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China Wants UN To Help Trace Sources On Internet
An anonymous reader brings us a CNet story, which begins:
"A United Nations agency is quietly drafting technical standards, proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous. The U.S. National Security Agency is also participating in the 'IP Traceback' drafting group, named Q6/17, which is meeting next week in Geneva to work on the traceback proposal. Members of Q6/17 have declined to release key documents, and meetings are closed to the public. The potential for eroding Internet users' right to remain anonymous, which is protected by law in the United States and recognized in international law by groups such as the Council of Europe, has alarmed some technologists and privacy advocates. Also affected may be services such as the Tor anonymizing network."
Since the courts agreed it is:
"...numerous courts have upheld the right to anonymity online in similar contexts." -ACLU
The potential for eroding Internet users' right to remain anonymous, which is protected by law in the United States and recognized in international law by groups such as the Council of Europe
try { Signature mysig = new CleverAttempt(); } catch(NonCleverSignatureException e) { postanyway(); }
If adopted by a country, then the ISPs of that country would have to follow.
I rather be free in hell than a slave in heaven.
Looking at what the phone companies have done post 9/11, I'd be very surprised if the government would have any trouble putting this type of thing through with major ISPs. Now they even have legal precedent to protect them.
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
Maybe you shouldn't have the right to voice your opinion online? Taking that freedom away won't take food or housing away from you so you don't need it and to be quite honest once you're easily traced someone might just take the right away from you when you say something you don't like.
To be honest I think you'll deserve it but the rest of us don't. If you're so against anonymity then why not post your name and address here. Clearly you're for that so why not be a leader instead of a follower and start the trend to destroy anonymous internet surfing?
The UN Human Rights Council was recently taken over by extremist Islamic states, who redefined the role of the council as protecting the world from "abuses" of free speech.
So China now has an ally in the UN.
In a few years, "unislamic" content providers will start to feel the heat.
A person makes an intelligent point and you post something like 'Score -2 stupid American?
I am an American. IMO, we should pull out of the UN. It is a failed idea, corrupted by dictators and tyrants. It seeks to form the world into a single government... and that government would NOT be a democracy.
So how about a Mod down to Troll for this A-Hole.
Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
If the tech community makes enough buzz about this, it's likely that we can put the pin back in this grenade.
This ironically reminds me of the title of a nice (and rather old) text, which sadly sounds almost like prophecy now.
And if the UN gets its way, proxies will be illegal. So will open wifi. Anything that might let you hide will be banned.
Perhaps there will be a good use for botnets after all :)
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The true thieves won't be caught. They are living in nations which are at best indifferent to the US or the UN, or at worst actively hostile. All what will happen is that cases will be marked, "Well, the potential thief's address is listed at an Elbonian site, but can't do anything outside of a black ops run." and be put in the archive file.
What losing anonymity would mean is that the scammers, spammers, ID thieves, and other stuff will still be there. They will just be able to obtain more accurate records on people for blackmail or extortion when they hack a router or a server which stores archive logs. Loss of anonymity will provide no advantage for the average person, it just means that should a nation decide to do a pogrom, all it would take is a couple SQL select statements for what is unpopular, and copy the addresses to the local Stasi-like body in that local area for the people listed in the statements to disappear.
In fact, if governments have access to that info, the criminals will. Look at all the "lost" laptops with information that should only have stayed in the hands of government bodies.
Anonymity is not security. All what will happen is if someone wants to do something nasty, they just find another way in. It also just means that an ID thief just has more information they can put together with higher certainty it belongs to someone. Its a matter of time before international ID theft rings and local violent gangs start trading, offering schedules of when people are home and not (by tracing their Internet usage logs), what types of firearms they own, and the names of their family. Then, that info can be used to facilitate a highly targeted home invasion robbery.
Its a nice cooperation once local gangs and international hacking groups get to know each other. One group of thieves can compromise a GPS system knowing where your kids are, then give pointers to another group of thieves where to pick up the kid, what size handcuffs to bring, and with the income known per year, how much the family really has to spend on ransom. With monitoring Internet connections, the criminals would know what the family was doing about the kidnapping, down to what private investigator they hired. Then, the criminals can send gifts of fingers or sliced off ears stating how much they liked that PI firm.
While I, as a citizen of the U.S., find it somewhat alarming that a member of the NSA would be involved in the group that is working on this proposal, I admit that's a knee-jerk reaction. Things may have gone pretty far south in this country because of the last eight years or so of administrations, but we haven't had the First Admendment repealed either -- not that some haven't wished for it or tried (reference: G.W. Bush saying the Constitution is "only a piece of paper"). Still having a measure of belief that what the U.S. was originally founded on hasn't been (completely) destroyed, I'll foster the hope that the NSA's involvement in this is more likely largely to keep an eye on what China has brewing -- at best to keep it in check, at worst to at least see what's coming.
Something that occurred to me while I was reading TFA: Wouldn't IPv6 be an intrinsic part of a traceback technology? We certainly all believe that IPv4 address space is rapidly running out, and that ostensibly IPv6 is going to "save us", and we've all heard that everyone on the planet could be issued an IPv6 address that personally identifies them. After reading TFA, it's more than possible that IPv6 was created in part with traceback in mind. Will this sort of technology be forced down the world's throat by the U.N.? Extremely unlikely. The U.S., for one, (as stated in TFA) would not go along with it, as it does fly in the face of the First Amendment -- although admittedly, the intelligence community, in collusion with American ISPs, already can track and trace individual's activities on the internet (or at least the less adept and less wary users). Technologies like Secure SHell, proxies, and Tor (among others) currently provide layers of protection that, I think, are adequate, and well-known to the more technically-savvy. Aside from the U.S., there are enough countries in the world that will object to this sort of technology and will not stand idly by and watch the rest of the world potentially infringe on the rights of their citizens.
So far as I'm concerned, China can do whatever they want within their own borders. So far as I'm concerned, things like this will only increase the level of unrest with Chinese citizens and increase the possibility of uprising.
I'm paranoid because I want to maximise my anonymity and by maximising my anonymity I'm indestructable because I'm untraceable. By being untraceable and censorship-resistent, no one can harm me which results in a 100% fullfilment of the human rights in that having the "right to life, liberty and security" (as stated in article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), not "[being] held in slavery" (as stated in article 4 of the UDHR), not "[being] subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" (article 5, UDHR), not "[being subjeted to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile" (article 9, UDHR), not "[being] subjected to arbitrary interference with [my] privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor attacks upon [my] honour and reputation", "[having] the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion" (article 18, UDHR), "[having] the right of freedom of opinion and expression" (article 19, UDHR), "[having] the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association" (article 20.1, UDHR), "[having] the right to freely to participate in the cultural life of the community" (article 27.1, UDHR).
It's only a right insofar as you're not committing any crimes.
No, it's a right period.
being able to track down and prosecute scammers, spammers, and other criminals is a worthwhile goal.
To you perhaps but not to others. Like Benjamen Franklin said those who would give up a little liberty for safety neither deserves nor will get either.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?