6 ms·

Traceability on the Internet

59 points by tapanjk 8y ago

tomwas54 8y ago
Google Cache link: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?source=hp&ei=AttmW4bWKMSVkwXEhbLQDQ&q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fcacm.acm.org%2Fmagazines%2F2018%2F8%2F229771-traceability%2Ffulltext&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fcacm.acm.org%2Fmagazines%2F2018%2F8%2F229771-traceability%2Ffulltext&gs_l=psy-ab.3...921.1793.0.2006.7.7.0.0.0.0.89.314.6.6.0....0...1c.2.64.psy-ab..1.5.282...0j0i131k1.0.mAVsfQujqe8 https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?source=hp&ei=A...
al_ramich 8y ago
It would make a lot of sense. The fact that currently there isn't a single unique identifier per online user allows for an unregulated environment. Obviously, there are things like IPs, the mobile device identifies (phone number...) or even single-sign-on platforms but the bottom line is that there isn't something that is unique per user and platform independent. Should there be a unique credential per user just to access anything online? From the security perspective, you would definitely say yes but you could also imagine that this could be taken too far http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-china-is-watching-its-citizens-in-a-modern-surveillance-state-2018-4 http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-china-is-watching-its-citi...
- Asooka 8y ago
  You're basically describing "The digital imprimatur" [1]. It will absolutely be abused to hell and back if implemented, starting with "it's for the children", going through "artists must get paid" and arriving at "we have always been at war with Eastasia". [1] https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/ https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/
  - digi_owl 8y ago
    I find myself thinking of the rise of Twitter block scripts, that one aims at a Twitter account and then proceeds to trawl the links between the accounts and add them to a block list for another account. A tool that was conceived and is in heavy use by what one may well call the "alt-left"...
- EGreg 8y ago
  From the security perspective, there should NOT be one. It depends on whose security you are safeguarding. That of the people, or a small number of services? In the world we are moving to online, scuttlebutt and MaidSAFE and others will simply LACK a back end that even knows who’s logging in or what data is being sought. Protection of data would happen via end to end encryption. That is MORE secure than trusting someone to safeguard your data - not less.
  - al_ramich 8y ago
    Not sure how end-to-end encryption would protect the end user from getting SPAM email, being trolled on the SM, seeing fake news or equivalent. Most of the issues come from the fact that there are no universal quality or identity checks for the information being published online. Perhaps unique/traceable identifier should only be required when you are creating content that others can see.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - paulsutter 8y ago
      I recommend Kim JongUn as an advisor for your proposed project, he’ll understand the needs of your target customer best
    - EGreg 8y ago
      There’s this thing called reputation. Also this thing called science. And another thing called Liberal Democracy. In all these systems, people get to make up their own minds with regard to claims about reality, as well as the trustworthiness of a given service. Your solution is a Ministry of Truth. Here are some actual solutions: http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114 http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114
- 13of40 8y ago
  In a world with billions of such credentials, mostly in the hands of people who just know that it "makes their AOL work" it would probably be trivial to steal as many as a person wanted.
lifeisstillgood 8y ago
LGBT friends of mine defend anonymity for the protections it seemingly affords similar youngsters - but as more of the real world moves online then more of the bad actors move too. We have traceability IRL and we can choose how much bad behaviour we are willing to tolerate - and it is that choice that we need to focus on, what society is willing to let slide not anonymity. it's not a protection. we can let it go.
rasengan 8y ago
This position invites a slippery slope which will lead to the identification of us all at all times. Especially, to suggest giving the power of traceability to “official” law enforcement only is a really bad recommendation. Did you forget what happened at the NSA? Please don’t make these recommendations while using the name Vint Cerf, father of the Internet. It sends a bad signal as if you (supporting traceability) are not the minority here. I have had enough of my /heroes/ supporting backdoors. Please stop it. I hate working against you (supporting anonymity is clearly something you don’t wish to achieve). :(
- cromulent 8y ago
  > I have had enough of my /heroes/ supporting backdoors. Please stop it. He specifically mentions that he is against backdoors and excludes them from the topic.
  - rasengan 8y ago
    > He specifically mentions that he is against backdoors and excludes them from the topic. While he put backdoors in quotes, his end argument is that "differential traceability" gives just that - a backdoor that only law enforcement has access to that can be used to identify the activities of every user. It doesn't matter who says it, or with what vocabulary used -- a backdoor is a backdoor, and I argue that tracking all netizens is going to be, as I said before, a slippery slope. THAT BEING SAID, let me just give an example where this is not a slippery slope and we do this and all goes well and nobody does anything shady within the small "privileged" group of surveillors -- imagine this identification/"differential traceability" system gets hacked.
- mhneu 8y ago
  What we've learned over the past year or two is that everything we all used to worry about NSA doing, Facebook is ACTUALLY doing. I was also one of those misled, and now know the NSA has controls and a democratic governance structure atop them (as do the other four agencies in UK, Canada, NZ, Aus) that restrict what they do for lawful, democratically-endorsed uses only. Surveillance capitalism at Facebook (good description here: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/03/facebook_and_ca.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/03/facebook_and_... ) is a bigger threat to democracies.
teddyh 8y ago
Even if it were somehow possible to achieve pseudonymity (i.e. permanent and unchangeable – but anonymous – identifiers), any work in this area towards this goal will first be heavily funded, and later heavily co-opted, by the people wishing for actual identification without pseudonyms, and this will ultimately then be presented as the only possible technical solution. The large companies in the field will then adopt the completed “standard”, thereby forcing every user of their services to use it, and any form of actual anonymity or even pseudonymity will then have been lost. We have seen this phenomenon before in other fields. Large actors provide funding for groups with ostensibly beneficial goals, and the funders then influence the groups’ work towards the actor’s own desires, often subverting the goal of the original group completely, but getting the percieved aura of legitimacy of the original group onto the subverted standard.
sverige 8y ago
> In most societies today, it is accepted that we must be identifiable to appropriate authorities under certain conditions (consider border crossings, traffic violation stops as examples). While there are conditions under which apparent anonymity is desirable and even justifiable (whistle-blowing, for example) absolute anonymity is actually quite difficult to achieve (another point made at the Ditchley workshop) and might not be absolutely desirable given the misbehaviors apparent anonymity invites. Border crossings and traffic stops occur in meatspace, where there is some potential for an actual threat. What exactly is the threat that justifies the need to identify individuals at all times on the internet?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
EGreg 8y ago
When I visited Tim Berners-Lee’s SOLID project, I recommended one thing to them: do NOT have one canonical WebID for everything. I had to grapple with these issues years ago and here are some solutions: http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114 http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114
AndrewKemendo 8y ago
Isn't the point of RMS and others in the libre-internet movement that it's exactly those groups that Cerf identifies, namely governments, that we want to ensure don't have unique traceability capabilities because they also have coercive capabilities?
mindslight 8y ago
> This is an example of differential traceability; the police department has the authority to demand ownership information from the Department of Motor Vehicles that issues the license plates. Ordinary citizens do not have this authority This is a fantastic example, but not in the way he intends! While it is only the DMV that has the official database of license plate numbers, simply having attached a unique identifier to each car means that we're trivially subject to all sorts of independently-implemented surveillance, from the lone PI stalking a target to the wide scale ANPR dragnets we're currently grappling with. In fact I'd go so far as to say that in the face of modern technology, the current implementation of license plates is a gross rights violation. As other commenters have noted, where is this glaring threat? We've had Eternal September for 25 years and this "harmful behavior" has yet to manifest in a way that can't be solved by a combination of good old fashioned policing and Postel's law. Yet we repeatedly hear this tired refrain of ominous ne'er-do-wells who simply must be stopped. The current concern is harassment on quasi-public communications platforms like Twitter. Yet Twitter is already operating with everyone having a nym, and still not succeeding at the goals each of its critics envisions. Making these nyms more permanent doesn't change the actual technical difficulty of the problem of moderation! If we're concerned about "social network bullying and misinformation", then we should first demand to see progress on the topic from independent entities that can each try many approaches and fail in isolation. Changing the Internet to have a baked-in totalitarian identification regime and assuming these platforms will then address our wishes is downright foolish.
- goldenkey 8y ago
  I never realized license plates were able to be utilized by a well funded private data aggregation operation. Great observation. How far do we have to go with allowances for information and actions that are taunts for death and destruction? It seems to me that the only fair way to shape society and well..shared reality..is to allow everyone to do everything and anything and allow others who feel strongly to enact responses..ie punishments. This will eventually maybe be the case ala Star Wars, independent agents roaming reality, with no law other than consequence by others. It seems this is untenable too because it evolves into unfair reality, biased on wealth and capital of weaponry and defense. Not only physically but on a knowledge and information and technological basis. Isnt the real underlying archtype of license plates and well..any authoritarian laws by the government a sort of protectionism for those of us without the money for defense and offense of our own free persons? [1] https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA I am libertarian..but freedom in reality is a function of resources. So I cannot square this circle... laws are a hard issue.

59 points by tapanjk 8y ago

Google Cache link: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?source=hp&ei=AttmW4bWKMSVkwXEhbLQDQ&q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fcacm.acm.org%2Fmagazines%2F2018%2F8%2F229771-traceability%2Ffulltext&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fcacm.acm.org%2Fmagazines%2F2018%2F8%2F229771-traceability%2Ffulltext&gs_l=psy-ab.3...921.1793.0.2006.7.7.0.0.0.0.89.314.6.6.0....0...1c.2.64.psy-ab..1.5.282...0j0i131k1.0.mAVsfQujqe8 https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?source=hp&ei=A...

al_ramich 8y ago

It would make a lot of sense. The fact that currently there isn't a single unique identifier per online user allows for an unregulated environment. Obviously, there are things like IPs, the mobile device identifies (phone number...) or even single-sign-on platforms but the bottom line is that there isn't something that is unique per user and platform independent. Should there be a unique credential per user just to access anything online? From the security perspective, you would definitely say yes but you could also imagine that this could be taken too far http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-china-is-watching-its-citizens-in-a-modern-surveillance-state-2018-4 http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-china-is-watching-its-citi...

Asooka 8y ago
You're basically describing "The digital imprimatur" [1]. It will absolutely be abused to hell and back if implemented, starting with "it's for the children", going through "artists must get paid" and arriving at "we have always been at war with Eastasia". [1] https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/ https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/
- digi_owl 8y ago
  I find myself thinking of the rise of Twitter block scripts, that one aims at a Twitter account and then proceeds to trawl the links between the accounts and add them to a block list for another account. A tool that was conceived and is in heavy use by what one may well call the "alt-left"...
EGreg 8y ago
From the security perspective, there should NOT be one. It depends on whose security you are safeguarding. That of the people, or a small number of services? In the world we are moving to online, scuttlebutt and MaidSAFE and others will simply LACK a back end that even knows who’s logging in or what data is being sought. Protection of data would happen via end to end encryption. That is MORE secure than trusting someone to safeguard your data - not less.
- al_ramich 8y ago
  Not sure how end-to-end encryption would protect the end user from getting SPAM email, being trolled on the SM, seeing fake news or equivalent. Most of the issues come from the fact that there are no universal quality or identity checks for the information being published online. Perhaps unique/traceable identifier should only be required when you are creating content that others can see.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - paulsutter 8y ago
    I recommend Kim JongUn as an advisor for your proposed project, he’ll understand the needs of your target customer best
  - EGreg 8y ago
    There’s this thing called reputation. Also this thing called science. And another thing called Liberal Democracy. In all these systems, people get to make up their own minds with regard to claims about reality, as well as the trustworthiness of a given service. Your solution is a Ministry of Truth. Here are some actual solutions: http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114 http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114
13of40 8y ago
In a world with billions of such credentials, mostly in the hands of people who just know that it "makes their AOL work" it would probably be trivial to steal as many as a person wanted.

lifeisstillgood 8y ago

LGBT friends of mine defend anonymity for the protections it seemingly affords similar youngsters - but as more of the real world moves online then more of the bad actors move too. We have traceability IRL and we can choose how much bad behaviour we are willing to tolerate - and it is that choice that we need to focus on, what society is willing to let slide not anonymity. it's not a protection. we can let it go.

rasengan 8y ago

This position invites a slippery slope which will lead to the identification of us all at all times. Especially, to suggest giving the power of traceability to “official” law enforcement only is a really bad recommendation. Did you forget what happened at the NSA? Please don’t make these recommendations while using the name Vint Cerf, father of the Internet. It sends a bad signal as if you (supporting traceability) are not the minority here. I have had enough of my /heroes/ supporting backdoors. Please stop it. I hate working against you (supporting anonymity is clearly something you don’t wish to achieve). :(

cromulent 8y ago
> I have had enough of my /heroes/ supporting backdoors. Please stop it. He specifically mentions that he is against backdoors and excludes them from the topic.
- rasengan 8y ago
  > He specifically mentions that he is against backdoors and excludes them from the topic. While he put backdoors in quotes, his end argument is that "differential traceability" gives just that - a backdoor that only law enforcement has access to that can be used to identify the activities of every user. It doesn't matter who says it, or with what vocabulary used -- a backdoor is a backdoor, and I argue that tracking all netizens is going to be, as I said before, a slippery slope. THAT BEING SAID, let me just give an example where this is not a slippery slope and we do this and all goes well and nobody does anything shady within the small "privileged" group of surveillors -- imagine this identification/"differential traceability" system gets hacked.
mhneu 8y ago
What we've learned over the past year or two is that everything we all used to worry about NSA doing, Facebook is ACTUALLY doing. I was also one of those misled, and now know the NSA has controls and a democratic governance structure atop them (as do the other four agencies in UK, Canada, NZ, Aus) that restrict what they do for lawful, democratically-endorsed uses only. Surveillance capitalism at Facebook (good description here: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/03/facebook_and_ca.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/03/facebook_and_... ) is a bigger threat to democracies.

teddyh 8y ago

Even if it were somehow possible to achieve pseudonymity (i.e. permanent and unchangeable – but anonymous – identifiers), any work in this area towards this goal will first be heavily funded, and later heavily co-opted, by the people wishing for actual identification without pseudonyms, and this will ultimately then be presented as the only possible technical solution. The large companies in the field will then adopt the completed “standard”, thereby forcing every user of their services to use it, and any form of actual anonymity or even pseudonymity will then have been lost. We have seen this phenomenon before in other fields. Large actors provide funding for groups with ostensibly beneficial goals, and the funders then influence the groups’ work towards the actor’s own desires, often subverting the goal of the original group completely, but getting the percieved aura of legitimacy of the original group onto the subverted standard.

sverige 8y ago

> In most societies today, it is accepted that we must be identifiable to appropriate authorities under certain conditions (consider border crossings, traffic violation stops as examples). While there are conditions under which apparent anonymity is desirable and even justifiable (whistle-blowing, for example) absolute anonymity is actually quite difficult to achieve (another point made at the Ditchley workshop) and might not be absolutely desirable given the misbehaviors apparent anonymity invites. Border crossings and traffic stops occur in meatspace, where there is some potential for an actual threat. What exactly is the threat that justifies the need to identify individuals at all times on the internet?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

EGreg 8y ago

When I visited Tim Berners-Lee’s SOLID project, I recommended one thing to them: do NOT have one canonical WebID for everything. I had to grapple with these issues years ago and here are some solutions: http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114 http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114

AndrewKemendo 8y ago

Isn't the point of RMS and others in the libre-internet movement that it's exactly those groups that Cerf identifies, namely governments, that we want to ensure don't have unique traceability capabilities because they also have coercive capabilities?

mindslight 8y ago

> This is an example of differential traceability; the police department has the authority to demand ownership information from the Department of Motor Vehicles that issues the license plates. Ordinary citizens do not have this authority This is a fantastic example, but not in the way he intends! While it is only the DMV that has the official database of license plate numbers, simply having attached a unique identifier to each car means that we're trivially subject to all sorts of independently-implemented surveillance, from the lone PI stalking a target to the wide scale ANPR dragnets we're currently grappling with. In fact I'd go so far as to say that in the face of modern technology, the current implementation of license plates is a gross rights violation. As other commenters have noted, where is this glaring threat? We've had Eternal September for 25 years and this "harmful behavior" has yet to manifest in a way that can't be solved by a combination of good old fashioned policing and Postel's law. Yet we repeatedly hear this tired refrain of ominous ne'er-do-wells who simply must be stopped. The current concern is harassment on quasi-public communications platforms like Twitter. Yet Twitter is already operating with everyone having a nym, and still not succeeding at the goals each of its critics envisions. Making these nyms more permanent doesn't change the actual technical difficulty of the problem of moderation! If we're concerned about "social network bullying and misinformation", then we should first demand to see progress on the topic from independent entities that can each try many approaches and fail in isolation. Changing the Internet to have a baked-in totalitarian identification regime and assuming these platforms will then address our wishes is downright foolish.

goldenkey 8y ago
I never realized license plates were able to be utilized by a well funded private data aggregation operation. Great observation. How far do we have to go with allowances for information and actions that are taunts for death and destruction? It seems to me that the only fair way to shape society and well..shared reality..is to allow everyone to do everything and anything and allow others who feel strongly to enact responses..ie punishments. This will eventually maybe be the case ala Star Wars, independent agents roaming reality, with no law other than consequence by others. It seems this is untenable too because it evolves into unfair reality, biased on wealth and capital of weaponry and defense. Not only physically but on a knowledge and information and technological basis. Isnt the real underlying archtype of license plates and well..any authoritarian laws by the government a sort of protectionism for those of us without the money for defense and offense of our own free persons? [1] https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA I am libertarian..but freedom in reality is a function of resources. So I cannot square this circle... laws are a hard issue.