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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."
Wouldn't the ISPs have to be in on this? And there are always still proxies...
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find my ip address
First po....wait someone at the door
Since the courts agreed it is:
"...numerous courts have upheld the right to anonymity online in similar contexts." -ACLU
I think the right to be anonymous (if you choose) outweighs the "need to track down and prosecute scammers, spammers, and other criminals."
There are other ways to trace scammers...follow the money. In order to scam you, they must create a pathway for funds to travel from you to them.
Cheers,
when the americans and the chinese have the same goals
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
If the tech community makes enough buzz about this, it's likely that we can put the pin back in this grenade. Nobody is going to want to support violating the sanctity of The Internet in an important U.S. election year!
There already exists a process for getting a name from an I.P. address, and that process thankfully requires court action / subpoena of ISP. Let's keep them in the loop, and make this tracing a relatively hard thing to get, with lots of human approvals needed.
Hopefully, this proposed short-circuiting of the judicial branch will just help the United Nations -- totally overstepping its proper bounds -- slide into further irrelevance. Even if the U.N. does serve a proper function in today's world, this certainly is way beyond its domain.
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Hey code monkey, learn electronics! Microcontroller kits for the digital generation.
In the USA there are two types of rights: enumerated and reserved. The enumerated ones are spelled out in the Constitution. At the end of the Constitution, it says (paraphrased) 'and all rights not spelled out here is reserved by the people'. That leaves a lot of territory and so pretty much any activity can be called a 'right' under that broad statement. So the tricky part is getting those reserved rights codified somehow so you know exactly what you can and cannot get away with. 'Privacy', 'anonymity', etc, are all reserved rights. The most famous is probably 'privacy'. The SCOTUS has on several occasions ruled that it was a reasonable right people should expect and they've applied it to abortion and birth control cases. That's all another rant as to whether abortion is a privacy issue or its own thing; the main point is that if you're pissed off that everything is claimed as an intrinsic right then you're probably in a country that doesn't have a Constitution that open endedly reserves a tremendous amount of power to its citizens the way the US one does.
It's only a right insofar as you're not committing any crimes.
Like, for example, criticizing a tyrannical regime?
I'm glad you weren't in charge in 1773.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
The problem I see, is that the badguys will be able to hide just as well as they are now (by for using a machine they do not own, like with a botnet), but the goodguys and -gals will have less anonimity.
This is not a good proposal.
New things are always on the horizon
The United Stats (TFS:"The U.S. National Security Agency is also participating in the "IP Traceback" drafting group") and major western corporations (PDF linked from article) also support the proposal. What a surprise.
"What's distressing is that it doesn't appear that there's been any real consideration of how this type of capability could be misused," said Marc Rotenberg"
Wait... How can you correctly use this service? It seems like something only the clandestine agencies and major corporations of the world would like to see happen.
Anyways, according to TFS, this proposal would almost certainly have to modify existing protocols. Can't that be blocked by the CS/Engineering community members who sit on respective committees? Can international/national governments really force IETF to do something, as the article claims?
Okay, so what about a country like China that makes it a crime to be a dissident? *
Make no mistake, this is a bad, bad thing.
[setenv rant=ON]
* For example, those two old ladies that were sent to "re-education camp" during the Olympics because they had the temerity to go through the official application process required to use the official protest area set aside by the Chinese government for the specific purpose of allowing peaceful, nondisruptive demonstrations. They only made that area available to satisfy international concerns, (ie, to give the IOC a fig leaf to hide behind on rights issues), and then used it as a trap to catch any of their own citizens that might be lulled into thinking it was safe to speak.
China does not give a dusty rat turd about rights (of their own citizens, or anyone else's), as clearly demonstrated by their willingness to disingenuously double back on their promise of allowing protests. They gambled that the rest of the world would stand by and let it happen, instead of rightfully shaming the Chinese government for their actions, and judging by the international response (practically nil), they were right.
[setenv rant=OFF]
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Steve Bellovin (granddaddy of IP firewalling) gives his (strongly negative) opinion here. He points out that it would be in seeming contradiction to the UN Charter.
It is a US-hosted site with a majority of its users being americans. Of course he brought up the system we have in the US.
What did you expect? A dissertation on rights in every single country, state and municipality in the world? If you don't expect him to enumerate EVERY SINGLE system of rights on the planet, then you acknowledge that he has to choose what to talk about. If he has to choose what to talk about, wouldn't it make sense that he talks about what he is most knowledgable in?
Now,
2. your own government doesn't stick to the rules anyway
I'll be the first to bash our government on our technology policy, but your quote, while factually accurate, is misleading. Yes, there is a big controversy over the government wiretapping without a warrant, but that doesn't change (what the article is talking about) the ability to be anonymous. We still have free internet cafes and other points we can get to the internet anonymously and post dissident material, which is a bedrock of our society. The court even struck down a state anti-spam law because it removed the right to anonymity.
for me i consider privacy a right, but anonymity is purely dependant on the situation. should scammers have the right to post shit anonymously? of course they don't, hence it's not a "right".
I don't know where you're from, but in a number of jurstictions (including, I would assume all democracies), the right to privacy _is_ a right. It is in the US, and it is in the UK/EU.
In fact, I think that the right to anonymity (in terms of speech) is a fundamental right in a free and open society.
-Bucky
When anonymous internet is a crime, only criminals will have anonymous internet. As usual, this would be a law that will almost exclusively affect the law abiding, except for a few idiots who don't know what they're doing. When those are caught, Chertoff will describe them as technical geniuses, tell us what a great thing it is that we have the even better technical geniuses at DHS to track down these criminal masterminds, and then make an example of them at the show trial. Meanwhile, Chinese dissidents will be getting their organs harvested while they're still squirming on the table.
Insightful and funny are really the same thing, except one has a punch line.
I'm sorry: did you really just place flame wars and spam on the same level as teenage suicide?
But more to the point: the reason why so many people see a problem with anonymity is that they themselves choose not to be anonymous on the internet. So many of us learned long ago to keep our online lives separate from our real lives, and so for us we have virtually nothing to lose. The only real damage that can be done by anonymous users is to people who post personal information in blogs, use email addresses with their real names on public forums, etc.
I see no reason to remove anonymity from the internet, only a need to educate users.
Yet another idiot thinking that being able to trace is the same as being able to catch criminals.
If they do it right, and yes, a lot do, then you'll be traced back to... well... an INNOCENT PERSON. With laws like this it is too much in the hands of "guilty until proven innocent".
The logs say it was you, therefore it was you - even if it wasn't. Meanwhile the scammers get away scott free.
I know myself, if I really wanted to not be traced, I wouldn't be. I'd be hijacking wireless, sticking trojan/worms with proxy facilities on as many workstations as I can. The list goes on.
No, this is not a good idea, even if you have this bogus "if you're not doing anything wrong you don't need to be worried" attitude. You DO need to be worried because as someone who is "innocent" you are a prime target for being the point of entry.
There is no way this idea will be able to get past any open UN boards. Kind of goes against the human rights charter of the UN.
To me, it's just another group of governments trying to get the UN to do something bogus. Unfortunately, the last time a country did that they bypassed the UN and just started killing innocent Iraqi people.
Free speech is a natural right. It is something anyone can do that can only be eliminated by state actions of the most oppressive and wasteful kinds. Nothing is more wasteful or oppressive than state efforts to identify and retaliate against people who say things the state does not like. Speech without anonymity is not free and states that make efforts to eliminate anonymity in speech are unAmerican.
Shame on the US for cooperating with China to eliminate free speech on the internet. Such a program would obviously violate the first amendment to the US Constition which bans all laws that infringe on freedom of speech and press.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Just look at your POTS phone service. Here the government has been able to add laws and taxes for over half a century. And they have: Full traceback, full surveillance access as well as: Access tax, federal excist tax, state tax, local tax, Universal service tax, 911 tax, LNP tax and TRS tax.
Expect the internet to be worse than this over time.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
There is no way this idea will be able to get past any open UN boards. Kind of goes against the human rights charter of the UN.
I was with you until you said this. You clearly have much more faith in the UN than I do. The organization that gave us the Universal Declaration of Human Rights now deems it appropriate to make Libya the chair of the Human Rights Commission.
The UN has no principles. If it did it would kick members out of the General Assembly who refuse to follow the Declaration of Human Rights. At the very least this would include China, Libya, Israel and half of the Arab World. Hell, it'd probably include my own country (the United States) as well, given our actions in the last seven years.
The UN is useless. The only reason it hasn't gone the way of the League of Nations is because of nuclear weapons. Mutually assured destruction has done more to prevent another World War than the UN ever did.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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.
Except that it WILL NOT be used for that. Why? Because the scammers,spammers,and kiddie pr0n guys set up their bases in dirt poor third world countries where they will be happy to turn a blind eye to someone who can bring in large sums of money. What it WILL be used for is to crack down on dissenters,activists,and anyone who dares to piss off a corporation. Let me put it this way: Do you honestly trust the people who are in power now in ANY country not to abuse this?
Mark my words,what they want to do is nothing less than turn the Internet into a series of walled gardens that they can control. The only "dissent" allowed will be "Brand X isn't as good as Brand Y! You should buy Brand Y!" because the control freaks in power HATE the fact that people can point out their abuses of power. The want the Internet to be nothing but a giant Home Shopping Network so their corporate buddies can make more money,PERIOD. Of course they'll use the old "It'll stop Kiddie pr0n and teh terrorists!" bit to make it harder for folks to speak out against it. Frankly I'm shocked it has taken them this long to push this kind of crap. Mark my words,there won't be any more Abu Ghraib style scandals,those will all just "disappear". We will end up like that joke from Airplane II "Four alarm fire makes way for GLORIOUS new tractor factory!". But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
It sounds a lot like terrorism to me.
Max.
Depends upon where you are. In the United States, everything is an intrinsic right, except those few that are reserved for the Federal Government. That government has been treading on our rights for some time now, and this is just the latest extension.
People make the mistake of assuming that the Constitution enumerates all the rights that we citizens have, and that the rest are privileges granted by the Government. The exact opposite is true, and we've been remiss in reminding our elected leaders of that fact.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
No. The difference between these two types of anonymity is that the former actually protects you against a tyrant, while the latter only protects you against a nice, law-abiding, touchy-feely tyrant who'd never torture your name out of the journalist.
No, that is not okay, not if you're doing anything actually important with your anonymity. It wouldn't be okay even if the ISP's and everyone else involved could actually be trusted to obey the laws - which they can't, as the whole telcom wiretap issue and following retroactive immunity proves.
The problem is: what happens when the malicious scum is the accuser, rather than the accused ?
"Accountability" sure sounds nice, until you realize just who you're be accountable for.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
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.
Good point$. I'm not $ure why they would do thi$ either. Thi$ idea $tink$ and I cannot $ee why other government$ would do thi$ after decrying China'$ right$ inva$ion$ of their own citizen$ - e$pecially $ince China doe$ not help u$ track down pirate$ and Internet criminal$ in their country...
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
What I don't understand is why the UN, the NSA and China are working together.
Because there's one thing all governments have in common: once they get power, including power over their own people, they want to get more of it, and they especially don't want to lose any of it. For them, an anonymous Internet is a step in the wrong direction.
I see. Is this the official Chinese description of what happened? I'm willing to admit that I might be less than fully informed, but I'm reluctant to give credibility to what the Chinese government says. Two elderly women could face a year of "reeducation through labor" because they applied for permits to demonstrate during the Olympics, according to one of the would-be protesters.
The Chinese government speaks not just though its state-controlled press, but through its actions as well, and their actions speak louder to me than their words. Members of the press from abroad have been intimidated and had pictures of protests confiscated by the Chinese government.
- How many requests for permission to protest were made? My latest sources say about 77.
- Of those, how many were granted permission to protest during the Games?
- Of those, how many actually protested during the Games?
- Learning Chinese would be great, but is more than I can do right now. What reliable and trustworthy (ie, non-government related) sources of information are there for an English-speaker like myself?
It seems that Beijing has gone out of its way to squash free speech, intimidate critics, and to imprison dissidents. Are all these sources willfully libeling China?
To the original topic: If it were in my power to grant or withhold, I would never entrust China (or any government - even my own) with tools that would help it roll back the shield of anonymity that protects the natural right of people to speak freely.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.