One document matched: draft-farrell-perpass-attack-00.xml

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<rfc category="bcp" ipr="trust200902" docName="draft-farrell-perpass-attack-00.txt">
<front>
<title abbrev="Pervasive Monitoring is an Attack">Pervasive Monitoring is an Attack</title>

<author fullname="Stephen Farrell" initials="S." 
surname="Farrell">
<organization>Trinity College Dublin</organization>
<address>
<postal>
<street></street>
<city>Dublin</city>
<region></region>
<code>2</code>
<country>Ireland</country>
</postal>
<phone>+353-1-896-2354</phone>
<email>stephen.farrell@cs.tcd.ie</email>
</address>
</author>

<author fullname="Hannes Tschofenig" initials="H." 
surname="Tschofenig">
<organization></organization>
<address>
<postal>
<street></street>
<city>Brussels</city>
<region></region>
<code></code>
<country>Belgium</country>
</postal>
<phone></phone>
<email>hannes.tschofenig@gmx.net</email>
</address>
</author>

<date year="2013" month="November"/>

<area>IETF</area>

<workgroup>Network Working Group</workgroup>
<keyword>pervasive monitoring</keyword>

<abstract>
<t>
The IETF has consensus that pervasive monitoring is
a technical attack that should be mitigated in the design of IETF
protocols, where possible. 
</t>
</abstract>
</front>

<middle>

<section title="It's an Attack">

<t>[[Note: This draft is written as if IETF consensus has been established for
the text.]]</t>

<t>The technical plenary of IETF 88 <xref target="IETF88Plenary"/> discussed
pervasive monitoring and participants had strong agreement that this was an
attack and one that should be mitigated where possible via the design of
protocols that make pervasive monitoring significantly more expensive or
infeasible.  Such pervasive surveillance requires the monitoring party to take
actions that are indistinguishable from an attack on Internet communications.
This Best Current Practice (BCP) documents that consensus.  </t>

<t>For the purposes of this BCP "pervasive monitoring" means very widespread
privacy-invasive gathering of protocol artefacts including application content,
protocol meta-data (such as headers) or keys used to secure protocols.  Other
forms of traffic analysis, for example, timing or measuring packet sizes can
also be used for pervasive monitoring.  A fuller problem statement with more
examples and description can be found in <xref target="ProblemStatement"/>.
</t>

<t>Note that the term "attack" is used here in a techincal sense that differs
somewhat from the natural English usage. In particular, the term, when used
technically, implies nothing about the motivation of the bad-actor mounting the
attack, who is still called a bad-actor no matter what one really thinks about
their motivation. We also use the term in the singluar here, even though
pervasive monitoring in reality may require a multi-faceted set of co-ordinated
attacks.  </t>

<t> The motivation behind pervasive monitoring is not particularly relevant for
this document, but can range from non-targeted nation-state surveillance, to
legal but privacy-unfriendly purposes by commercial
enterprises, to illegal purposes by criminals. The same techniques can be used
in each case, regardless of motivation, and we cannot defend against the most
nefarious actors while allowing monitoring by other actors no matter how
benevolent some might consider those. As technology continues to advance
rapidly techniques that have been shown to work but were once only
accessible to nation-state actors become accessible to non-nation-state actors,
so mitigating this threat is not only relevant when considering nation-state bad
actors.  </t>

</section>

<section title="And we'll work to Mitigate the Attack"> 

<t>The IETF also have 
consensus to, where possible, work to mitigate the technical parts of the
pervasive monitoring
attack, 
in just the same way as we do with 
any other protocol vulnerability.
</t>

<t>There are various ways in which IETF protocols can be designed in order to
mitigate pervasive monitoring, but those will change over time as mitigation
and attack techniques develop and so are not described here. This BCP simply
records the consensus to design protocols so as to mitigate the attack, where
possible.</t>

<t> Note that more limited-scope monitoring to assist with network management
or that is required in order to operate the network or an application are not
considered pervasive monitoring. There is though a clear potential for network
management mechanisms to be abused as part of pervasive monitoring, so this
tension needs careful consideration in protocol design: making networks
unmanageable in order to mitigate pervasive monitoring would not be an
acceptable outcome, but equally, ignoring pervasive monitoring in designing
network management mechanisms would go against the consensus documented in this
BCP.  An appropriate balance will likely emerge over time as real instances of
this tension are considered.</t>

<t>It is also important to note that the term "mitigation" is also a technical
term that does not necessarily imply an ability to completely prevent or thwart
an attack. In this case, designing IETF protocols to mitigate pervasive
monitoring will almost certainly not completely prevent such from happening,
but can increase the cost significantly or force what was covert monitoring to
be more overt, or more likely to be detected (possibly later) via other means.
And even where the IETF has done this work well and that has been fully
deployed, there will still be some privacy-relevant information that will inevitably be
disclosed by protocols.  </t>

<t>Finally, we note that the IETF is not equipped to tackle the non-technical
aspects of mitigating pervasive surveillance.  We hope that others will step
forward to tackle those.</t>


</section>

<section title="Process Note">
<t>
   In the past, architectural statements of this sort, e.g.,
   <xref target="RFC1984"/> and
   <xref target="RFC2804"/> have been published as joint products of the IESG and IAB.
   However, since those documents were published, the IETF and IAB have
   separated their publication "streams" as described in 
   <xref target="RFC4844"/> and
   <xref target="RFC5741"/>. This document was initiated by both the IESG and IAB, but
   it is being published as an IETF-stream consensus document, having
   garnered the consensus of the IETF as approved by the IESG. 
</t>

</section>

<section title="Security Considerations">

<t>This BCP is all about privacy. More information about the relationship
between security and privacy threats can be found in <xref target="RFC6973"/>.
Section 5.1.1 of <xref target="RFC6973"/> specifically addresses surveillance
as a combined security-privacy threat. </t>

</section>

<section title="IANA Considerations">

<t>There are none. We hope the RFC editor
deletes this section before publication.</t>


</section>

<section title="Acknowledgements">

<t> We would like to thank the participants of the IETF 88 technical plenary
for their feedback. Additionally, we would like to thank all those who
contributed to their suggestions on how to improve Internet security on various
IETF mailing lists, such as the ietf@ietf.org and the perpass@ietf.org lists.
</t>

<t>Thanks in particular to the following for useful comments:
Jari Arkko, 
Marc Blanchet,
Benoit Claise,
Spencer Dawkins,
Russ Housley,
Joel Jaeggli,
Eliot Lear,
Barry Leiba,
Ted Lemon,
Erik Nordmark,
Pete Resnick,
</t>

</section>

</middle>

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     <reference anchor="IETF88Plenary">
        <front>
          <title>IETF 88 Plenary Meeting Materials</title>
           <author>
            <organization>IETF</organization>
          </author>
          <date month="Nov" year="2013"/>
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 <reference anchor="ProblemStatement">
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          <title>Pervasive Monitoring: Problem Statement</title>
           <author>
            <organization>Richard Barnes</organization>
          </author>
          <date month="Nov" year="2013"/>
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