Governments want to change Net architecture, from Comm Daily

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

>Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 07:44:57 -0800 (PST)
>From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
>To: politech@vorlon.mit.edu
>Subject: FC: Governments want to change Net architecture, from Comm Daily
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>[Apologies to Art for not forwarding this earlier. --Declan]
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 10:28:49 -0500
>From: Art Brodsky <arb@well.com>
>To: declan@smtp.well.com
>Subject: comm daily story
>
>Declan,
> Here's the story from Comm Daily, Dec. 17
>
>'Optimistic and Damned Silly'
>
>     INTERNET CHANGE FOCUS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT
>
>     Law enforcement officials of U.S. and 7 other industrialized
>countries want to make fundamental changes in Internet technology
>in order to aid in their ability to track and catch criminals,
>Justice Dept. sources said.
>
>     Program to consider changes in Internet architectures comes as
>part of agreement announced last week by Attorney Gen. Janet Reno
>and Justice ministers from around world after meeting in Washington
>(CD Dec 11 p10).  However, one leading Internet authority, MCI
>Senior Vp Vinton Cerf, said international group's plan wouldn't
>work.
>
>     Justice ministers are considering approach similar to that of
>Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) program in
>U.S., which would make traffic from advanced telecom networks more
>accessible to law enforcement entities.  Representatives of Canada,
>France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and U.K., as well as U.S.,
>agreed as part of "statement of principles" issued in communique
>following 2-day session that:  "To the extent practicable,
>information and telecommunications systems should be designed to
>help prevent and detect network abuse, and should also facilitate
>the tracing of criminals and the collection of evidence."  Several
>items on "action plan" issued in support of those principles refer
>to working with new technologies to collect critical evidence,
>developing standards for authenticating electronic data for use in
>investigations and encouraging standards-making bodies to provide
>public and private sectors "with standards for reliable and secure
>telecommunications and data processing technologies."
>
>     DoJ officials said Dept. may want to talk later with telephone
>industry on trap and trace issues, but it's premature to involve
>them now in follow-up to international summit.  Instead, they said,
>they are looking at broader picture of telecom networks that
>haven't worked as closely with law enforcement as they could, and
>have begun thinking about Internet protocols.  Internet operates
>globally with common protocols, currently Internet Protocol version
>4.  Internet engineers are working on next iteration, version IPv6
>(Internet Protocol version 6 -- 5 was experimental attempt that was
>dropped).  Justice official said that one problem now is that it's
>easy to send and receive e-mail with false address, called
>"spoofing."
>
>     It would be helpful to law enforcement if information sent
>over Internet were tagged, and packets would transmit information
>reliably as to where they came from, including user and service
>provider, officials said.  Loose analogy would be to compare e-mail
>messages to tagging of explosives, so law enforcement can track
>explosive material to its source.  DoJ said new protocols could be
>designed to make it easier to authenticate messages and to make
>system more reliable.  Law enforcement wants to work with industry
>to accomplish goal, saying it would help "keep people who are
>abusing information technologies from continuing to do it."
>
>     There will be substantial obstacles to law enforcement
>concept, however.  Not least of them is that IPv6 will include
>sophisticated encryption capabilities as part of protocols.  Such
>security isn't built in to Internet now, one of reasons why
>electronic commerce has yet to take off, said Mark McFadden,
>communications dir. for Commercial Internet eXchange Assn. (CIX).
>That feature will make it harder for law enforcement to gain access
>to information, he said.
>
>     Cerf, co-inventor of Internet protocols, said in interview
>that law enforcement's concept of tagging e-mail messages wouldn't
>work:  "To imagine that we would instantly create the
>infrastructure for that throughout the entire Internet strikes me
>as optimistic and damned silly, at least in the short term.  Anyone
>who anticipates using tools to guarantee that everything will be
>traceable is not going to have a successful outcome."  Technically,
>such project could be accomplished, Cerf said, but having
>administrative infrastructure to administer it is quite different
>issue.
>
>     It's possible to have digital signature for every packet of
>data, but it would take "an enormous amount of processing, and it's
>not clear we have any network computers and routers that could do
>that and maintain the traffic flow that's required," Cerf said.  It
>also would require that each sender affix digital signature to each
>piece of mail, idea that Cerf said couldn't be enforced:  "Frankly,
>the idea of trying to guarantee traceability of that kind is far
>from implementable."  He said he didn't want to be misunderstood
>that his objections were "an argument in favor of criminality."
>But Cerf said he worries that "someone relies on what they think is
>a technical solution without recognizing all of the administrative
>mechanics that need to be put in place."
>
>     Law enforcement has some time to work with Internet community.
>McFadden said IPv6 isn't scheduled to be implemented at consumer
>level for at least 5 years, possibly as much as 10.  There was some
>urgency when it appeared that reservoir of Internet addresses would
>dry up, but with progress being made to protect addresses as scarce
>resource there's less pressure for new set of protocols, he said.
>
>
>posted with permission Warren Publishing
>
>
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