece [ververis], where 1115 a study found evidence of both of deep packet inspection to distort 1116 DNS replies, and more excessive blocking of content than was legally 1117 required or requested (also known as overblocking). ISPs prevented 1118 clients from resolving the names of domains which they were 1119 instructed to do through a governmental order, prompting this 1120 particular blocking systems there. 1122 At a protocol level, the effectiveness of these attacks is made 1123 possible by a lack of authentication in the DNS protocol. DNSSEC 1124 provides the ability to determine authenticity of responses when 1125 used, but it is not regularly checked by resolvers. DNSSEC is not 1126 effective when the local resolver for a network is complicit in the 1127 distortion, for instance when the resolver assigned for use by an ISP 1128 is the source of injection. Selective distortion of records is also 1129 been made possible by the predictable structure of DNS messages, 1130 which make it computationally easy for a network device to watch all 1131 passing messages even at high speeds, and the lack of encryption, 1132 which allows the network to distort only an objectionable subset of 1133 protocol messages. Specific distortion mechanisms are discussed 1134 further in [hall]. 1136 Users can switch to another resolver, for instance a public one. The 1137 distorter can then try to block or hijack the connection to this 1138 resolver. This may start an arm's race, the user switching to 1139 secured connections to this alternative resolver ([RFC7858]), the 1140 disruptor then trying to find more sophisticated ways to block or 1141 hijack. In some cases, this search for an alternative, non- 1142 disrupting resolver, may lead to more centralisation, many people 1143 going to a few big commercial public resolvers. 1145 5.2.3.2.3. Injection of records 1147 Responding incorrectly to requests for name lookups is the most 1148 common mechanism that in-network devices use to limit the ability of 1149 end users to discover services. A deviation, which accomplishes a 1150 similar objective may be seen as different from a freedom of 1151 expression perspective, is the injection of incorrect responses to 1152 queries. The most prominent example of this behavior occurs in 1153 China, where requests for lookups of sites deemed inappropriate will 1154 trigger the network to respond with a false response, causing the 1155 client to ignore the real response when it subsequently arrives. 1156 [greatfirewall] Unlike the other forms of discussion mentioned above, 1157 injection does not stifle the ability of a server to announce it's 1158 name, it instead provides another voice which answers sooner. This 1159 is effective because without DNSSEC, the protocol will respond to 1160 whichever answer is received first, without listening for subsequent 1161 answers. 1163 5.2.3.3. HTTP 1165 The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), described in its version 1.1 1166 in RFC 7230 to 7237, is a request-response application protocol 1167 developed throughout the 1990s, and factually contributed to the 1168 exponential growth of the Internet and the inter-connection of 1169 populations around the world. Its simple design strongly contributed 1170 to the fact that HTTP has become the foundation of most modern 1171 Internet platforms and communication systems, from websites, to chat 1172 systems, and computer-to-computer applications. In its manifestation 1173 with the World Wide Web, HTTP radically revolutionized the course of 1174 technological development and the ways people interact with online 1175 content and with each other. 1177 However, HTTP is also a fundamentally insecure protocol, that doesn't 1178 natively provide encryption properties. While the definition of the 1179 Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) [RFC6101], and later of Transport Layer 1180 Security (TLS)[RFC5246], also happened during the 1990s, the fact 1181 that HTTP doesn't mandate the use of such encryption layers to 1182 developers and service providers, was one of the reasons for a very 1183 late adoption of encryption. Only in the middle of the 2000s did we 1184 observe big Internet service providers, such as Google, starting to 1185 provide encrypted access to their web services. 1187 The lack of sensitivity and understanding of the critical importance 1188 of securing web traffic incentivized certain (offensive) actors to 1189 develop, deploy and utilize at large interception systems and later 1190 active injection attacks, in order to swipe large amounts of data, 1191 compromise Internet-enabled devices. The commercial availability of 1192 systems and tools to perform these types of attacks also led to a 1193 number of human rights abuses that have been discovered and reported 1194 over the years. 1196 Generally we can identify in Traffic Interception and Traffic 1197 Manipulation the two most problematic attacks that can be performed 1198 against applications employing a clear-text HTTP transport layer. 1199 That being said, the IETF is taking steady steps to move to the 1200 encrypted version of HTTP, HTTPSecure (HTTPS). 1202 While this is commendable, we must not lose track of the fact that 1203 different protocols, implementations, configurations and networking 1204 paradigms can intersect such that they (can be used to) adversely 1205 impact human rights. For instance, certain countries will throttle 1206 HTTPS connections forcing users to switch to the (unthrottled) HTTP 1207 to facilitate surveillance [Aryanetall]. 1209 5.2.3.3.1. Traffic Interception 1211 While we are seeing an increasing trend in the last couple of years 1212 to employ SSL/TLS as a secure traffic layer for HTTP-based 1213 applications, we are still far from seeing an ubiquitous use of 1214 encryption on the World Wide Web. It is important to consider that 1215 the adoption of SSL/TLS is also a relatively recent phenomena. 1216 E-mail providers such as riseup.net were the first ones to enable SSL 1217 by default. Google introduced an option for its GMail users to 1218 navigate with SSL only in 2008 [Rideout], and turned TLS on by 1219 default later in 2010 [Schillace]. It took an increasing amount of 1220 security breaches and revelations on global surveillance from Edward 1221 Snowden to have other mail service providers to follow suit. For 1222 example, Yahoo enabled SSL/TLS by default on its webmail services 1223 only towards the end of 2013 [Peterson]. 1225 TLS itself has been subject to many attacks and bugs which can be 1226 attributed to some fundamental design weaknesses such as lack of a 1227 state machine, which opens a vulnerability for a Triple Handshake 1228 Attack, and flaws caused by early U.S. government restrictions on 1229 cryptography, leading to cipher-suite downgrade attacks (Logjam 1230 attack). These vulnerabilities are being corrected in TLS1.3. 1231 [Bhargavan] [Adrian] 1233 HTTP upgrading to HTTPS is also vulnerable to having an attacker 1234 remove the "S" in any links to HTTPS URIs from a web-page transferred 1235 in cleartext over HTTP, an attack called "SSL Stripping" [sslstrip]. 1236 Thus, for high security use of HTTPS IETF standards such as HSTS 1237 [RFC6797], certificate pinning [RFC7469] and/or DANE [RFC6698] should 1238 be used. 1240 As we learned through the Snowden's revelations, intelligence 1241 agencies have been intercepting and collecting unencrypted traffic at 1242 large for many years. There are documented examples of such mass 1243 surveillance programs with GCHQ's TEMPORA [WP-Tempora] and NSA's 1244 XKEYSCORE [Greenwald]. Through these programs NSA/GCHQ have been 1245 able to swipe large amounts of data including email and instant 1246 messaging communications which have been transported by the 1247 respective providers in clear for years, unsuspecting of the 1248 pervasiveness and scale of governments' efforts and investment into 1249 global mass surveillance capabilities. 1251 However, similar mass interception of unencrypted HTTP communications 1252 is also often employed at a nation-level by some democratic countries 1253 by exercising control over state-owned Internet Service Providers 1254 (ISP) and through the use of commercially available monitoring, 1255 collection, and censorship equipment. Over the last few years a lot 1256 of information has come to public attention on the role and scale of 1257 a surveillance industry dedicated to develop interception gear of 1258 different types, making use of known and unknown weaknesses in 1259 existing protocols [RFC7258]. We have several records of such 1260 equipment being sold and utilized by some regimes in order to monitor 1261 entire segments of population especially at times of social and 1262 political distress, uncovering massive human rights abuses. For 1263 example, in 2013 the group Telecomix revealed that the Syrian regime 1264 was making use of BlueCoat products in order to intercept clear-text 1265 traffic as well as to enforce censorship of unwanted content [RSF]. 1266 Similarly in 2012 it was found that the French Amesys provided the 1267 Gaddafi's government with equipment able to intercept emails, 1268 Facebook traffic, and chat messages at a country level [WSJ]. The 1269 use of such systems, especially in the context of the Arab Spring and 1270 of civil uprisings against the dictatorships, has caused serious 1271 concerns of significant human rights abuses in Libya. 1273 5.2.3.3.2. Traffic Manipulation 1275 The lack of a secure transport layer under HTTP connections not only 1276 exposes the users to interception of the content of their 1277 communications, but is more and more commonly abused as a vehicle for 1278 actively compromising computers and mobile devices. If an HTTP 1279 session travels in the clear over the network, any node positioned at 1280 any point in the network is able to perform man-in-the-middle attacks 1281 and observe, manipulate, and hijack the session and modify the 1282 content of the communication in order to trigger unexpected behavior 1283 by the application generating the traffic. For example, in the case 1284 of a browser the attacker would be able to inject malicious code in 1285 order to exploit vulnerabilities in the browser or any of its 1286 plugins. Similarly, the attacker would be able to intercept, add 1287 malware, and repackage binary software updates that are very commonly 1288 downloaded in clear by applications such as word processors and media 1289 players. If the HTTP session would be encrypted, the tampering of 1290 the content would not be possible, and these network injection 1291 attacks would not be successful. 1293 While traffic manipulation attacks have been long known, documented, 1294 and prototyped especially in the context of WiFi and LAN networks, in 1295 the last few years we observed an increasing investment into the 1296 production and sale of network injection equipment both available 1297 commercially as well as deployed at scale by intelligence agencies. 1299 For example, we learned from some of the documents provided by Edward 1300 Snowden to the press, that the NSA has constructed a global network 1301 injection infrastructure, called QUANTUM, able to leverage mass 1302 surveillance in order to identify targets of interests and 1303 subsequently task man-on-the-side attacks to ultimately compromise a 1304 selected device. Among other attacks, NSA makes use of an attack 1305 called QUANTUMINSERT [Haagsma] which intercepts and hijacks an 1306 unencrypted HTTP communication and forces the requesting browser to 1307 redirect to a host controlled by NSA instead of the intended website. 1308 Normally, the new destination would be an exploitation service, 1309 referred in Snowden documents as FOXACID, which would attempt at 1310 executing malicious code in the context of the target's browser. The 1311 Guardian reported in 2013 that NSA has for example been using these 1312 techniques to target users of the popular anonymity service Tor 1313 [Schneier]. The German NDR reported in 2014 that NSA has also been 1314 using its mass surveillance capabilities to identify Tor users at 1315 large [Appelbaum]. 1317 Recently similar capabilities of Chinese authorities have been 1318 reported as well in what has been informally called the "Great 1319 Cannon" [Marcak], which raised numerous concerns on the potential 1320 curb on human rights and freedom of speech due to the increasing 1321 tighter control of Chinese Internet communications and access to 1322 information. 1324 Network injection attacks are also made widely available to state 1325 actors around the world through the commercialization of similar, 1326 smaller scale equipment that can be easily acquired and deployed at a 1327 country-wide level. Certain companies are known to have network 1328 injection gear within their products portfolio [Marquis-Boire]. The 1329 technology devised and produced by some of them to perform network 1330 traffic manipulation attacks on HTTP communications is even the 1331 subject of a patent application in the United States [Googlepatent]. 1332 Access to offensive technologies available on the commercial lawful 1333 interception market has led to human rights abuses and illegitimate 1334 surveillance of journalists, human rights defenders, and political 1335 activists in many countries around the world [Collins]. While 1336 network injection attacks haven't been the subject of much attention, 1337 they do enable even unskilled attackers to perform silent and very 1338 resilient compromises, and unencrypted HTTP remains one of the main 1339 vehicles. 1341 There is a new version of HTTP, called HTTP/2, which was published as 1342 [RFC7540] and which aimed to be largely backwards compatible but also 1343 offer new option such as data compression of HTTP headers and 1344 pipelining of request and multiplexing multiple requests over a 1345 single TCP connection. In addition to decreasing latency to improve 1346 page loading speeds it also facilitates more efficient use of 1347 connectivity in low-bandwith environments, which is an enabler for 1348 freedom of expression, the right to assembly, right to political 1349 participation and the right to participate in cultural life, art and 1350 science. [RFC7540] does not mandate Transport Layer Security or any 1351 other form of encryption, also does not support opportunistic 1352 encryption, eventhough that is now addressed in [RFC8164]. 1354 5.2.3.4. XMPP 1356 The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), specified in 1357 [RFC6120], provides a standard for interactive chat messaging, and 1358 has evolved to encompass interoperable text, voice, and video chat. 1359 The protocol is structured as a federated network of servers, similar 1360 to email, where users register with a local server which acts one 1361 their behalf to cache and relay messages. This protocol design has 1362 many advantages, allowing servers to shield clients from denial of 1363 service and other forms of retribution for their expression, and 1364 designed to avoid central entities which could control the ability to 1365 communicate or assemble using the protocol. 1367 None-the-less, there are plenty of aspects of the protocol design of 1368 XMPP which shape the ability for users to communicate freely, and to 1369 assembly through the protocol. 1371 5.2.3.4.1. User Identification 1373 The XMPP specification dictates that clients are identified with a 1374 resource (node@domain/home [1] / node@domain/work [2]) to distinguish 1375 the conversations to specific devices. While the protocol does not 1376 specify that the resource must be exposed by the client's server to 1377 remote users, in practice this has become the default behavior. In 1378 doing so, users can be tracked by remote friends and their servers, 1379 who are able to monitor presence not just of the user, but of each 1380 individual device the user logs in with. This has proven to be 1381 misleading to many users [pidgin], since many clients only expose 1382 user level rather than device level presence. Likewise, user 1383 invisibility so that communication can occur while users don't notify 1384 all buddies and other servers of their availability is not part of 1385 the formal protocol, and has only been added as an extension within 1386 the XML stream rather than enforced by the protocol. 1388 5.2.3.4.2. Surveillance of Communication 1390 The XMPP protocol specifies the standard by which communication of 1391 channels may be encrypted, but it does not provide visibility to 1392 clients of whether their communications are encrypted on each link. 1393 In particular, even when both clients ensure that they have an 1394 encrypted connection to their XMPP server to ensure that their local 1395 network is unable to read or disrupt the messages they send, the 1396 protocol does not provide visibility into the encryption status 1397 between the two servers. As such, clients may be subject to 1398 selective disruption of communications by an intermediate network 1399 which disrupts communications based on keywords found through Deep 1400 Packet Inspection. While many operators have commited to only 1401 establishing encrypted links from their servers in recognition of 1402 this vulnerability, it remains impossible for users to audit this 1403 behavior and encrypted connections are not required by the protocol 1404 itself [xmppmanifesto]. 1406 In particular, section 13.14 of the protocol specification [RFC6120] 1407 explicitly acknowledges the existence of a downgrade attack where an 1408 adversary controlling an intermediate network can force the inter 1409 domain federation between servers to revert to a non-encrypted 1410 protocol were selective messages can then be disrupted. 1412 5.2.3.4.3. Group Chat Limitations 1414 Group chat in the XMPP protocol is defined as an extension within the 1415 XML specification of the XMPP protocol (https://xmpp.org/extensions/ 1416 xep-0045.html). However, it is not encoded or required at a protocol 1417 level, and not uniformly implemented by clients. 1419 The design of multi-user chat in the XMPP protocol suffers from 1420 extending a protocol that was not designed with assembly of many 1421 users in mind. In particular, in the federated protocol provided by 1422 XMPP, multi-user communities are implemented with a distinguished 1423 'owner', who is granted control over the participants and structure 1424 of the conversation. 1426 Multi-user chat rooms are identified by a name specified on a 1427 specific server, so that while the overall protocol may be federated, 1428 the ability for users to assemble in a given community is moderated 1429 by a single server. That server may block the room and prevent 1430 assembly unilaterally, even between two users neither of whom trust 1431 or use that server directly. 1433 5.2.3.5. Peer to Peer 1435 Peer-to-Peer (P2P) is a distributed network architecture [RFC5694] in 1436 which all the participant nodes can be responsible for the storage 1437 and dissemination of information from any other node (defined in 1438 [RFC7574], an IETF standard that used a P2P architecture). A P2P 1439 network is a logical overlay that lives on top of the physical 1440 network, and allows nodes (or "peers") participating to it to 1441 establish contact and exchange information directly from one to each 1442 other. The implementation of a P2P network may very widely: it may 1443 be structured or unstructured, and it may implement stronger or 1444 weaker cryptographic and anonymity properties. While its most common 1445 application has traditionally been file-sharing (and other types of 1446 content delivery systems), P2P is a popular architecture for networks 1447 and applications that require (or encourage) decentralization. A 1448 prime example is Bitcoin (and similar cryptocurrencies), as well as 1449 Bitcoin and proprietary multimedia applications. 1451 In a time of heavily centralized online services, peer-to-peer is 1452 regularly described as an alternative, more democratic, and resistant 1453 option that displaces structures of control over data and 1454 communications and delegates all peers equally to be responsible for 1455 the functioning, integrity, and security of the data. While in 1456 principle peer-to-peer remains imporant to the design and development 1457 of future content distribution, messaging, and publishing systems, it 1458 poses numerous security and privacy challenges which are mostly 1459 delegated to individual developers to recognize, analyze, and solve 1460 in each implementation of a given P2P network. 1462 5.2.3.5.1. Network Poisoning 1464 Since content, and in some occasions peer lists, are safeguarded and 1465 distributed by its members, P2P networks are prone to what are 1466 generally defined as "poisoning attacks". Poisoning attacks might be 1467 aimed directly at the data that is being distributed, for example by 1468 intentionally corrupting it, or at the index tables used to instruct 1469 the peers where to fetch the data, or at routing tables, with the 1470 attempt of providing connecting peers with lists of rogue or non- 1471 existing peers, with the intention to effectively cause a Denial of 1472 Service on the network. 1474 5.2.3.5.2. Throttling 1476 Peer-to-Peer traffic (and BitTorrent in particular) represents a 1477 significant percentage of global Internet traffic [Sandvine] and it 1478 has become increasingly popular for Internet Service Providers to 1479 perform throttling of customers lines in order to limit bandwidth 1480 usage [torrentfreak1] and sometimes probably as an effect of the 1481 ongoing conflict between copyright holders and file-sharing 1482 communities [wikileaks]. Such throttling undermines the end-to-end 1483 principle. 1485 Throttling the peer-to-peer traffic makes some uses of P2P networks 1486 ineffective and it might be coupled with stricter inspection of 1487 users' Internet traffic through Deep Packet Inspection techniques 1488 which might pose additional security and privacy risks. 1490 5.2.3.5.3. Tracking and Identification 1492 One of the fundamental and most problematic issues with traditional 1493 peer-to-peer networks is a complete lack of anonymization of its 1494 users. For example, in the case of BitTorrent, all peers' IP 1495 addresses are openly available to the other peers. This has lead to 1496 an ever-increasing tracking of peer-to-peer and file-sharing users 1497 [ars]. As the geographical location of the user is directly exposed, 1498 and so could be his identity, the user might become target of 1499 additional harassment and attacks, being of physical or legal nature. 1500 For example, it is known that in Germany law firms have made 1501 extensive use of peer-to-peer and file-sharing tracking systems in 1502 order to identify downloaders and initiate legal actions looking for 1503 compensations [torrentfreak2]. 1505 It is worth noting that there are varieties of P2P networks that 1506 implement cryptographic practices and that introduce anonymization of 1507 its users. Such implementations may be proved to be successful in 1508 resisting censorship of content, and tracking of the network peers. 1509 A primary example is FreeNet [freenet1], a free software application 1510 designed to significantly increase the difficulty of users and 1511 content identification, and dedicated to foster freedom of speech 1512 online [freenet2]. 1514 5.2.3.5.4. Sybil Attacks 1516 In open-membership P2P networks, a single attacker can pretend to be 1517 many participants, typically by creating multiple fake identities of 1518 whatever kind the P2P network uses [Douceur]. Attackers can use 1519 Sybil attacks to bias choices the P2P network makes collectively 1520 toward the attacker's advantage, e.g., by making it more likely that 1521 a particular data item (or some threshold of the replicas or shares 1522 of a data item) are assigned to attacker-controlled participants. If 1523 the P2P network implements any voting, moderation, or peer review- 1524 like functionality, Sybil attacks may be used to "stuff the ballots" 1525 toward the attacker's benefit. Companies and governments can use 1526 Sybil attacks on discussion-oriented P2P systems for "astroturfing" 1527 or creating the appearance of mass grassroots support for some 1528 position where there is none in reality. It is important to know 1529 that there are no known complete, environmentally sustainable, and 1530 fully distributed solutions to Sybil attacks, and routing via 1531 'friends' allows users to be de-anonymized via their social graph. 1532 It is important to note that Sybil attacks in this context (e.f. 1533 astroturfing) are relevant to more than P2P protocols. And are also 1534 common on web based systems, and exploited by governments and 1535 commercial entitities. 1537 Encrypted P2P and Anonymous P2P networks already emerged and provided 1538 viable platforms for sharing material [tribler], publish content 1539 anonymously, and communicate securely [bitmessage]. These platforms 1540 are not perfect, and more research needs to be done. If adopted at 1541 large, well-designed and resistant P2P networks might represent a 1542 critical component of a future secure and distributed Internet, 1543 enabling freedom of speech and freedom of information at scale. 1545 5.2.3.6. Virtual Private Network 1547 The Virtual Private Networks (VPN) that are being discussed here are 1548 point-to-point connections that enables two computers to communicate 1549 over an encrypted tunnel. There are multiple implementations and 1550 protocols used in the deployment of VPNs, and they generally 1551 diversify by encryption protocol or particular requirements, most 1552 commonly in proprietary and enterprise solutions. VPNs are used 1553 commonly either to enable some devices to communicate through 1554 peculiar network configurations, or in order to use some privacy and 1555 security properties in order to protect the traffic generated by the 1556 end user; or both. VPNs have also become a very popular technology 1557 among human rights defenders, dissidents, and journalists worldwide 1558 to avoid local monitoring and eventually also to circumvent 1559 censorship. Among human rights defenders VPNs are often debated as a 1560 potential alternative to Tor or other anonymous networks. Such 1561 comparison is misleading, as some of the privacy and security 1562 properties of VPNs are often misunderstood by less tech-savvy users, 1563 which could ultimately lead to unintended problems. 1565 As VPNs increased in popularity, commercial VPN providers have 1566 started growing in business and are very commonly picked by human 1567 rights defenders and people at risk, as they are normally provided 1568 with an easy-to-use service and sometimes even custom applications to 1569 establish the VPN tunnel. Not being able to control the 1570 configuration of the network, and even less so the security of the 1571 application, assessing the general privacy and security state of 1572 common VPNs is very hard. Often such services have been discovered 1573 leaking information, and their custom applications have been found 1574 flawed. While Tor and similar networks receive a lot of scrutiny 1575 from the public and the academic community, commercial or non- 1576 commercial VPN networks are way less analyzed and understood 1578 [Insinuator] [Alshalanetal] , and it might be valuable to establish 1579 some standards to guarantee a minimal level of privacy and security 1580 to those who need them the most. 1582 5.2.3.6.1. No anonymity against VPN provider 1584 One of the common misconceptions among users of VPNs is the level of 1585 anonymity VPN can provide. This sense of anonymity can be betrayed 1586 by a number of attacks or misconfigurations of the VPN provider. It 1587 is important to remember that, in contrast to Tor and similar 1588 systems, VPN was not designed to provide anonymity properties. From 1589 a technical point of view, the VPN might leak identifiable 1590 information, or might be subject of correlation attacks that could 1591 expose the originating address of the connecting user. Most 1592 importantly, it is vital to understand that commercial and non- 1593 commercial VPN providers are bound by the law of the jurisdiction 1594 they reside in or in which their infrastructure is located, and they 1595 might be legally forced to turn over data of specific users if legal 1596 investigations or intelligence requirements dictate so. In such 1597 cases, if the VPN providers retain logs, it is possible that the 1598 information of the user is provided to the user's adversary and leads 1599 to his or her identification. 1601 5.2.3.6.2. Logging 1603 With VPN being point-to-point connections, the service providers are 1604 in fact able to observe the original location of the connecting users 1605 and they are able to track at what time they started their session 1606 and eventually also to which destinations they're trying to connect 1607 to. If the VPN providers retain logs for long enough, they might be 1608 forced to turn over the relevant data or they might be otherwise 1609 compromised, leading to the same data getting exposed. A clear log 1610 retaining policy could be enforced, but considerig that countries 1611 enforce different levels of data retention policies, VPN providers 1612 should at least be transparent on what information do they store and 1613 for how long is being kept. 1615 5.2.3.6.3. 3rd Party Hosting 1617 VPN providers very commonly rely on 3rd parties to provision the 1618 infrastructure that is later going to be used to run VPN endpoints. 1619 For example, they might rely on external dedicated server hosting 1620 providers, or on uplink providers. In those cases, even if the VPN 1621 provider itself isn't retaining any significant logs, the information 1622 on the connecting users might be retained by those 3rd parties 1623 instead, introducing an additional collection point for the 1624 adversary. 1626 5.2.3.6.4. IPv6 Leakage 1628 Some studies proved that several commercial VPN providers and 1629 applications suffer of critical leakage of information through IPv6 1630 due to improper support and configuration [PETS2015VPN]. This is 1631 generally caused by a lack of proper configuration of the client's 1632 IPv6 routing tables. Considering that most popular browsers and 1633 similar applications have been supporting IPv6 by default, if the 1634 host is provided with a functional IPv6 configuration, the traffic 1635 that is generated might be leaked if the VPN application isn't 1636 designed to manipulate such traffic properly. 1638 5.2.3.6.5. DNS Leakage 1640 Similarly, VPN services that aren't handling DNS requests and are not 1641 running DNS servers of their own, might be prone to DNS leaking which 1642 might not only expose sensitive information on the activity of the 1643 user, but could also potentially lead to DNS hijacking attacks and 1644 following compromises. 1646 5.2.3.6.6. Traffic Correlation 1648 Some implementations of VPN appear to be particularly vulnerable to 1649 identification and collection of key exchanges which, some Snowden 1650 documents revealed, are systematically collected and stored for 1651 future reference. The ability of an adversary to monitor network 1652 connections at many different points over the Internet, can allow 1653 them to perform traffic correlation attacks and identify the origin 1654 of certain VPN traffic by cross referencing the connection time of 1655 the user to the endpoint and the connection time of the endpoint to 1656 the final destination. These types of attacks, although very 1657 expensive and normally only performed by very resourceful 1658 adversaries, have been documented [spiegel] to be already in practice 1659 and could completely nullify the use of a VPN and ultimately expose 1660 the activity and the identity of a user at risk. 1662 5.2.3.7. HTTP Status Code 451 1664 Every Internet user has run into the '404 Not Found' Hypertext 1665 Transfer Protocol (HTTP) status code when trying, and failing, to 1666 access a particular website [Cath]. It is a response status that the 1667 server sends to the browser, when the server cannot locate the URL. 1668 '403 Forbidden' is another example of this class of code signals that 1669 gives users information about what is going on. In the '403' case 1670 the server can be reached, but is blocking the request because the 1671 user is trying to access content forbidden to them. This typically 1672 because some content is only for identified users, based on a 1673 payment, or on a special status in the organisation. 403 is most of 1674 the time sent by the origin server, not by an intermediary. If a 1675 firewall prevents a government employee to access pornography on a 1676 work-computer, it does not use 403. 1678 As surveillance and censorship of the Internet is becoming more 1679 commonplace, voices were raised at the IETF to introduce a new status 1680 code that indicates when something is not available for 'legal 1681 reasons' (like censorship): 1683 The 451 status code would allow server operators to operate with 1684 greater transparency in circumstances where issues of law or public 1685 policy affect their operation. This transparency may be beneficial 1686 both to these operators and to end-users [RFC7725]. 1688 The status code is named '451', a reference to Bradbury's famous 1689 novel on censorship, and the temperature (in Fahrenheit) at which 1690 bookpaper autoignites. 1692 During the IETF92 meeting in Dallas, there was discussion about the 1693 usefulness of '451'. The main tension revolved around the lack of an 1694 apparent machine-readable technical use of the information. The 1695 extent to which '451' is just 'political theatre' or whether it has a 1696 concrete technical use was heatedly debated. Some argued that 'the 1697 451 status code is just a status code with a response body' others 1698 said it was problematic because 'it brings law into the picture'. 1699 Again others argued that it would be useful for individuals, or 1700 organizations like the 'Chilling Effects' project, crawling the web 1701 to get an indication of censorship (IETF discussion on '451' - 1702 author's field notes March 2015). There was no outright objection 1703 during the Dallas meeting against moving forward on status code 1704 '451', and on December 18, 2015 the Internet Engineering Steering 1705 Group approved publication of 'An HTTP Status Code to Report Legal 1706 Obstacles'. It is now an IETF approved HTTP status code to signal 1707 when resource access is denied as a consequence of legal demands 1708 [RFC7725]. 1710 What is interesting about this particular case is that not only 1711 technical arguments but also the status code's outright potential 1712 political use for civil society played a substantial role in shaping 1713 the discussion, and the decision to move forward with this 1714 technology. 1716 It is nonetheless important to note that HTTP status code 451 is not 1717 a solution to detect all occasions of censorship. A large swath of 1718 Internet filtering occurs in the network, at a lower level than HTTP, 1719 rather than the server itself. For these forms of censorship 451 1720 plays a limited role, as typical censoring intermediaries won't 1721 generate it. Besides technical reasons, such filtering regimes are 1722 unlikely to voluntarily inject a 451 status code. The use of 451 is 1723 most likely to apply in the case of cooperative, legal versions of 1724 content removal resulting from requests to providers. One can think 1725 of content that is removed or blocked for legal reasons, like 1726 copyright infringement, gambling laws, child abuse, et cetera. Large 1727 Internet companies and search engines are constantly asked to censor 1728 content in various jurisdictions. 451 allows this to be easily 1729 discovered, for instance by initiatives like the Lumen Database. 1731 Overall, the strength of 451 lies in its ability to provide 1732 transparency by giving the reason for blocking, and giving the end- 1733 user the ability to file a complaint. It allows organizations to 1734 easily measure censorship in an automated way, and prompts the user 1735 to access the content via another path (e.g. TOR, VPNs) when (s)he 1736 encounters the 451 status code. 1738 Status code 451 impact human rights by making censorship more 1739 transparent and measurable. The status code increases transparency 1740 both by signaling the existence of censorship (instead of a much more 1741 broad HTTP error message like HTTP status code 404) as well as 1742 providing details of the legal restriction, which legal authority is 1743 imposing it, and what class of resources it applies to. This 1744 empowers the user to seek redress. 1746 5.2.3.8. DDoS attacks 1748 Many individuals, not excluding IETF engineers, have argued that DDoS 1749 attacks are fundamentally against freedom of expression. Technically 1750 DDoS attacks are when one or multiple host overload the bandwidth or 1751 resources of another host by flooding it with traffic or making 1752 resource intensive requests, causing it to temporarily stop being 1753 available to users. One can roughly differentiate three types of 1754 DDoS attacks: Volume Based Attacked (This attack aims to make the 1755 host unreachable by using up all it's bandwith, often used techniques 1756 are: UDP floods and ICMP floods), Protocol Attacks (This attacks aims 1757 to use up actual server resources, often used techniques are SYN 1758 floods, fragmented packet attacks, and Ping of Death [RFC4949]) and 1759 Application Layer Attacks (this attack aims to bring down a server, 1760 such as the webserver). 1762 DDoS attacks can thus stifle freedom of expression, complicate the 1763 ability of independent media and human rights organizations to 1764 exercise their right to (online) freedom of association, while 1765 facilitating the ability of governments to censor dissent. When it 1766 comes to comparing DDoS attacks to protests in offline life, it is 1767 important to remember that only a limited number of DDoS attacks 1768 involved solely willing participants. In the overwhelming majority 1769 of cases, the clients are hacked hosts of unrelated parties that have 1770 not consented to being part of a DDoS (for exceptions see Operation 1771 Abibil [Abibil] or the Iranian Green Movement DDoS [GreenMovement]). 1772 In addition, DDoS attacks are increasingly used as an extortion 1773 tactic. 1775 All of these issues seem to suggest that the IETF should try to 1776 ensure that their protocols cannot be used for DDoS attacks, which is 1777 consistent with the long-standing IETF consensus that DDoS is an 1778 attack that protocols should mitigate them to the extent they can 1779 [BCP72]. Decreasing the number of vulnerabilities in protocols and 1780 (outside of IETF) the number of bugs in the network stacks of routers 1781 or computers could address this issue. The IETF can clearly play a 1782 role in bringing about some of these changes but the IETF cannot be 1783 expected to take a positive stance on (specific) DDoS attacks, or 1784 create protocols to enable some attacks and inhibit others. What the 1785 IETF can do is critically reflect on its role in the development of 1786 the Internet, and how this impacts the ability of people to excercise 1787 their human rights, such as freedom of expression. 1789 6. Model for developing human rights protocol considerations 1791 This section outlines a set of human rights protocol considerations 1792 for protocol developers. It provides questions engineers should ask 1793 themselves when developing or improving protocols if they want to 1794 understand their human rights impact. It should however be noted 1795 that the impact of a protocol cannot solely be deduced from its 1796 design, but its usage and implementation should also be studied to 1797 form a full protocol human rights impact assessment. 1799 The questions are based on the research performed by the hrpc 1800 research group which has been documented before these considerations. 1801 The research establishes that human rights relate to standards and 1802 protocols and offers a common vocabulary of technical concepts that 1803 impact human rights and how these technical concept can be combined 1804 to ensure that the Internet remains an enabling environment for human 1805 rights. With this the contours of a model for developing human 1806 rights protocol considerations has taken shape. 1808 6.1. Human rights threats 1810 Human rights threats on the Internet come in a myriad of forms. 1811 Protocols and standards can harm or enable the right to freedom of 1812 expression, right to non-discrimination, right to equal protection, 1813 right to participate in cultural life, arts and science, right to 1814 freedom of assembly and association, and the right to security. An 1815 end-user who is denied access to certain services, data or websites 1816 may be unable to disclose vital information about the malpractices of 1817 a government or other authority. A person whose communications are 1818 monitored may be prevented from exercising their right to freedom of 1819 association or participate in political processes [Penney]. In a 1820 worst-case scenario, protocols that leak information can lead to 1821 physical danger. A realistic example to consider is when individuals 1822 perceived as threats to the state are subjected to torture or 1823 extrajudicial killing or detention on the basis of information 1824 gathered by state agencies through information leakage in protocols. 1826 This section details several 'common' threats to human rights, 1827 indicating how each of these can lead to human rights violations/ 1828 harms and present several examples of how these threats to human 1829 rights materialize on the Internet. This threat modeling is inspired 1830 by [RFC6973] Privacy Considerations for Internet Protocols, which is 1831 based on the security threat analysis. This method is by no means a 1832 perfect solution for assessing human rights risks in Internet 1833 protocols and systems; it is however the best approach currently 1834 available. Certain specific human rights threats are indirectly 1835 considered in Internet protocols as part of the security 1836 considerations [BCP72], but privacy guidelines [RFC6973] or reviews, 1837 let alone human rights impact assessments of protocols are not 1838 standardized or implemented. 1840 Many threats, enablers and risks are linked to different rights. 1841 This is not unsurprising if one takes into account that human rights 1842 are interrelated, interdependent and indivisible. Here however we're 1843 not discussing all human rights because not all human rights are 1844 relevant to ICTs in general and protocols and standards in particular 1845 [Bless]: "The main source of the values of human rights is the 1846 International Bill of Human Rights that is composed of the Universal 1847 Declaration of Human Rights [UDHR] along with the International 1848 Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR] and the International 1849 Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights [ICESCR]. In the 1850 light of several cases of Internet censorship, the Human Rights 1851 Council Resolution 20/8 was adopted in 2012 [UNHRC2016], affirming ". 1852 . . that the same rights that people have offline must also be 1853 protected online. . . " . In 2015, the Charter of Human Rights and 1854 Principles for the Internet [IRP] was developed and released. 1855 According to these documents, some examples of human rights relevant 1856 for ICT systems are human dignity (Art. 1 UDHR), non-discrimination 1857 (Art. 2), rights to life, liberty and security (Art. 3), freedom of 1858 opinion and expression (Art. 19), freedom of assembly and association 1859 (Art. 20), rights to equal protection, legal remedy, fair trial, due 1860 process, presumed innocent (Art. 7-11), appropriate social and 1861 international order (Art. 28), participation in public affairs (Art. 1862 21), participation in cultural life, protection of intellectual 1863 property (Art. 27), and privacy (Art. 12)." A partial catalog of 1864 human rights related to ICTs, including economic rights, can be found 1865 in [Hill2014]. 1867 This is by no means an attempt to exclude specific rights or 1868 prioritize some rights over others. If other rights seem relevant, 1869 please contact the authors. 1871 6.2. Guidelines for human rights considerations 1873 This section provides guidance for document authors in the form of a 1874 questionnaire about protocols and their (potential) impact. The 1875 questionnaire may be useful at any point in the design process, 1876 particularly after document authors have developed a high-level 1877 protocol model as described in [RFC4101]. These guidelines do not 1878 seek to replace any existing referenced specifications, but rather 1879 contribute to them and look at the design process from a human rights 1880 perspective. 1882 Protocols and Internet Standard might benefit from a documented 1883 discussion of potential human rights risks arising from potential 1884 misapplications of the protocol or technology described in the RFC. 1885 This might be coupled with an Applicability Statement for that RFC. 1887 Note that the guidance provided in this section does not recommend 1888 specific practices. The range of protocols developed in the IETF is 1889 too broad to make recommendations about particular uses of data or 1890 how human rights might be balanced against other design goals. 1891 However, by carefully considering the answers to the following 1892 questions, document authors should be able to produce a comprehensive 1893 analysis that can serve as the basis for discussion on whether the 1894 protocol adequately takes specific human rights threats into account. 1895 This guidance is meant to help the thought process of a human rights 1896 analysis; it does not provide specific directions for how to write a 1897 human rights protocol considerations section (following the example 1898 set in [RFC6973]), and the addition of a human rights protocol 1899 considerations section has also not yet been proposed. In 1900 considering these questions, authors will need to be aware of the 1901 potential of technical advances or the passage of time to undermine 1902 protections. In general, considerations of rights are likely to be 1903 more effective if they are considered given a purpose and specific 1904 use cases, rather than as abstract absolute goals. 1906 6.2.1. Connectivity 1908 Question(s): Does your protocol add application-specific functions to 1909 intermediary nodes? Could this functionality be added to end nodes 1910 instead of intermediary nodes? Is your protocol optimized for low 1911 bandwidth and high latency connections? Could your protocol also be 1912 developed in a stateless manner? 1913 Explanation: The end-to-end principle [Saltzer] holds that 'the 1914 intelligence is end to end rather than hidden in the network' 1915 [RFC1958]. The end-to-end principle is important for the robustness 1916 of the network and innovation. Such robustness of the network is 1917 crucial to enabling human rights like freedom of expression. 1919 Example: Middleboxes (which can be Content Delivery Networks, 1920 Firewalls, NATs or other intermediary nodes that provide other 1921 'services' than routing) serve many legitimate purposes. But the 1922 protocols guiding them, can influence individuals' ability to 1923 communicate online freely and privately. The potential for abuse and 1924 intentional and unintentional censoring and limiting permissionless 1925 innovation, and thus ultimately the impact of middleboxes on the 1926 Internet as a place of unfiltered, unmonitored freedom of speech, is 1927 real. 1929 Impacts: 1931 - Right to freedom of expression 1933 - Right to freedom of assembly and association 1935 6.2.2. Privacy 1937 Question(s): Did you have a look at the Guidelines in the Privacy 1938 Considerations for Internet Protocols [RFC6973] section 7? Could 1939 your protocol in any way impact the confidentiality of protocol 1940 metadata? Could your protocol counter traffic analysis? Could your 1941 protocol improve data minimization? Does your document identify 1942 potentially sensitive logged data by your protocol and/or for how 1943 long that needs to be retained for technical reasons? 1945 Explanation: Privacy refers to the right of an entity (normally a 1946 person), acting in its own behalf, to determine the degree to which 1947 it will interact with its environment, including the degree to which 1948 the entity is willing to share its personal information with others. 1949 [RFC4949]. If a protocol provides insufficient privacy protection it 1950 may have a negative impact on freedom of expression as users self- 1951 censor for fear of surveillance, or find themselves unable to express 1952 themselves freely. 1954 Example: See [RFC6973] 1956 Impacts: 1958 - Right to freedom of expression 1960 - Right to non-discrimination 1962 6.2.3. Content agnosticism 1964 Question(s): If your protocol impacts packet handling, does it use 1965 user data (packet data that is not included in the header)? Is it 1966 making decisions based on the payload of the packet? Does your 1967 protocol prioritize certain content or services over others in the 1968 routing process ? Is the protocol transparent about the 1969 prioritization that is made (if any)? 1971 Explanation: Content agnosticism refers to the notion that network 1972 traffic is treated identically regardless of payload, with some 1973 exception where it comes to effective traffic handling, for instance 1974 where it comes to delay tolerant or delay sensitive packets, based on 1975 the header. 1977 Example: Content agnosticism prevents payload-based discrimination 1978 against packets. This is important because changes to this principle 1979 can lead to a two-tiered Internet, where certain packets are 1980 prioritized over others on the basis of their content. Effectively 1981 this would mean that although all users are entitled to receive their 1982 packets at a certain speed, some users become more equal than others. 1984 Impacts: 1986 - Right to freedom of expression 1988 - Right to non-discrimination 1990 - Right to equal protection 1992 6.2.4. Security 1994 Question(s): Did you have a look at Guidelines for Writing RFC Text 1995 on Security Considerations [BCP72]? Have you found any "attacks that 1996 are somewhat related to your protocol yet considered out of scope of 1997 your document? Would these attacks be pertinent to the human rights 1998 enabling features of the Internet (as described throughout this 1999 document)? 2001 Explanation: Most people speak of security as if it were a single 2002 monolithic property of a protocol or system, however, upon reflection 2003 one realizes that it is clearly not true. Rather, security is a 2004 series of related but somewhat independent properties. Not all of 2005 these properties are required for every application. Since 2006 communications are carried out by systems and access to systems is 2007 through communications channels, these goals obviously interlock, but 2008 they can also be independently provided [BCP72]. 2010 Example: See [BCP72]. 2012 Impacts: 2014 - Right to freedom of expression 2016 - Right to freedom of assembly and association 2018 - Right to non-discrimination 2020 - Right to security 2022 6.2.5. Internationalization 2024 Question(s): Does your protocol have text strings that have to be 2025 understood or entered by humans? Does your protocol allow Unicode? 2026 If so, do you accept texts in one charset (which must be UTF-8), or 2027 several (which is dangerous for interoperability)? If character sets 2028 or encodings other than UTF-8 are allowed, does your protocol mandate 2029 a proper tagging of the charset? Did you have a look at [RFC6365]? 2031 Explanation: Internationalization refers to the practice of making 2032 protocols, standards, and implementations usable in different 2033 languages and scripts (see Localization). In the IETF, 2034 internationalization means to add or improve the handling of non- 2035 ASCII text in a protocol. [RFC6365] A different perspective, more 2036 appropriate to protocols that are designed for global use from the 2037 beginning, is the definition used by W3C: 2039 "Internationalization is the design and development of a 2040 product, application or document content that enables easy 2041 localization for target audiences that vary in culture, region, 2042 or language." {{W3Ci18nDef}} 2044 Many protocols that handle text only handle one charset (US-ASCII), 2045 or leave the question of what CCS and encoding are used up to local 2046 guesswork (which leads, of course, to interoperability problems). If 2047 multiple charsets are permitted, they must be explicitly identified 2048 [RFC2277]. Adding non-ASCII text to a protocol allows the protocol 2049 to handle more scripts, hopefully representing users across the 2050 world. In today's world, that is normally best accomplished by 2051 allowing Unicode encoded in UTF-8 only. 2053 In the current IETF policy [RFC2277], internationalization is aimed 2054 at user-facing strings, not protocol elements, such as the verbs used 2055 by some text-based protocols. (Do note that some strings are both 2056 content and protocol elements, such as the identifiers.) If the 2057 Internet wants to be a global network of networks, the protocols 2058 should work with other languages than English and other character 2059 sets than latin characters. It is therefore crucial that at least 2060 the content carried by the protocol can be in any script, and that 2061 all scripts are treated equally. 2063 Example: See localization 2065 Impacts: 2067 - Right to freedom of expression 2069 - Right to political participation 2071 - Right to participate in cultural life, arts and science 2073 6.2.6. Censorship resistance 2075 Question(s): Does this protocol introduce new identifiers or reuse 2076 existing identifiers (e.g. MAC addresses) that might be associated 2077 with persons or content? Does your protocol make it apparent or 2078 transparent when access to a resource it restricted? Can your 2079 protocol contribute to filtering in a way it could be implemented to 2080 censor data or services? Could this be designed to ensure this 2081 doesn't happen? 2083 Explanation: Censorship resistance refers to the methods and measures 2084 to prevent Internet censorship. 2086 Example: In the development of the IPv6 protocol it was discussed to 2087 embed a Media Access Control (MAC) address into unique IP addresses. 2088 This would make it possible for 'eavesdroppers and other information 2089 collectors to identify when different addresses used in different 2090 transactions actually correspond to the same node. [RFC4941] This is 2091 why Privacy Extensions for Stateless Address Autoconfiguration in 2092 IPv6 have been introduced. [RFC4941] 2094 Identifiers of content exposed within a protocol might be used to 2095 facilitate censorship, as in the case of Application Layer based 2096 censorship, which affects protocols like HTTP. Denial or restriction 2097 of access can be made apparent by the use of status code 451 - which 2098 allows server operators to operate with greater transparency in 2099 circumstances where issues of law or public policy affect their 2100 operation [RFC7725]. 2102 Impacts: 2104 - Right to freedom of expression 2105 - Right to political participation 2107 - Right to participate in cultural life, arts and science 2109 - Right to freedom of assembly and association 2111 6.2.7. Open Standards 2113 Question(s): Is your protocol fully documented in a way that it could 2114 be easily implemented, improved, built upon and/or further developed? 2115 Do you depend on proprietary code for the implementation, running or 2116 further development of your protocol? Does your protocol favor a 2117 particular proprietary specification over technically equivalent and 2118 competing specification(s), for instance by making any incorporated 2119 vendor specification "required" or "recommended" [RFC2026]? Do you 2120 normatively reference another standard that is not available without 2121 cost (and could it possible be done without)? Are you aware of any 2122 patents that would prevent your standard from being fully implemented 2123 [RFC3979] [RFC6701]? 2125 Explanation: The Internet was able to be developed into the global 2126 network of networks because of the existence of open, non-proprietary 2127 standards [Zittrain]. They are crucial for enabling 2128 interoperability. Yet, open standards are not explicitly defined 2129 within the IETF. On the subject, [RFC2026] states: Various national 2130 and international standards bodies, such as ANSI, ISO, IEEE, and ITU- 2131 T, develop a variety of protocol and service specifications that are 2132 similar to Technical Specifications defined at the IETF. National 2133 and international groups also publish "implementors' agreements" that 2134 are analogous to Applicability Statements, capturing a body of 2135 implementation-specific detail concerned with the practical 2136 application of their standards. All of these are considered to be 2137 "open external standards" for the purposes of the Internet Standards 2138 Process. Similarly, [RFC3935] does not define open standards but 2139 does emphasize the importance of 'open process': any interested 2140 person can participate in the work, know what is being decided, and 2141 make his or her voice heard on the issue. Part of this principle is 2142 the IETF's commitment to making its documents, WG mailing lists, 2143 attendance lists, and meeting minutes publicly available on the 2144 Internet. 2146 Open standards are important as they allow for permissionless 2147 innovation, which is important to maintain the freedom and ability to 2148 freely create and deploy new protocols on top of the communications 2149 constructs that currently exist. It is at the heart of the Internet 2150 as we know it, and to maintain its fundamentally open nature, we need 2151 to be mindful of the need for developing open standards. 2153 All standards that need to be normatively implemented should be 2154 freely available and with reasonable protection for patent 2155 infringement claims, so it can also be implemented in open source or 2156 free software. Patents have often held back open standardization or 2157 been used against those deploying open standards, particularly in the 2158 domain of cryptography [newegg]. An exemption of this is sometimes 2159 made when a protocol is standardized that normatively relies on 2160 speficiations produced by others SDOs that are not freely available. 2161 Patents in open standards or in normative references to other 2162 standards should have a patent disclosure [notewell], royalty-free 2163 licensing [patentpolicy], or some other form of reasonable 2164 protection. Reasonable patent protection should includes but is not 2165 limited to cryptographic primitives. 2167 Example: [RFC6108] describes a system for providing critical end-user 2168 notifications to web browsers, which has been deployed by Comcast, an 2169 Internet Service Provider (ISP). Such a notification system is being 2170 used to provide near-immediate notifications to customers, such as to 2171 warn them that their traffic exhibits patterns that are indicative of 2172 malware or virus infection. There are other proprietary systems that 2173 can perform such notifications, but those systems utilize Deep Packet 2174 Inspection (DPI) technology. In contrast to DPI, this document 2175 describes a system that does not rely upon DPI, and is instead based 2176 in open IETF standards and open source applications. 2178 Impacts: 2180 - Right to freedom of expression 2182 - Right to participate in cultural life, arts and science 2184 6.2.8. Heterogeneity Support 2186 Question(s): Does your protocol support heterogeneity by design? 2187 Does your protocol allow for multiple types of hardware? Does your 2188 protocol allow for multiple types of application protocols? Is your 2189 protocol liberal in what it receives and handles? Will it remain 2190 usable and open if the context changes? Does your protocol allow 2191 there to be well-defined extension points? Do these extension points 2192 allow for open innovation? 2194 Explanation: The Internet is characterized by heterogeneity on many 2195 levels: devices and nodes, router scheduling algorithms and queue 2196 management mechanisms, routing protocols, levels of multiplexing, 2197 protocol versions and implementations, underlying link layers (e.g., 2198 point-to-point, multi-access links, wireless, FDDI, etc.), in the 2199 traffic mix and in the levels of congestion at different times and 2200 places. Moreover, as the Internet is composed of autonomous 2201 organizations and Internet service providers, each with their own 2202 separate policy concerns, there is a large heterogeneity of 2203 administrative domains and pricing structures. As a result, the 2204 heterogeneity principle proposed in [RFC1958] needs to be supported 2205 by design [FIArch]. 2207 Example: Heterogeneity is inevitable and needs be supported by 2208 design. Multiple types of hardware must be allowed for, e.g. 2209 transmission speeds differing by at least 7 orders of magnitude, 2210 various computer word lengths, and hosts ranging from memory-starved 2211 microprocessors up to massively parallel supercomputers. Multiple 2212 types of application protocol must be allowed for, ranging from the 2213 simplest such as remote login up to the most complex such as 2214 distributed databases [RFC1958]. 2216 Impacts: 2218 - Right to freedom of expression 2220 - Right to political participtation 2222 6.2.9. Anonymity 2224 Question(s): Did you have a look at the Privacy Considerations for 2225 Internet Protocols [RFC6973], especially section 6.1.1 ? 2227 Explanation: Anonymity refers to the condition of an identity being 2228 unknown or concealed [RFC4949]. Even though full anonymity is hard 2229 to achieve, it is a non-binary concept. Making pervasive monitoring 2230 and tracking harder is important for many users as well as for the 2231 IETF [RFC7258]. Achieving a higher level of anonymity is an 2232 important feature for many end-users, as it allows them different 2233 degrees of privacy online. 2235 Example: Often protocols expose personal data, it is important to 2236 consider ways to mitigate the obvious privacy impacts. A protocol 2237 that uses data that could help identify a sender (items of interest) 2238 should be protected from third parties. For instance if one wants to 2239 hide the source/destination IP addresses of a packet, the use of 2240 IPsec in tunneling mode (e.g., inside a virtual private network) can 2241 be helpful to protect from third parties likely to eavesdrop packets 2242 exchanged between the tunnel endpoints. 2244 Impacts: 2246 - Right to non-discrimination 2248 - Right to political participation 2249 - Right to freedom of assembly and association 2251 - Right to security 2253 6.2.10. Pseudonymity 2255 Question(s): Have you considered the Privacy Considerations for 2256 Internet Protocols [RFC6973], especially section 6.1.2 ? Does the 2257 protocol collect personally derived data? Does the protocol generate 2258 or process anything that can be, or be tightly correlated with, 2259 personally identifiable information? Does the protocol utilize data 2260 that is personally-derived, i.e. derived from the interaction of a 2261 single person, or their device or address? Does this protocol 2262 generate personally derived data, and if so how will that data be 2263 handled? 2265 Explanation: Pseudonymity - the ability to use a persistent 2266 identifier not linked to one's offline identity" straight away - is 2267 an important feature for many end-users, as it allows them different 2268 degrees of disguised identity and privacy online. 2270 Example: Designing a standard that exposes personal data, it is 2271 important to consider ways to mitigate the obvious impacts. While 2272 pseudonyms cannot be simply reverse engineered - some early 2273 approaches simply took approaches such as simple hashing of IP 2274 addreses, these could then be simply reversed by generating a hash 2275 for each potential IP address and comparing it to the pseudonym - 2276 limiting the exposure of personal data remains important. 2278 Pseudonymity means using a pseudonym instead of one's "real" name. 2279 There are many reasons for users to use pseudoyms, for instance to: 2280 hide their gender, protect themselves against harassment, protect 2281 their families' privacy, frankly discuss sexuality, or develop a 2282 artistic or journalistic persona without retribution from an 2283 employer, (potential) customers, or social surrounding. 2284 [geekfeminism] The difference between anonymity and pseudonymity is 2285 that a pseudonym often is persistent. "Pseudonymity is strengthened 2286 when less personal data can be linked to the pseudonym; when the same 2287 pseudonym is used less often and across fewer contexts; and when 2288 independently chosen pseudonyms are more frequently used for new 2289 actions (making them, from an observer's or attacker's perspective, 2290 unlinkable)." [RFC6973] 2292 Impacts: 2294 - Right to non-discrimination 2296 - Right to freedom of assembly and association 2298 6.2.11. Accessibility 2300 Question(s): Is your protocol designed to provide an enabling 2301 environment for people who are not able-bodied? Have you looked at 2302 the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative for examples and guidance? 2304 Explanation: The Internet is fundamentally designed to work for all 2305 people, whatever their hardware, software, language, culture, 2306 location, or physical or mental ability. When the Internet meets 2307 this goal, it is accessible to people with a diverse range of 2308 hearing, movement, sight, and cognitive ability [W3CAccessibility]. 2309 Sometimes in the design of protocols, websites, web technologies, or 2310 web tools, barriers are created that exclude people from using the 2311 Web. 2313 Example: The HTML protocol as defined in [HTML5] specifically 2314 requires that every image must have an alt attribute (with a few 2315 exceptions) to ensure images are accessible for people that cannot 2316 themselves decipher non-text content in web pages. 2318 Impacts: 2320 - Right to non-discrimination 2322 - Right to freedom of assembly and association 2324 - Right to education 2326 - Right to political participation 2328 6.2.12. Localization 2330 Question(s): Does your protocol uphold the standards of 2331 internationalization? Have made any concrete steps towards 2332 localizing your protocol for relevant audiences? 2334 Explanation: Localization refers to the adaptation of a product, 2335 application or document content to meet the language, cultural and 2336 other requirements of a specific target market (a locale) 2337 [W3Ci18nDef]. It is also described as the practice of translating an 2338 implementation to make it functional in a specific language or for 2339 users in a specific locale (see Internationalization). 2341 Example: The Internet is a global medium, but many of its protocols 2342 and products are developed with a certain audience in mind, that 2343 often share particular characteristics like knowing how to read and 2344 write in ASCII and knowing English. This limits the ability of a 2345 large part of the world's online population from using the Internet 2346 in a way that is culturally and linguistically accessible. An 2347 example of a protocol that has taken into account the view that 2348 individuals like to have access to data in their native language can 2349 be found in [RFC5646]. This protocol labels the information content 2350 with an identifier for the language in which it is written. And this 2351 allows information to be presented in more than one language. 2353 Impacts: 2355 - Right to non-discrimination 2357 - Right to participate in cultural life, arts and science 2359 - Right to freedom of expression 2361 6.2.13. Decentralization 2363 Question(s): Can your protocol be implemented without one single 2364 point of control? If applicable, can your protocol be deployed in a 2365 federated manner? What is the potential for discrimination against 2366 users of your protocol? How can the use of your protocol be used to 2367 implicate users? Does your protocol create additional centralized 2368 points of control? 2370 Explanation: Decentralization is one of the central technical 2371 concepts of the architecture of the networks, and embraced as such by 2372 the IETF [RFC3935]. It refers to the absence or minimization of 2373 centralized points of control; a feature that is assumed to make it 2374 easy for new users to join and new uses to unfold [Brown]. It also 2375 reduces issues surrounding single points of failure, and distributes 2376 the network such that it continues to function if one or several 2377 nodes are disabled. With the commercialization of the Internet in 2378 the early 1990's there has been a slow move to move away from 2379 decentralization, to the detriment of the technical benefits of 2380 having a decentralized Internet. 2382 Example: The bits traveling the Internet are increasingly susceptible 2383 to monitoring and censorship, from both governments and Internet 2384 service providers, as well as third (malicious) parties. The ability 2385 to monitor and censor is further enabled by the increased 2386 centralization of the network that creates central infrastructure 2387 points that can be tapped in to. The creation of peer-to-peer 2388 networks and the development of voice-over-IP protocols using peer- 2389 to-peer technology in combination with distributed hash table (DHT) 2390 for scalability are examples of how protocols can preserve 2391 decentralization [Pouwelse]. 2393 Impacts: 2395 - Right to freedom of expression 2397 - Right to freedom of assembly and association 2399 6.2.14. Reliability 2401 Question(s): Is your protocol fault tolerant? Does it degrade 2402 gracefully? Can your protocol resist malicious degradation attempts? 2403 Do you have a documented way to announce degradation? Do you have 2404 measures in place for recovery or partial healing from failure? Can 2405 your protocol maintain dependability and performance in the face of 2406 unanticipated changes or circumstances? 2408 Explanation: Reliability ensures that a protocol will execute its 2409 function consistently and error resistant as described, and function 2410 without unexpected result. A system that is reliable degenerates 2411 gracefully and will have a documented way to announce degradation. 2412 It also has mechanisms to recover from failure gracefully, and if 2413 applicable, allow for partial healing. It is important here to draw 2414 a distinction between random degradation and malicious degradation. 2415 Many current attacks against TLS, for example, exploit TLS's ability 2416 to gracefully degrade to older cipher suites - from a functional 2417 perspective, this is good. From a security perspective, this can be 2418 very bad. As with confidentiality, the growth of the Internet and 2419 fostering innovation in services depends on users having confidence 2420 and trust [RFC3724] in the network. For reliability it is necessary 2421 that services notify the users if a delivery fails. In the case of 2422 real-time systems in addition to the reliable delivery the protocol 2423 needs to safeguard timeliness. 2425 Example: In the modern IP stack structure, a reliable transport layer 2426 requires an indication that transport processing has successfully 2427 completed, such as given by TCP's ACK message [RFC0793], and not 2428 simply an indication from the IP layer that the packet arrived. 2429 Similarly, an application layer protocol may require an application- 2430 specific acknowledgement that contains, among other things, a status 2431 code indicating the disposition of the request (See [RFC3724]). 2433 Impacts: 2435 - Right to freedom of expression 2437 - Right to security 2439 6.2.15. Confidentiality 2441 Question(s): Does this protocol expose information related to 2442 identifiers or data? If so, does it do so to each other protocol 2443 entity (i.e., recipients, intermediaries, and enablers) [RFC6973]? 2444 What options exist for protocol implementers to choose to limit the 2445 information shared with each entity? What operational controls are 2446 available to limit the information shared with each entity? 2448 What controls or consent mechanisms does the protocol define or 2449 require before personal data or identifiers are shared or exposed via 2450 the protocol? If no such mechanisms or controls are specified, is it 2451 expected that control and consent will be handled outside of the 2452 protocol? 2454 Does the protocol provide ways for initiators to share different 2455 pieces of information with different recipients? If not, are there 2456 mechanisms that exist outside of the protocol to provide initiators 2457 with such control? 2459 Does the protocol provide ways for initiators to limit which 2460 information is shared with intermediaries? If not, are there 2461 mechanisms that exist outside of the protocol to provide users with 2462 such control? Is it expected that users will have relationships that 2463 govern the use of the information (contractual or otherwise) with 2464 those who operate these intermediaries? Does the protocol prefer 2465 encryption over clear text operation? 2467 Does the protocol provide ways for initiators to express individuals' 2468 preferences to recipients or intermediaries with regard to the 2469 collection, use, or disclosure of their personal data? 2471 Explanation: Confidentiality refers to keeping your data secret from 2472 unintended listeners [BCP72]. The growth of the Internet depends on 2473 users having confidence that the network protects their personal data 2474 [RFC1984]. 2476 Example: Protocols that do not encrypt their payload make the entire 2477 content of the communication available to the idealized attacker 2478 along their path. Following the advice in [RFC3365], most such 2479 protocols have a secure variant that encrypts the payload for 2480 confidentiality, and these secure variants are seeing ever-wider 2481 deployment. A noteworthy exception is DNS [RFC1035], as DNSSEC 2482 [RFC4033]does not have confidentiality as a requirement. This 2483 implies that, in the absence of changes to the protocol as presently 2484 under development in the IETF's DNS Private Exchange (DPRIVE) working 2485 group, all DNS queries and answers generated by the activities of any 2486 protocol are available to the attacker. When store-and-forward 2487 protocols are used (e.g., SMTP [RFC5321]), intermediaries leave this 2488 data subject to observation by an attacker that has compromised these 2489 intermediaries, unless the data is encrypted end-to-end by the 2490 application-layer protocol or the implementation uses an encrypted 2491 store for this data [RFC7624]. 2493 Impacts: 2495 - Right to privacy 2497 - Right to security 2499 6.2.16. Integrity 2501 Question(s): Does your protocol maintain, assure and/or verify the 2502 accuracy of payload data? Does your protocol maintain and assure the 2503 consistency of data? Does your protocol in any way allow for the 2504 data to be (intentionally or unintentionally) altered? 2506 Explanation: Integrity refers to the maintenance and assurance of the 2507 accuracy and consistency of data to ensure it has not been 2508 (intentionally or unintentionally) altered. 2510 Example: Integrity verification of data is important to prevent 2511 vulnerabilities and attacks, like man-in-the-middle-attacks. These 2512 attacks happen when a third party (often for malicious reasons) 2513 intercepts a communication between two parties, inserting themselves 2514 in the middle changing the content of the data. In practice this 2515 looks as follows: 2517 Alice wants to communicate with Bob. 2518 Corinne forges and sends a message to Bob, impersonating Alice. Bob 2519 cannot see the data from Alice was altered by Corinne. 2520 Corinne intercepts and alters the communication as it is sent between 2521 Alice and Bob. 2522 Corinne is able to control the communication content. 2524 Impacts: 2526 - Right to freedom of expression 2528 - Right to security 2530 6.2.17. Authenticity 2532 Question(s): Do you have sufficient measures to confirm the truth of 2533 an attribute of a single piece of data or entity? Can the attributes 2534 get garbled along the way (see security)? If relevant have you 2535 implemented IPsec, DNSsec, HTTPS and other Standard Security Best 2536 Practices? 2538 Explanation: Authenticity ensures that data does indeed come from the 2539 source it claims to come from. This is important to prevent certain 2540 attacks or unauthorized access and use of data. 2542 Example: Authentication of data is important to prevent 2543 vulnerabilities and attacks, like man-in-the-middle-attacks. These 2544 attacks happen when a third party (often for malicious reasons) 2545 intercepts a communication between two parties, inserting themselves 2546 in the middle and posing as both parties. In practice this looks as 2547 follows: 2549 Alice wants to communicate with Bob. 2550 Alice sends data to Bob. 2551 Corinne intercepts the data sent to Bob. 2552 Corinne reads (and potentially alters) the message to Bob. 2553 Bob cannot see the data did not come from Alice but from Corinne. 2555 When there is proper authentication the scenario would be as follows: 2557 Alice wants to communicate with Bob. 2558 Alice sends data to Bob. 2559 Corinne intercepts the data sent to Bob. 2560 Corinne reads and alters the message to Bob. 2561 Bob can see the data did not come from Alice but from Corinne. 2563 Impacts: 2565 - Right to privacy 2567 - Right to freedom of expression 2569 - Right to security 2571 6.2.18. Adaptability 2573 Question(s): Is your protocol written in such a way that is would be 2574 easy for other protocols to be developed on top of it, or to interact 2575 with it? Does your protocol impact permissionless innovation? See 2576 'Connectivity' above. 2578 Explanation: Adaptability is closely interrelated with permissionless 2579 innovation, both maintain the freedom and ability to freely create 2580 and deploy new protocols on top of the communications constructs that 2581 currently exist. It is at the heart of the Internet as we know it, 2582 and to maintain its fundamentally open nature, we need to be mindful 2583 of the impact of protocols on maintaining or reducing permissionless 2584 innovation to ensure the Internet can continue to develop. 2586 Example: WebRTC generates audio and/or video data. In order to 2587 ensure that WebRTC can be used in different locations by different 2588 parties it is important that standard Javascript APIs are developed 2589 to support applications from different voice service providers. 2590 Multiple parties will have similar capabilities, in order to ensure 2591 that all parties can build upon existing standards these need to be 2592 adaptable, and allow for permissionless innovation. 2594 Impacts: 2596 - Right to education 2598 - Freedom of expression 2600 - Freedom of assembly and association 2602 6.2.19. Outcome Transparency 2604 Question(s): Are the effects of your protocol fully and easily 2605 comprehensible, including with respect to unintended consequences of 2606 protocol choices? 2608 Explanation: certain technical choice may have unintended 2609 consequences. 2611 Example: lack of authenticity may lead to lack of integrity and 2612 negative externalities, of which spam is an example. Lack of data 2613 that could be used for billing and accounting can lead to so-called 2614 "free" arrangements which obscure the actual costs and distribution 2615 of the costs, for example the barter arrangements that are commonly 2616 used for Internet interconnection; and the commercial exploitation of 2617 personal data for targeted advertising which is the most common 2618 funding model for the so-called "free" services such as search 2619 engines and social networks. 2621 Impacts: - Freedom of expression - Privacy - Freedom of assembly and 2622 association - Access to information 2624 7. Document Status 2626 This document has been developed within the framework of the Human 2627 Rights Protocols Considerations Research Group, based on discussions 2628 on the hrpc mailinglist and during hrpc sessions, where this document 2629 also has been extensively discussed. The document has received 2630 eleven in-depth reviews on list, and received many comments from 2631 inside and outside the IRTF and IETF community. The research group 2632 has reached consensus on publishing this document as informational 2633 research group consensus document. 2635 8. Acknowledgements 2637 A special thanks to all members of the hrpc RG who contributed to 2638 this draft. The following deserve a special mention: 2640 - Joana Varon for helping draft the first iteration of the 2641 methodology, previous drafts and the direction of the film Net of 2642 Rights and working on the interviews at IETF92 in Dallas. 2644 - Daniel Kahn Gillmor (dkg) for helping with the first iteration of 2645 the glossary as well as a lot of technical guidance, support and 2646 language suggestions. 2648 - Claudio Guarnieri for writing the first iterations of the case 2649 studies on VPN, HTTP, and Peer to Peer. 2651 - Will Scott for writing the first iterations of the case studies on 2652 DNS, IP, XMPP. 2654 - Avri Doria for proposing writing a glossary in the first place, 2655 help with writing the initial proposals and Internet Drafts, her 2656 reviews and contributions to the glossary. 2658 and Stephane Bortzmeyer, John Curran, Barry Shein, Joe Hall, Joss 2659 Wright, Harry Halpin, and Tim Sammut who made a lot of excellent 2660 suggestions, many of which found their way directly into the text. 2661 We want to thank Amelia Andersdotter, Stephen Farrell, Stephane 2662 Bortzemeyer, Shane Kerr, Giovane Moura, James Gannon, Alissa Cooper, 2663 Andrew Sullivan, S. Moonesamy, Roland Bless and Scott Craig for 2664 their reviews and testing the HRPC guidelines in the wild. We would 2665 also like to thank Molly Sauter, Arturo Filasto, Nathalie Marechal, 2666 Eleanor Saitta, Richard Hill and all others who provided input on the 2667 draft or the conceptualization of the idea. Thanks to Edward Snowden 2668 for his comments regarding the impact of protocols on the rights of 2669 users at IETF93. 2671 9. Security Considerations 2673 As this document concerns a research document, there are no security 2674 considerations. 2676 10. IANA Considerations 2678 This document has no actions for IANA. 2680 11. Research Group Information 2682 The discussion list for the IRTF Human Rights Protocol Considerations 2683 Research Group is located at the e-mail address hrpc@ietf.org [3]. 2684 Information on the group and information on how to subscribe to the 2685 list is at https://www.irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/hrpc 2687 Archives of the list can be found at: https://www.irtf.org/mail- 2688 archive/web/hrpc/current/index.html 2690 12. References 2692 12.1. Informative References 2694 [Abbate] Abbate, J., "Inventing the Internet", MIT Press , 2000, 2695 . 2697 [Abibil] Danchev, D., "Dissecting 'Operation Ababil' - an OSINT 2698 Analysis", 2012, . 2701 [Adrian] Adrian, D., Bhargavan, K., Durumeric, Z., Gaudry, P., 2702 Green, M., Halderman, J., Heninger, N., Springall, D., 2703 Thome, E., Valenta, L., VanderSloot, B., Wustrow, E., 2704 Zanella Beguelin, S., and P. Zimmermann, "Imperfect 2705 Forward Secrecy: How Diffie-Hellman Fails in Practice", 2706 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security 2707 2015: 5-17 , 2015. 2709 [Alshalanetal] 2710 Alshalan, A., Pisharody, S., and D. Huang, "A Survey of 2711 Mobile VPN Technologies", 2016, 2712 . 2715 [APIP] Naylor, D., Mukerjee, M., and P. Steenkiste, "Balancing 2716 accountability and privacy in the network", SIGCOMM '14 2717 Proceedings of the 2014 ACM conference on SIGCOMM Pages 2718 75-86 , 2014, . 2721 [Appelbaum] 2722 Appelbaum, J., Gibson, A., Kabish, V., Kampf, L., and L. 2723 Ryge, "NSA targets the privacy-conscious", 2015, 2724 . 2727 [ars] Anderson, N., "P2P researchers - use a blocklist or you 2728 will be tracked... 100% of the time", 2007, 2729 . 2733 [Aryanetall] 2734 Aryan, S., Aryan, H., and J. Alex Halderman, "Internet 2735 Censorship in Iran: A First Look", 2013, 2736 . 2738 [Babbie] Babbie, E., "The Basics of Social Research", Belmont CA 2739 Cengage , 2010. 2741 [bbc-wikileaks] 2742 BBC, "Whistle-blower site taken offline", 2008, 2743 . 2745 [BCP72] IETF, "Guidelines for Writing RFC Text on Security 2746 Considerations", 2003, . 2749 [Benkler] Benkler, Y., "The wealth of Networks - How social 2750 production transforms markets and freedom", New Haven and 2751 London - Yale University Press , 2006, 2752 . 2754 [Berners-Lee] 2755 Berners-Lee, T. and M. Fischetti, "Weaving the Web,", 2756 HarperCollins p 208, 1999. 2758 [BernersLeeHalpin] 2759 Berners-Lee, T. and H. Halpin, "Defend the Web", 2012, 2760 . 2763 [Bhargavan] 2764 Bhargavan, K., Delignat-Lavaud, A., Fournet, C., Pironti, 2765 A., and P. Strub, "Triple Handshakes and Cookie Cutters: 2766 Breaking and Fixing Authentication over TLS", IEEE 2767 Symposium on Security and Privacy 2014: 98-113 , 2014. 2769 [bitmessage] 2770 Bitmessage, "Bitmessage Wiki?", 2014, 2771 . 2773 [Bless] Bless, R. and C. Orwat, "Values and Networks", 2015. 2775 [Broeders] 2776 Broeders, D., "The public core of the Internet", WRR , 2777 2015, 2778 . 2781 [Brown] Brown, I. and M. Ziewitz, "A Prehistory of Internet 2782 Governance", Research Handbook on Governance of the 2783 Internet. Cheltenham, Edward Elgar. , 2013. 2785 [Brownetal] 2786 Brown, I., Clark, D., and D. Trossen, "Should specific 2787 values be embedded in the Internet Architecture?", 2788 Sigcomm , 2010, . 2791 [BrownMarsden] 2792 Brown, I. and C. Marsden, "Regulating code", MIT Press , 2793 2013, . 2795 [caida] Dainotti, A., Squarcella, C., Aben, E., Claffy, K., 2796 Chiesa, M., Russo, M., and A. Pescape, "Analysis of 2797 Country-wide Internet Outages Caused by", 2013, 2798 . 2801 [Cath] Cath, C., "A Case Study of Coding Rights: Should Freedom 2802 of Speech Be Instantiated in the Protocols and Standards 2803 Designed by the Internet Engineering Task Force?", 2015, 2804 . 2807 [CathFloridi] 2808 Cath, C. and L. Floridi, "The Design of the Internet's 2809 Architecture by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 2810 and Human Rights", July 2017. 2812 [Clark] Clark, D., "The Design Philosophy of the DARPA Internet 2813 Protocols", Proc SIGCOMM 88, ACM CCR Vol 18, Number 4, 2814 August 1988, pp. 106-114. , 1988. 2816 [Clarketal] 2817 Clark, D., Wroclawski, J., Sollins, K., and R. Braden, 2818 "Tussle in cyberspace - defining tomorrow's Internet", ACM 2819 Digital Library , 2005, . 2822 [CoE] Council of Europe, "Applications to ICANN for community- 2823 based new generic top level domains: Opportunities and 2824 challenges from a human rights perspective", 2016, 2825 . 2828 [Collins] Collins, K., "Hacking Team's oppressive regimes customer 2829 list revealed in hack", 2015, 2830 . 2833 [Davidsonetal] 2834 Davidson, A., Morris, J., and R. Courtney, "Strangers in a 2835 strange land", Telecommunications Policy Research 2836 Conference , 2002, 2837 . 2839 [Denardis14] 2840 Denardis, L., "The Global War for Internet Governance", 2841 Yale University Press , 2014, 2842 . 2844 [Denardis15] 2845 Denardis, L., "The Internet Design Tension between 2846 Surveillance and Security", IEEE Annals of the History of 2847 Computing (volume 37-2) , 2015, . 2849 [Denzin] Denzin, N. and Y. Lincoln, "Handbook of Qualitative 2850 Research", Thousand Oaks CA Sage , 2000, 2851 . 2854 [dict] BusinessDictionary.com. WebFinance, Inc., "Reliability 2855 (dictionary entry)", 2016, 2856 . 2859 [Doty] Doty, N., "Automated text analysis of Requests for Comment 2860 (RFCs)", 2014, . 2862 [Douceur] Douceur, J., "The Sybil Attack", 2002, 2863 . 2866 [Dutton] Dutton, W., "Freedom of Connection, Freedom of Expression: 2867 the Changing legal and regulatory Ecology Shaping the 2868 Internet.", 2011, . 2871 [Farrow] Farrow, R., "Source Address Spoofing", 2016, 2872 . 2874 [FIArch] "Future Internet Design Principles", January 2012, 2875 . 2878 [FOC] Ministers of the Freedom Online Coalition, "The Tallinn 2879 Agenda - Recommendations for Freedom Online", 2014, 2880 . 2884 [FRAMEWORK] 2885 ISO/IEC, ., "Information technology - Framework for 2886 internationalization, prepared by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 2887 20 ISO/IEC TR 11017", 1997. 2889 [Franklin] 2890 Franklin, U., "The Real World of Technology", 1999, 2891 . 2894 [freenet1] 2895 Freenet, "What is Freenet?", n.d., 2896 . 2898 [freenet2] 2899 Ian Clarke, ., "The Philosphy behind Freenet?", n.d., 2900 . 2902 [geekfeminism] 2903 Geek Feminism Wiki, "Pseudonymity", 2015, 2904 . 2906 [Geertz] Clifford, G., "Kinship in Bali", Chicago University of 2907 Chicago Press. , 1975, 2908 . 2911 [Googlepatent] 2912 Google, ., "Method and device for network traffic 2913 manipulation", 2012, . 2916 [greatfirewall] 2917 Anonymous, ., "Towards a Comprehensive Picture of the 2918 Great Firewall's DNS Censorship", 2014, 2919 . 2922 [GreenMovement] 2923 Villeneuve, N., "Iran DDoS", 2009, 2924 . 2926 [Greenwald] 2927 Greenwald, G., "XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly 2928 everything a user does on the internet'", 2013, 2929 . 2932 [Haagsma] Haagsma, L., "Deep dive into QUANTUM INSERT", 2015, 2933 . 2936 [hall] Hall, J., Aaron, M., and B. Jones, "A Survey of Worldwide 2937 Censorship Techniques", 2015, 2938 . 2941 [Hill2014] 2942 Hill, R., "Partial Catalog of Human Rights Related to ICT 2943 Activities", 2014, 2944 . 2946 [Hornet] Chen, C., Asoni, D., Barrera, D., Danezis, G., and A. 2947 Perrig, "HORNET: High-speed Onion Routing at the Network 2948 Layer", CCS '15 Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGSAC 2949 Conference on Computer and Communications Security Pages 2950 1441-1454 , 2015, . 2953 [HRC2012] United Nations Human Rights Council, "UN General Assembly 2954 Resolution "The right to privacy in the digital age" 2955 (A/C.3/68/L.45)", 2011, 2956 . 2958 [HTML5] W3C, "HTML5", 2014, . 2960 [ICCPR] United Nations General Assembly, "International Covenant 2961 on Civil and Political Rights", 1976, 2962 . 2965 [ICESCR] United Nations General Assembly, "International Covenant 2966 on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights", 1966, 2967 . 2970 [Insinuator] 2971 Schiess, N., "Vulnerabilities & attack vectors of VPNs (Pt 2972 1)", 2013, . 2975 [IRP] Internet Rights and Principles Dynamic Coalition, "10 2976 Internet Rights & Principles", 2014, 2977 . 2981 [Jabri] Jabri, V., "Discourses on Violence - conflict analysis 2982 reconsidered", Manchester University Press , 1996. 2984 [Kaye] Kaye, D., "Report of the Special Rapporteur on the 2985 promotion and protection of the right to freedom of 2986 opinion and expression", 2016, 2987 . 2990 [King] King, C., "Power, Social Violence and Civil Wars", 2991 Washington D.C. United States Institute of Peace Press , 2992 2007. 2994 [Lessig] Lessig, L., "Code - And Other Laws of Cyberspace, Version 2995 2.0.", New York Basic Books , 2006, . 2997 [Marcak] Marcak, B., Weaver, N., Dalek, J., Ensafi, R., Fifield, 2998 D., McKune, S., Rey, A., Scott-Railton, J., Deibert, R., 2999 and V. Paxson, "China's Great Fire Cannon", 2015, 3000 . 3002 [Marquis-Boire] 3003 Marquis-Boire, M., "Schrodinger's Cat Video and the Death 3004 of Clear-Text", 2014, . 3007 [Meyer] Meyer, J., "Defining and Evaluating Resilience: A 3008 Performability Perspective, presentation at International 3009 Workshop on Performability Modeling of Computer and 3010 Communication Systems.", 2009. 3012 [Mueller] Mueller, M., "Networks and States", MIT Press , 2010, 3013 . 3015 [Musiani] Musiani, F., "Giants, Dwarfs and Decentralized 3016 Alternatives to Internet-based Services - An Issue of 3017 Internet Governance", Westminister Papers in Communication 3018 and Culture , 2015, . 3020 [namecoin] 3021 Namecoin, "Namecoin - Decentralized secure names", 2015, 3022 . 3024 [natusage] 3025 Maier, G., Schneider, F., and A. Feldmann, "NAT usage in 3026 Residential Broadband networks", 2011, 3027 . 3030 [NETmundial] 3031 NETmundial, "NETmundial Multistakeholder Statement", 2014, 3032 . 3035 [newegg] Mullin, J., "Newegg on trial: Mystery company TQP rewrites 3036 the history of encryption", 2013, . 3040 [notewell] 3041 IETF, "Note Well", 2015, . 3044 [patentpolicy] 3045 W3C, "W3C Patent Policy", 2004, 3046 . 3048 [Penney] Penney, J., "Chilling Effects: Online Surveillance and 3049 Wikipedia Use", 2016, . 3052 [Peterson] 3053 Peterson, A., Gellman, B., and A. Soltani, "Yahoo to make 3054 SSL encryption the default for Webmail users. Finally.", 3055 2013, . 3058 [PETS2015VPN] 3059 Pera, V., Barbera, M., Tyson, G., Haddadi, H., and A. Mei, 3060 "A Glance through the VPN Looking Glass", 2015, 3061 . 3064 [pidgin] js, . and Pidgin Developers, "-XMPP- Invisible mode 3065 violating standard", July 2015, 3066 . 3068 [Pouwelse] 3069 Pouwelse, Ed, J., "Media without censorship", 2012, 3070 . 3073 [Rachovitsa] 3074 Rachovitsa, A., "Engineering 'Privacy by Design' in the 3075 Internet Protocols - Understanding Online Privacy both as 3076 a Technical and a Human Rights Issue in the Face of 3077 Pervasive Monitoring", International Journal of Law and 3078 Information Technology , 2015, . 3081 [RFC0226] Karp, P., "Standardization of host mnemonics", RFC 226, 3082 DOI 10.17487/RFC0226, September 1971, 3083 . 3085 [RFC0760] Postel, J., "DoD standard Internet Protocol", RFC 760, 3086 DOI 10.17487/RFC0760, January 1980, 3087 . 3089 [RFC0791] Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", STD 5, RFC 791, 3090 DOI 10.17487/RFC0791, September 1981, 3091 . 3093 [RFC0793] Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", STD 7, 3094 RFC 793, DOI 10.17487/RFC0793, September 1981, 3095 . 3097 [RFC0894] Hornig, C., "A Standard for the Transmission of IP 3098 Datagrams over Ethernet Networks", STD 41, RFC 894, 3099 DOI 10.17487/RFC0894, April 1984, 3100 . 3102 [RFC1035] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and 3103 specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, DOI 10.17487/RFC1035, 3104 November 1987, . 3106 [RFC1122] Braden, R., Ed., "Requirements for Internet Hosts - 3107 Communication Layers", STD 3, RFC 1122, 3108 DOI 10.17487/RFC1122, October 1989, 3109 . 3111 [RFC1958] Carpenter, B., Ed., "Architectural Principles of the 3112 Internet", RFC 1958, DOI 10.17487/RFC1958, June 1996, 3113 . 3115 [RFC1984] IAB and IESG, "IAB and IESG Statement on Cryptographic 3116 Technology and the Internet", BCP 200, RFC 1984, 3117 DOI 10.17487/RFC1984, August 1996, 3118 . 3120 [RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3121 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, DOI 10.17487/RFC2026, October 1996, 3122 . 3124 [RFC2277] Alvestrand, H., "IETF Policy on Character Sets and 3125 Languages", BCP 18, RFC 2277, DOI 10.17487/RFC2277, 3126 January 1998, . 3128 [RFC2460] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6 3129 (IPv6) Specification", RFC 2460, DOI 10.17487/RFC2460, 3130 December 1998, . 3132 [RFC2775] Carpenter, B., "Internet Transparency", RFC 2775, 3133 DOI 10.17487/RFC2775, February 2000, 3134 . 3136 [RFC3022] Srisuresh, P. and K. Egevang, "Traditional IP Network 3137 Address Translator (Traditional NAT)", RFC 3022, 3138 DOI 10.17487/RFC3022, January 2001, 3139 . 3141 [RFC3365] Schiller, J., "Strong Security Requirements for Internet 3142 Engineering Task Force Standard Protocols", BCP 61, 3143 RFC 3365, DOI 10.17487/RFC3365, August 2002, 3144 . 3146 [RFC3536] Hoffman, P., "Terminology Used in Internationalization in 3147 the IETF", RFC 3536, DOI 10.17487/RFC3536, May 2003, 3148 . 3150 [RFC3724] Kempf, J., Ed., Austein, R., Ed., and IAB, "The Rise of 3151 the Middle and the Future of End-to-End: Reflections on 3152 the Evolution of the Internet Architecture", RFC 3724, 3153 DOI 10.17487/RFC3724, March 2004, 3154 . 3156 [RFC3935] Alvestrand, H., "A Mission Statement for the IETF", 3157 BCP 95, RFC 3935, DOI 10.17487/RFC3935, October 2004, 3158 . 3160 [RFC3979] Bradner, S., Ed., "Intellectual Property Rights in IETF 3161 Technology", RFC 3979, DOI 10.17487/RFC3979, March 2005, 3162 . 3164 [RFC4033] Arends, R., Austein, R., Larson, M., Massey, D., and S. 3165 Rose, "DNS Security Introduction and Requirements", 3166 RFC 4033, DOI 10.17487/RFC4033, March 2005, 3167 . 3169 [RFC4084] Klensin, J., "Terminology for Describing Internet 3170 Connectivity", BCP 104, RFC 4084, DOI 10.17487/RFC4084, 3171 May 2005, . 3173 [RFC4101] Rescorla, E. and IAB, "Writing Protocol Models", RFC 4101, 3174 DOI 10.17487/RFC4101, June 2005, 3175 . 3177 [RFC4941] Narten, T., Draves, R., and S. Krishnan, "Privacy 3178 Extensions for Stateless Address Autoconfiguration in 3179 IPv6", RFC 4941, DOI 10.17487/RFC4941, September 2007, 3180 . 3182 [RFC4949] Shirey, R., "Internet Security Glossary, Version 2", 3183 FYI 36, RFC 4949, DOI 10.17487/RFC4949, August 2007, 3184 . 3186 [RFC5246] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security 3187 (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246, 3188 DOI 10.17487/RFC5246, August 2008, 3189 . 3191 [RFC5321] Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 5321, 3192 DOI 10.17487/RFC5321, October 2008, 3193 . 3195 [RFC5646] Phillips, A., Ed. and M. Davis, Ed., "Tags for Identifying 3196 Languages", BCP 47, RFC 5646, DOI 10.17487/RFC5646, 3197 September 2009, . 3199 [RFC5694] Camarillo, G., Ed. and IAB, "Peer-to-Peer (P2P) 3200 Architecture: Definition, Taxonomies, Examples, and 3201 Applicability", RFC 5694, DOI 10.17487/RFC5694, November 3202 2009, . 3204 [RFC5944] Perkins, C., Ed., "IP Mobility Support for IPv4, Revised", 3205 RFC 5944, DOI 10.17487/RFC5944, November 2010, 3206 . 3208 [RFC6101] Freier, A., Karlton, P., and P. Kocher, "The Secure 3209 Sockets Layer (SSL) Protocol Version 3.0", RFC 6101, 3210 DOI 10.17487/RFC6101, August 2011, 3211 . 3213 [RFC6108] Chung, C., Kasyanov, A., Livingood, J., Mody, N., and B. 3214 Van Lieu, "Comcast's Web Notification System Design", 3215 RFC 6108, DOI 10.17487/RFC6108, February 2011, 3216 . 3218 [RFC6120] Saint-Andre, P., "Extensible Messaging and Presence 3219 Protocol (XMPP): Core", RFC 6120, DOI 10.17487/RFC6120, 3220 March 2011, . 3222 [RFC6365] Hoffman, P. and J. Klensin, "Terminology Used in 3223 Internationalization in the IETF", BCP 166, RFC 6365, 3224 DOI 10.17487/RFC6365, September 2011, 3225 . 3227 [RFC6698] Hoffman, P. and J. Schlyter, "The DNS-Based Authentication 3228 of Named Entities (DANE) Transport Layer Security (TLS) 3229 Protocol: TLSA", RFC 6698, DOI 10.17487/RFC6698, August 3230 2012, . 3232 [RFC6701] Farrel, A. and P. Resnick, "Sanctions Available for 3233 Application to Violators of IETF IPR Policy", RFC 6701, 3234 DOI 10.17487/RFC6701, August 2012, 3235 . 3237 [RFC6797] Hodges, J., Jackson, C., and A. Barth, "HTTP Strict 3238 Transport Security (HSTS)", RFC 6797, 3239 DOI 10.17487/RFC6797, November 2012, 3240 . 3242 [RFC6973] Cooper, A., Tschofenig, H., Aboba, B., Peterson, J., 3243 Morris, J., Hansen, M., and R. Smith, "Privacy 3244 Considerations for Internet Protocols", RFC 6973, 3245 DOI 10.17487/RFC6973, July 2013, 3246 . 3248 [RFC7258] Farrell, S. and H. Tschofenig, "Pervasive Monitoring Is an 3249 Attack", BCP 188, RFC 7258, DOI 10.17487/RFC7258, May 3250 2014, . 3252 [RFC7469] Evans, C., Palmer, C., and R. Sleevi, "Public Key Pinning 3253 Extension for HTTP", RFC 7469, DOI 10.17487/RFC7469, April 3254 2015, . 3256 [RFC7540] Belshe, M., Peon, R., and M. Thomson, Ed., "Hypertext 3257 Transfer Protocol Version 2 (HTTP/2)", RFC 7540, 3258 DOI 10.17487/RFC7540, May 2015, 3259 . 3261 [RFC7574] Bakker, A., Petrocco, R., and V. Grishchenko, "Peer-to- 3262 Peer Streaming Peer Protocol (PPSPP)", RFC 7574, 3263 DOI 10.17487/RFC7574, July 2015, 3264 . 3266 [RFC7624] Barnes, R., Schneier, B., Jennings, C., Hardie, T., 3267 Trammell, B., Huitema, C., and D. Borkmann, 3268 "Confidentiality in the Face of Pervasive Surveillance: A 3269 Threat Model and Problem Statement", RFC 7624, 3270 DOI 10.17487/RFC7624, August 2015, 3271 . 3273 [RFC7626] Bortzmeyer, S., "DNS Privacy Considerations", RFC 7626, 3274 DOI 10.17487/RFC7626, August 2015, 3275 . 3277 [RFC7725] Bray, T., "An HTTP Status Code to Report Legal Obstacles", 3278 RFC 7725, DOI 10.17487/RFC7725, February 2016, 3279 . 3281 [RFC7754] Barnes, R., Cooper, A., Kolkman, O., Thaler, D., and E. 3282 Nordmark, "Technical Considerations for Internet Service 3283 Blocking and Filtering", RFC 7754, DOI 10.17487/RFC7754, 3284 March 2016, . 3286 [RFC7858] Hu, Z., Zhu, L., Heidemann, J., Mankin, A., Wessels, D., 3287 and P. Hoffman, "Specification for DNS over Transport 3288 Layer Security (TLS)", RFC 7858, DOI 10.17487/RFC7858, May 3289 2016, . 3291 [RFC8164] Nottingham, M. and M. Thomson, "Opportunistic Security for 3292 HTTP/2", RFC 8164, DOI 10.17487/RFC8164, May 2017, 3293 . 3295 [Richie] Richie, J. and J. Lewis, "Qualitative Research Practice - 3296 A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers", 3297 London Sage , 2003, . 3301 [Rideout] Rideout, A., "Making security easier", 2008, 3302 . 3305 [RSF] RSF, "Syria using 34 Blue Coat Servers to spy on Internet 3306 users", 2013, . 3309 [Saltzer] Saltzer, J., Reed, D., and D. Clark, "End-to-End Arguments 3310 in System Design", ACM TOCS, Vol 2, Number 4, November 3311 1984, pp 277-288. , 1984. 3313 [Sandvine] 3314 Sandvine, "Sandvine: Over 70% Of North American Traffic Is 3315 Now Streaming Video And Audio", 2015, 3316 . 3320 [Schillace] 3321 Schillace, S., "Default https access for Gmail", 2010, 3322 . 3325 [Schneier] 3326 Schneier, B., "Attacking Tor - how the NSA targets users' 3327 online anonymity", 2013, 3328 . 3331 [Schroeder] 3332 Schroeder, I. and B. Schmidt, "Introduction - Violent 3333 Imaginaries and Violent Practice", London and New York 3334 Routledge , 2001, . 3338 [spiegel] SPIEGEL, "Prying Eyes - Inside the NSA's War on Internet 3339 Security", 2014, 3340 . 3343 [sslstrip] 3344 Marlinspike, M., "Software >> sslstrip", 2011, 3345 . 3347 [techyum] Violet, ., "Official - vb.ly Link Shortener Seized by 3348 Libyan Government", 2010, . 3352 [torproject] 3353 The Tor Project, ., "Tor Project - Anonymity Online", 3354 2007, . 3356 [torrentfreak1] 3357 Van der Sar, E., "Proposal for research on human rights 3358 protocol considerations", 2015, . 3362 [torrentfreak2] 3363 Andy, ., "LAWYERS SENT 109,000 PIRACY THREATS IN GERMANY 3364 DURING 2013", 2014, . 3368 [tribler] Delft University of Technology, Department EWI/PDS/ 3369 Tribler, "About Tribler", 2013, . 3372 [UDHR] United Nations General Assembly, "The Universal 3373 Declaration of Human Rights", 1948, 3374 . 3376 [UNGA2013] 3377 United Nations General Assembly, "UN General Assembly 3378 Resolution "The right to privacy in the digital age" 3379 (A/C.3/68/L.45)", 2013, 3380 . 3382 [UNHRC2016] 3383 United Nations Human Rights Council, "UN Human Rights 3384 Council Resolution "The promotion, protection and 3385 enjoyment of human rights on the Internet" (A/HRC/32/ 3386 L.20)", 2016, . 3390 [ververis] 3391 Vasilis, V., Kargiotakis, G., Filasto, A., Fabian, B., and 3392 A. Alexandros, "Understanding Internet Censorship Policy - 3393 The Case of Greece", 2015, 3394 . 3397 [W3CAccessibility] 3398 W3C, "Accessibility", 2015, 3399 . 3401 [W3Ci18nDef] 3402 W3C, "Localization vs. Internationalization", 2010, 3403 . 3405 [wikileaks] 3406 Sladek, T. and E. Broese, "Market Survey : Detection & 3407 Filtering Solutions to Identify File Transfer of Copyright 3408 Protected Content for Warner Bros. and movielabs", 2011, 3409 . 3412 [WP-Tempora] 3413 Wikipedia, "Tempora", 2016, 3414 . 3416 [WSJ] Sonne, P. and M. Coker, "Firms Aided Libyan Spies", 2011, 3417 . 3420 [WynsbergheMoura] 3421 Wynsberghe, A. and G. Moura, "The concept of embedded 3422 values and the example of internet security", 2013, 3423 . 3425 [xmppmanifesto] 3426 Saint-Andre, P. and . XMPP Operators, "A Public Statement 3427 Regarding Ubiquitous Encryption on the XMPP Network", 3428 2014, 3429 . 3432 [Zittrain] 3433 Zittrain, J., "The Future of the Internet - And How to 3434 Stop It", Yale University Press , 2008, 3435 . 3438 12.2. URIs 3440 [1] mailto:node@domain/home 3442 [2] mailto:node@domain/work 3444 [3] mailto:hrpc@ietf.org 3446 Authors' Addresses 3448 Niels ten Oever 3449 ARTICLE 19 3451 EMail: niels@article19.org 3453 Corinne Cath 3454 Oxford Internet Institute 3456 EMail: corinnecath@gmail.com