4 ms·

> How they do this ? Easy, someone squealed. All the encryption in the world won’t do you any good if the recipient of the message can’t be trusted. And the

> How they do this ? Easy, someone squealed. All the encryption in the world won’t do you any good if the recipient of the message can’t be trusted. And the larger the group the more likely it is that someone is a bad actor.

salawat 5y ago
One thing I've always wondered, and I think IETF needs to get a working group on. Where do snitches fall in reference to handling of evilness[originally defined in RFC3514]? Should the evil bit be set in reference to the activity of a group in isolation of the maliciousness of an implementation of a system operating on a network medium? Example: >A group uses a tool or protocol legitimately in the way in which it was designed [non-evil manner] to facilitate an illegal workflow [debatably evil, but at a level irrelevant to the network]. Based on RFC 3514, this group carrying out the illegal activity in a way not malicious on the to tge network SHOULD NOT set the evil bit; they are up to no mischief within the context of the network. as they are making use of hosts as they were designed to be used. A snitch within the group, however, SHOULD set the evil bit, and furthermore, if IPv6, should set the attack identifier to something appropriate since they are exploiting the implicit trust of the network in a malicious way [see RFC's 7258 and the IPv6 relevant part of 3514] Clearly, there is intent based on related work with optical switches and routing that the evilness bit should cascade appropriately between contexts, such as there being evil lambdas, and evil polarizations, etc.... How then, does one then handle the problem of "relative evilness", in which the state of the evil bit is dependent on higher order constructs, in particular where higher order activities are directly recognized to be a form of network attack, thereby warranting the setting of the evil bit by one party or the other? Note, this issue does not just impact the criminal element, as the same setup could easily afflict law enforcement by which a snitch jeopardizes legal activity through the same attack pattern, or rogue law enforcement participating in unlawful surveillance jeopardize the safety and integrity of the network. I believe the very future of security on the Internet and the integrity of activity mediated over it is at stake if we cannot reach a rough consensus on this topic.
- fwn 5y ago
  Not sure if I understood you correctly. In our context "evil" just meant that someone breached the secrecy a group assumed to be a shared value. Encryption is never evil and the tools used to facilitate communication in democratic societies should not be equipped with traps to enforce whatever power positions exist at one time.
  - danielheath 5y ago
    The "Evil Bit" RFC is one of the famous April Fools jokes produced back when the standards body retained an excellent sense of subtle humor. I think it's safe to assume anyone that referencing it is doing so for comedic purposes.
    - fwn 5y ago
      Ha, thank you. I had no idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit
    - salawat 5y ago
      It is indeed a safe assumption in this case. I was trying to sneak in a "snitches get stitches" jab to balance out this year's establishment of the Protocol Police, but couldn't quite pull it off.

salawat 5y ago

One thing I've always wondered, and I think IETF needs to get a working group on. Where do snitches fall in reference to handling of evilness[originally defined in RFC3514]? Should the evil bit be set in reference to the activity of a group in isolation of the maliciousness of an implementation of a system operating on a network medium? Example: >A group uses a tool or protocol legitimately in the way in which it was designed [non-evil manner] to facilitate an illegal workflow [debatably evil, but at a level irrelevant to the network]. Based on RFC 3514, this group carrying out the illegal activity in a way not malicious on the to tge network SHOULD NOT set the evil bit; they are up to no mischief within the context of the network. as they are making use of hosts as they were designed to be used. A snitch within the group, however, SHOULD set the evil bit, and furthermore, if IPv6, should set the attack identifier to something appropriate since they are exploiting the implicit trust of the network in a malicious way [see RFC's 7258 and the IPv6 relevant part of 3514] Clearly, there is intent based on related work with optical switches and routing that the evilness bit should cascade appropriately between contexts, such as there being evil lambdas, and evil polarizations, etc.... How then, does one then handle the problem of "relative evilness", in which the state of the evil bit is dependent on higher order constructs, in particular where higher order activities are directly recognized to be a form of network attack, thereby warranting the setting of the evil bit by one party or the other? Note, this issue does not just impact the criminal element, as the same setup could easily afflict law enforcement by which a snitch jeopardizes legal activity through the same attack pattern, or rogue law enforcement participating in unlawful surveillance jeopardize the safety and integrity of the network. I believe the very future of security on the Internet and the integrity of activity mediated over it is at stake if we cannot reach a rough consensus on this topic.

fwn 5y ago
Not sure if I understood you correctly. In our context "evil" just meant that someone breached the secrecy a group assumed to be a shared value. Encryption is never evil and the tools used to facilitate communication in democratic societies should not be equipped with traps to enforce whatever power positions exist at one time.
- danielheath 5y ago
  The "Evil Bit" RFC is one of the famous April Fools jokes produced back when the standards body retained an excellent sense of subtle humor. I think it's safe to assume anyone that referencing it is doing so for comedic purposes.
  - fwn 5y ago
    Ha, thank you. I had no idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit
  - salawat 5y ago
    It is indeed a safe assumption in this case. I was trying to sneak in a "snitches get stitches" jab to balance out this year's establishment of the Protocol Police, but couldn't quite pull it off.