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Human Rights Protocol Considerations Research Group         N. ten Oever
Internet-Draft                                                 Article19
Intended status: Informational                                   C. Cath
Expires: September 18, 2016                    Oxford Internet Institute
Research into Human Rights Protocol Considerations
draft-tenoever-hrpc-research-00
The increased intertwinement of Internet and society increases the
impact of the Internet on the lives of individuals.  Because of this,
the design and development of the architecture of the Internet also
has an increasing impact on society.  This has led to an increasing
recognition that human rights [UDHR] [ICCPR] [ICESCR] have a role in
the development and management of the Internet [HRC2012] [UNGA2013]
[NETmundial].  It has also been argued that the Internet should be
strenghtened as a human rights enabeling environment [Brown].
This document provides a proposal for a glossary to discuss the
relation between human rights and Internet protocols, an overview of
the discussion, a proposal for the mapping of the relation between
human rights and technical concepts, and a proposal for guidelines
for human rights considerations, similar to the work done on the
guidelines for privacy considerations [RFC6973].
Discussion of this draft at: hrpc@irtf.org //
https://www.irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/hrpc
ten Oever & Cath       Expires September 18, 2016               [Page 1]
Internet-Draft                    hrpcr                       March 2016
2.  Vocabulary used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
3.  Research Questions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
4.  Literature and Discussion Review  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
5.  Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
5.1.  Data Sources  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
5.1.1.  Discourse analysis of RFCs  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
5.1.2.  Interviews with members of the IETF community during
IETF92 in Dallas  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
5.1.3.  Participant observation in Working Groups . . . . . .  14
5.2.  Data analysis strategies  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
5.2.1.  Identifying qualities of technical concepts that
relate to human rights  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
5.2.2.  Translation human rights to technical terms . . . . .  16
5.2.3.  IP  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
5.2.4.  DNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
5.2.5.  HTTP  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
5.2.6.  XMPP  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  25
5.2.7.  Peer to Peer  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
5.2.8.  Virtual Private Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  29
5.2.9.  HTTP Status Code 451  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  32
5.2.10. Middleboxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  33
5.2.11. DDOS attacks  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
5.3.  Model for developing human rights protocol considerations  37
5.3.1.  Human rights threats  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  37
5.3.2.  Guidelines for human rights considerations  . . . . .  38
6.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  44
8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  45
9.  Research Group Information  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  45
10.3.  URIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  56
"There's a freedom about the Internet: As long as we accept the
rules of sending packets around, we can send packets containing
anything to anywhere."
[Berners-Lee]
This document aims to expose the relation between protocols and human
rights, propose possible guidelines to protect the Internet as a
human-rights-enabling environment in future protocol development, in
a manner similar to the work done for Privacy Considerations in
[RFC6973], and to to increase the awareness in both the human rights
community and the technical community on the importance of the
technical workings of the Internet and its impact on human rights.
Open, secure and reliable connectivity is necessary (although not
sufficient) to excercise the human rights such as freedom of
expression and freedom of association, as defined in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights [UDHR].  The Internet aims to be a global
network of networks that provides unfettered connectivity to all
users at all times and for any content [RFC1958].  This objective of
stimulating global connectivity contributes to the Internets role as
an enabler of human rights.  Next to that, the strong commitment to
security [RFC1984][RFC3365] and privacy [RFC6973] [RFC7258] in the
Internets architectural design equally strongly contributes to the
strenghtening of the Internet as a human rights enabeling
environment.  One could even argue that the Internet is not only an
enabler of human rights, but that human rights lie at the basis of,
and are ingrained in, the architecture of the network.
While the Internet was designed with freedom and openness of
communications as core values, as the scale and the commercialization
of the Internet has grown greatly, topics like access, rights and
connectivity are forced to compete with other values.  Therefore,
decisive and human rights enabling characteristics of the Internet
might be degraded if they're not properly defined, described and
protected as such.  And, the other way around, not protecting human
right enabeling characteristics could also result in (partial) loss
of functionality and connectivity, and other inherent parts of the
Internets architecture.
The IETF has produced guidelines and procedures to ensure and
galvanize the privacy and security of the network in protocol
development.  This document aims to explore the possibility of the
development of similar procedures for guidelines for human rights
considerations to ensure that protocols developed in the IETF do not
have an adverse impact on the enjoyment of human rights on the
2.  Vocabulary used
In the discussion of human rights and Internet architecture concepts
that have been developed and computer science, networking, law,
policy-making and advocacy are coming together.  The same concepts
might have a very different meaning and implications in another area
of expertise.  In order to foster a constructive interdisciplinary
debate, and minimize differences in interpretation, the following
glossary is provided.
Accessibility  Full Internet Connectivity as described in [RFC4084]
to provide unfettered access to the Internet
The design of protocols, services or implementation that provide
an enabling environment for people with disabilities.
The ability to receive information available on the Internet
Anonymity  The condition of an identity being unknown or concealed.
Anonymous  A state of an individual in which an observer or attacker
cannot identify the individual within a set of other  individuals
(the anonymity set).  [RFC6973]
Authenticity  The fact that the data does indeed come from the source
it claims to come from.  (It is strongly linked with Integrity,
see below).
Censorship resistance  Methods and measures to prevent Internet
Confidentiality  The non-disclosure of information to any unintended
person or host or party
Connectivity  The extent to which a device or network is able to
reach other devices or networks to exchange data.  The Internet is
the tool for providing global connectivity [RFC1958].
Content-agnosticism  Treating network traffic identically regardless
of content.
Debugging  Debugging is a methodical process of finding and reducing
the number of bugs, or defects, or malfunctions in a protocol or
its implementation, thus making it behave as expected and analyse
the consequences that might have emanated from the error.
Debugging tends to be harder when various subsystems are tightly
coupled, as changes in one may cause bugs to emerge in another.
[WP-Debugging]
The process through which people troubleshoot a technical issue,
which may include inspection of program source code or device
configurations.  Can also include tracing or monitoring packet
flow.
Decentralized  Opportunity for implementation or deployment of
standards, protocols or systems without one single point of
End-to-End  The principal of extending characteristics of a protocol
or system as far as possible within the system.  For example, end-
to-end instant message encryption would conceal communications
from one user's instant messaging application through any
intermediate devices and servers all the way to the recipient's
instant messaging application.  If the message was decrypted at
any intermediate point-for example at a service provider-then the
property of end-to-end encryption would not be present.
One of the key architectural guidelines of the Internet is the
end-to-end principle in the papers by Saltzer, Reed, and Clark
[Saltzer] [Clark].  The end-to-end principle was originally
articulated as a question of where best not to put functions in a
communication system.  Yet, in the ensuing years, it has evolved
to address concerns of maintaining openness, increasing
reliability and robustness, and preserving the properties of user
choice and ease of new service development as discussed by
Blumenthal and Clark in [Blumenthal]; concerns that were not part
of the original articulation of the end-to-end principle.
communication that takes place between communication end-points of
the same physical or logical functional level
Federation  The possibility of connecting autonomous systems into a
single distributed system.
Heterogenity :  The Internet is characterized by heterogeneity on
many levels: devices and nodes, router scheduling algorithms and
queue management mechanisms, routing protocols, levels of
multiplexing, protocol versions and implementations, underlying link
layers (e.g., point-to-point, multi-access links, wireless, FDDI,
etc.), in the traffic mix and in the levels of congestion at
different times and places.  Moreover, as the Internet is composed of
autonomous organizations and internet service providers, each with
their own separate policy concerns, there is a large heterogeneity of
administrative domains and pricing structures.  As a result,
heterogeneity principle is proposed in [RFC1958] to be supported by
design.  [FIArch]
Integrity  Maintenance and assurance of the accuracy and consistency
of data to ensure it has not been (intentionally or
unintentionally) altered
Internet censorship :  Internet censorship is the intentional
suppression of information originating, flowing or stored on systems
connected to the Internet where that information is relevant for
decision making to some entity.  [Elahi]
Inter-operable  A property of a documented standard or protocol which
allows different independent implementations to work with each
other without any restricted negotiation, access or
Internet Standards as an Arena for Conflict  Pursuant to the
principle of constant change, since the function and scope of the
Internet evolves, so does the role of the IETF in developing
standards.  Internet standards are adopted on the basis of a
series of criteria, including high technical quality, support by
community consensus, and their overall benefit to the Internet.
The latter calls for an assessment of the interests of all
affected parties and the specifications' impact on the Internet's
users.  In this respect, the effective exercise of the human
rights of the Internet users is a relevant consideration that
needs to be  appreciated in the standardization process insofar as
it is directly linked to the reliability and core values of the
Internet.  [RFC1958] [RFC0226] [RFC3724]
Internationalization (i18n)  The practice of making protocols,
standards, and implementations usable in different languages and
scripts.  (see Localization)
(cf [RFC6365]) In the IETF, "internationalization" means to add or
improve the handling of non-ASCII text in a protocol.  [RFC6365]
A different perspective, more appropriate to protocols that are
designed for global use from the beginning, is the definition used
by W3C:
"Internationalization is the design and development of a
product, application or document content that enables easy
localization for target audiences that vary in culture, region,
or language."  [W3Ci18nDef]
Many protocols that handle text only handle one charset (US-ASCII),
or leave the question of what CCS and encoding are used up to local
guesswork (which leads, of course, to  interoperability problems).
If multiple charsets are permitted, they must be explicitly
identified [RFC2277].  Adding non-ASCII text to a protocol allows the
protocol to handle more scripts, hopefully all of the ones useful in
the world.  In today's world, that is normally best accomplished by
allowing Unicode encoded in UTF-8 only, thereby shifting conversion
issues away from individual choices.
Localization (l10n)  The practice of translating an implementation to
make it functional in a specific language or for users in a
specific locale (see Internationalization)
(cf [RFC6365] The process of adapting an internationalized
application platform or application to a specific cultural
environment.  In localization, the same semantics are preserved
while the syntax may be changed.  [FRAMEWORK]
Localization is the act of tailoring an application for a different
language or script or culture.  Some internationalized applications
can handle a wide variety of languages.  Typical users only
understand a small number of languages, so the program must be
tailored to interact with users in just the languages they know.
The major work of localization is translating the user interface and
documentation.  Localization involves not only changing the language
interaction, but also other relevant changes such as display of
numbers, dates, currency, and so on.  The better internationalized an
application is, the easier it is to localize it for a particular
language and character encoding scheme.
Localization is rarely an IETF matter, and protocols that are merely
localized, even if they are serially localized for several locations,
are generally considered unsatisfactory for the global Internet.
Open standards  Conform  [RFC2606]: Various national and
international standards bodies, such as ANSI,       ISO, IEEE, and
ITU-T, develop a variety of protocol and service
specifications that are similar to Technical Specifications
defined here.  National and international groups also publish
"implementors' agreements" that are analogous to Applicability
Statements, capturing a body of implementation-specific detail
concerned with the practical application of their standards.  All
of these are considered to be "open external standards" for
the       purposes of the Internet Standards Process.
Openness  The quality of the unfiltered Internet that allows for free
access to other hosts
Absence of centralised points of control - a feature that is
assumed to make it easy for new users to join and new uses to
unfold [Brown]
Permissionless innovation  The freedom and ability of to freely
create and deploy new protocols on top of the communications
constructs that currently exist      Privacy
The right of an entity (normally a person), acting in its own
behalf, to determine the degree to which it will interact with its
environment, including the degree to which the entity is willing
to share its personal information with others.  [RFC4949]
The right of individuals to control or influence what information
related to them may be collected and stored and by whom and to
whom that information may be disclosed.
Privacy is a broad concept relating to the protection of
individual autonomy and the relationship between an individual and
society, including government, companies and private individuals.
It is often summarized as "the right to be left alone" but it
encompasses a wide range of rights including protections from
intrusions into family and home life, control of sexual and
reproductive rights, and communications secrecy.  It is commonly
recognized as a core right that underpins human dignity and other
values such as freedom of association and freedom of speech.
The right to privacy is also recognized in nearly every national
constitution  and in most international human rights treaties.  It
has been adjudicated upon both by international and regional bodies.
The right to privacy is also legally protected at the national level
through provisions in civil and/or criminal codes.
Reliable  Reliability ensures that a protocol will execute its
function consistently and error resistant as described and
function without unexpected result.  A system that is reliable
degenerates gracefully and will have a documented way to announce
degradation.  It also has mechanisms to recover from failure
gracefully, and if applicable, allow for partial healing.
Resilience  The maintaining of dependability and performance in the
face of unanticipated changes and circumstances.
Robustness  The resistance of protocols and their implementations to
errors, and to involuntary, legal or malicious attempts to disrupt
its mode of operations.  [RFC0760] [RFC0791] [RFC0793] [RFC1122]
Scalable  The ability to handle increased or decreased workloads
predictably within defined expectations.  There should be a clear
definition of its scope and applicability.  The limits of a
systems scalability should be defined.
Stateless / stateful   In computing, a stateless protocol is a
communications protocol that treats each request as an independent
transaction that is unrelated to any previous request so that the
communication consists of independent pairs of request and
response.  A stateless protocol does not require the server to
retain session information or status about each communications
partner for the duration of multiple requests.  In contrast, a
protocol which requires keeping of the internal state on the
server is known as a stateful protocol.  [WP-Stateless]
Strong encryption / cryptography  Used to describe a cryptographic
algorithm that would require a large amount of computational power
to defeat it.  [RFC4949]
Transparent  "transparency" refers to the original Internet concept
of a single universal logical addressing scheme, and the
mechanisms by which packets may flow from source to destination
essentially unaltered.  [RFC2775]
The combination of reliability, confidentiality, integrity,
anonymity, and authenticity is what makes up security on the
(     Reliability          )
(      Confidentiality       )
(      Integrity             )   = communication and information security (technical)
(      Authenticity          )
(     Anonymity            )
The combination of End-to-End, Interoperability, resilience,
reliability and robustness is what makes us connectivity on the
( End-to-End      )
connectivity =     (  Interoperability )
(   Resilience        )
(   Reliability       )
(   Robustness        )
(  Autonomy         )
( Simplicity      )
3.  Research Questions
The Human Rights Protocol Considerations Research Group (hrpc) in the
Internet Research Taskforce (IRTF) embarked on its mission to answer
the following two questions which are also the main two questions
which this documents seeks to answer:
1.  How can Internet protocols and standards impact human rights,
either by enabling them or by creating a restrictive environment?
2.  Can guidelines be developed to improve informed and transparent
decision making about potential human rights impact of protocols?
4.  Literature and Discussion Review
Protocols and standards are regularly seen as merely performing
technical functions.  However, these protocols and standards do not
exist outside of their technical context nor outside of their
political,historical, economic, legal or cultural context.  This is
best exemplified by the way in which protocols have become part and
parcel of political processes and public policies: one only has to
look at the IANA transition, the RFC on pervasive monitoring or
global innovation policy for concrete examples [Denardis15].  To
quote [Abbate]: "protocols are politics by other means".  Since the
late 1990's a burgeoning group of academics and practitioners
researched questions surrounding the societal impact of protocols.
These studies vary in focus and scope: some focus on specific
standards [Davidsonetal] [Musiani], others look into the political,
legal, commercial or social impact of protocols [BrownMarsden]
[Lessig], [Mueller].    Commercial and political influences on the
management of the Internet's architecture are well-documented in the
academic literature and will thus not be discussed here [Benkler]
[Brownetal]  [Denardis15]  [Lessig]  [Mueller]  [Zittrain].  It is
enough to say that the IETF consistently tries to push back against
the standardization of surveillance and certain other issues that
negatively influence end-users' experience of the Internet
[Denardis14].  The role human rights play in technical engineering is
much less clear.    Understanding how protocols and standards impact
human rights, especially the right to freedom of expression and
freedom of association and assembly is crucial.  Questions at the
ten Oever & Cath       Expires September 18, 2016              [Page 10]
intersection of human rights and Internet architecture management are
particularly important as Internet Standard Developing Organizations
(SDOs) are the arenas for contention over human rights and the role
of technical engineers to protect human rights by design [Brownetal]
[Clarketal]  [Denardis14]  [Lessig]  [Rachovitsa].    In the academic
literature four clear positions can be discerned, in relation to the
role of human rights in protocol design and how to account for these
human rights in protocol development: Clark et al. argue that there
is a need to 'design for variation in outcome, so that the outcome
can be different in different places, and the tussle takes place
within the design (...) [as] Rigid designs will be broken; designs
that permit variation will flex under pressure and survive
[Clarketal].'  They hold that human rights should not be hard-coded
into protocols because of four reasons: first, the rights in the UDHR
are not absolute.  Second, technology is not the only tool in the
tussle over human rights.  Third, there are inherent dangers to
blunting the tools of enforcement and last but not least, it is
dangerous to make promises that can't be kept.  The open nature of
the Internet will never, they argue, be enough to fully protect
individuals' human rights.
Conversely, Brown et al.  [Brownetal] state that 'some key, universal
values - of which the UDHR is the most legitimate expression - should
be baked into the architecture at design time.'  They argue that
design choices have offline consequences, and are able shape the
power positions of groups or individuals in society.  As such, the
individuals making these technical decisions have a moral obligation
to take into account the impact of their decisions on society, and by
extension human rights.  Brown et al recognise that values and the
implementation of human rights vary across the globe.  Yet they argue
that all members of the United Nations have found 'common agreement
on the values proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.  In looking for the most legitimate set of global values to
embed in the future Internet architecture, the UDHR has the
democratic assent of a significant fraction of the planet's
population, through their elected representatives."
The main disagreement between these two positions lies mostly in the
question on whether a particular value system should be build into
the Internet's architecture or whether the architecture needs to
account for a varying set of values.    A third position that is
similar to that of Brown et al., is taken by [Broeders] who argues
that 'we must find ways to continue guaranteeing the overall
integrity and functionality of the public core of the Internet.'  He
argues that the best way to do this is by declaring the backbone of
the Internet - which includes the tcp/ip ProtocolSuite, numerous
standards, the Domain Name System (dns), and routing protocols- a
common public good. This is a different approach then that of
[Clarketal] and [Brownetal] because he does not suggest that social
values should (or should not) be explicitly coded into the Internet's
architecture, but rather that the existing architecture should be
seen as an entity of public value.    Bless and Orwat [Bless]
represents a fourth position.  They argue that 'pure technical
solutions for enabling, enforcing or restricting rights/values are
often costly, insufficient, inflexible, may have unintended
consequences or create stakeholders with too much power'.  They argue
that it is important to search for solutions that 'create awareness
in the technical community about impact of design choices on social
values.  And work towards a methodology for co-design of technical
and institutional systems.'    Our position is that hard-coding human
rights into protocols in addition to being undesirable is also
impossible, because each situation is dependent on its context.  It
is however important to make consicious design decisions that take
into account the human rights protocol considerations guidelines
developed below.  This will ensure that the impact protocols can have
on human rights is clear and explicit, both for developers and for
users.  In addition, it ensures that the impact of specific protocol
on human rights is carefully considered and that concrete design
decisions are documented in the protocol.
This document details the steps taken in the research into human
rights protocol considerations by the HRPC group to clarify the
relation between technical concepts used in the IETF and human
rights.  And sets out some preliminary of steps and considerations
for engineers to take into account when developing standards and
5.  Methodology
Mapping the relation between human rights and protocols and
architectures is a new research challenge, which requires a good
amount of interdisciplinary and cross organizational cooperation to
develop a consistent methodology.  While the authors of this first
draft are involved in  both human rights advocacy and research on
Internet technologies - we believe that bringing this work into the
IRTF facilitates and  improves this work by bringing human rights
experts together with the  community of researchers and developers of
Internet standards and technologies.
The methodological choices made in this document are based on the
political science-based method of discourse analysis and ethnographic
research methods.  This work departs from the assumption that
language reflects the understanding of concepts.  Or as [Jabri]
holds, policy documents are 'social relations represented in texts
where language is used to construct meaning and representation'.
This process happens in 'the social space of society' [Schroeder] and
manifests itself in institutions and organizations [King] which were
exposed using the ethnographic methods of semi-structured interviews
and participant observation.
The discourse analysis was operationalized using qualitative and
quantitative means.  The first step was for the research group to
read RFCs and other official IETF documents.  The second step was the
use of a pyhon-based analyzer, using the tool Big Bang, adapted by
Nick Doty [Doty] to scan for the concepts that were identified as
important architetural principels (distilled on the initial reading
and supplemented by the interviews and participant observation).
Such a quantitative method is very precise and speeds up the research
process [Richie].  But this tool is unable to understand 'latent
meaning' [Denzin].  In order to mitigate these issues of automated
word-frequency based approaches, and to get a sense of the 'thick
meaning' [Geertz] of the data, a second qualitative analysis of the
data set was performed.  These various rounds of discourse analysis
were used to inform the interviews and further data analysis.  The
ethnographic methods of the data collection process allowed the
research group to acquire the data necessary to 'provide a holistic
understanding of research participants' views and actions' [Denzin]
that highlighted ongoing issues and case studies where protocols
impact human rights.  The interview participants were selected
through purposive sampling [Babbie], as the research group was
interested in getting a wide variety of opinions on the role of human
rights in guiding protocol development.  This sampling method also
ensured that the individuals with extensive experience of working at
the IETF in various roles were targeted.  The interviewees included
individuals in leadership positions (Working Group (WG) chairs, Area
Directors (ADs)), 'regular participants', individuals working for
specific entities (corporate, civil society, political, academic) and
represented various backgrounds, nationalities and genders.
5.1.  Data Sources
In order to map the potential relation between human rights and
protocols, so far, the HRPC research group gathered data from three
specific sources:

5.1.1.  Discourse analysis of RFCs
To start addressing the issue, a mapping exercise analyzing Internet
architecture and protocols features, vis-a-vis possible impact on
human rights is being undertaken.  Therefore, research on the
language used in current and historic RFCs and mailing list
discussions is underway to expose core architectural principles,
language and deliberations on human rights of those affected by the
5.1.2.  Interviews with members of the IETF community during IETF92 in
Interviews with the current and past members of the Internet
Architecture Board (IAB), current and past members of the Internet
Engineering Steering Group(IESG) and chairs of selected working
groups and RFC authors.  To get an insider understanding of how they
view the relationship (if any) between human rights and protocols to
play out in their work.
5.1.3.  Participant observation in Working Groups
By participating in various working groups, in person at IETF
meetings and on mailinglists, information was gathered about the
IETFs day-to-day workings.  From which which general themes,
technical concepts, and use-cases about human rights and protocols
were extracted.
5.2.  Data analysis strategies
The data above was processed using three consecutive strategies:
mapping protocols related to human rights, extracting concepts from
these protocols, and creation of a common glossary (detailed under 2.
vocabulary used).  Before going into these strategies some
elaboration on the process of identifying technical concepts as they
related to human rights needs to be given.
5.2.1.  Identifying qualities of technical concepts that relate to human
5.2.1.1.  Mapping protocols and standards related to human rights
By combining data from the three data sources named above, an
extensive list of  protocols and standards that potentially enable
the internet as a tool for freedom of expression and association was
assembly.  In order to determine this enabling (or inhibiting)
featured we relied on direct references of such impact in the RFCs,
as well as input from the community.  On the basis of this analysis a
list of RFCs that describe standards and protocols that are
potentially more closely related to human rights were compiled.
5.2.1.2.  Extracting concepts from mapped RFCs
Mapping the protocols and standards that are related to human rights
and creating an human rights enabeling environment was the first step
to focus on specific technical concepts that underlie these protocols
and  standards.  On the basis of this list number of technical
concepts that appeared frequently was extracted, and used to create a
list of technical terms that combined create the enabling environment
for excercising human rights on the Internet.
5.2.1.3.  Building a common vocabulary of technical concepts that impact
While interviewing experts and mapping RFCs and compiling technical
definitions several concepts of convergence and divergence were
identified.  To ensure that the discussion was based on a common
understanding of terms a list of terms was created.  The definitions
are based on definitions from other IETF documents, and if these were
unavailable definitions were taken from definitions from other
Standards Developing Organizations or academic literature.
5.2.1.4.  Translating Human Rights Concept into Technical Definitions
The previous steps allowed for the clarification of relation between
human rights and technical concepts.  The steps taken show how the
research process zoomed in, from compiling a broad lists of protocols
and standards that relate to human rights to extracting the precies
technical concepts that make up these protocols and standards in
order to understand the relationship between the two.  This sub-
section presents the next step: translating human rights to technical
concepts by matching the individuals components of the rights to the
accompanying technical concepts, allowing for the creation of a list
of technical concepts that combined create the enabling environment
for human rights.
5.2.1.5.  List technical terms that combined create enabling environment
for human rights
On the basis of the prior steps the following list of technical terms
that combined create the enabling environment for human rights, such
a freedom of expression and freedom of association was drafted.
Architectural principles                    Enabling features
and characteristics                        for user rights
/------------------------------------------------\
|                                                |
+=================|=============================+                  |
=                 |                             =                  |
=                 |           End to end        =                  |
=                 |          Reliability        =                  |
=                 |           Resilience        =  Access as       |
=                 |        Interoperability     =   Human Right    |
=    Good enough  |          Transparency       =                  |
=     principle   |       Data minimization     =                  |
=                 |  Permissionless innovation  =                  |
=    Simplicity   |     Graceful degradation    =                  |
=                 |          Connectivity       =                  |
=                 |          Heterogeneity      =                  |
=                 \------------------------------------------------/
=                                               =
+===============================================+
5.2.2.  Translation human rights to technical terms
This analysis aims to translate human rights concepts that impact or
are impacted by the Internet as follows:
The combination of content agnosticism, connectivity, security,
privacy (as defined in [RFC6973] ), and open standards are the
technical principles that underlay freedom of expression on the
(     Connectivity          )
(      Privacy                )
(      Security               )   = Right to freedom of expression
(      Content agnosticism    )
(      Internationalization   )
(      Censorship resistance  )
(      Open Standards         )
(     Heterogeneity support )
(     Anonymity          )
(      Privacy             )   = Right to non-discrimination
(      Pseudonymity        )
(      Content agnosticism )
(     Accessibility      )
(       Content Agnosticism  )
(       Security             )  = Right to equal protection
(        Anonymity       )
(         Privacy          )   = Right to be presumed innocent
(        Security        )
(  Accessibility         )
(   Internationalization   ) = Right to political participation
(   Censorship resistance )
(  Open standards         )
(   Localization            ) = Right to participate in cultural life,
(   Internationalization    )             arts and science
(  Censorship resistance  )
(  Connectivity         )
(   Decentralization      )
(     Censorship resistance   ) = Right to freedom of assembly
(   Pseudonymity          )                   and association
(   Anonymity             )
(  Security             )
( Reliability    )
(  Confidentiality )
(  Integrity       ) = Right to security
(  Authenticity    )
( Anonymity      )
5.2.2.1.  Map cases of protocols that are adversely impact human rights
or are enablers thereof
Taken this information above, the following list of cases of
protocols that adversely impact or enable human rights was formed.
5.2.3.  IP
The Internet Protocol version 4, known as 'layer 3' of the internet,
and specified as a common encapsulation and protocol header, is
defined by [RFC0791].  The evolution of Internet communications have
led to continued development in this area, encapsulated in the
development of version 6 of the protocol in [RFC2460].  In spite of
this updated protocol, we find that 25 years after the specification
of version 6 of the protocol, the older v4 standard continues to
account for a sizeable majority of internet traffic.
The internet was designed as a platform for free and open
communication, most notably encoded in the end-to-end principle, and
that philosophy is also present in the technical implementation of
the Internet Protocol.  [RFC3724] While the protocol was designed to
exist in an environment where intelligence is at the end hosts, it
has proven to provide sufficient information that a more intelligent
network core can make policy decisions and enforce policy shaping and
restricting the communications of end hosts.  These capabilities for
network control and limitations of the freedom of expression by end
hosts can be traced back to the IPv4 design, helping us understand
which technical protocol decisions have led to harm of these human
rights.
Two major shifts have occurred to harm freedom of expression through
misuse of the Internet Protocol.  The first is the network's
exploitation of the public visibility of the host pairs for all
communications, and the corresponding ability to discriminate and
block traffic as a result of that metadata.  The second is the
selective development of IP options.  Protocol extensions including
Mobility and Multicasting have proposed alternate communication modes
and suggest that different forms of assembly could be supported by an
a robust IP layer.  Instead, the protocol has limited the
deployability of such extensions by not providing a mechanism for
appropriate fallback behavior when unrecognized extensions are
encountered.
5.2.3.1.  Network visibility of Source and Destination
The IPv4 protocol header contains fixed location fields for both the
source and destination IP addresses [RFC0791].  These addresses
identify both the host sending and receiving each message, and allow
the core network to understand who is talking to whom, and to
practically limit communication selectively between pairs of hosts.
Blocking of communication based on the pair of source and destination
is one of the most common limitations on the ability for hosts to
communicate today, [caida] and can be seen as a restriction of the
ability for those hosts to assemble or to consensually express
themselves.
Inclusion of an Internet-wide identified source in the IP header is
not the only possible design, especially since the protocol is most
commonly implemented over Ethernet networks exposing only link-local
identifiers.  [RFC0894] A variety of alternative designs including
source routing, and spoofing of the source IP address are technically
supported by the protocol, but neither are regularly allowed on the
Internet.  While projects like [torproject] provide an alternative
implementation of anonymity in connections, they have been developed
in spite of the IPv4 protocol design.
5.2.3.2.  Protocols
The other major feature of the IP protocol header is that it
specifies the protocol encapsulated in each message in an easily
observable form, and does not encourage a design where the
encapsulated protocol is not available to a network observer.  This
design has resulted in a proliferation of routers which inspect the
inner protocol, and has resulted in a stagnation where only the TCP
and UDP protocols are widely supported across the Internet.  While
the IP protocol was designed as the entire set of metadata needed for
routing, subsequent enhanced routers have found value on making
policy decisions based on the contents of TCP and UDP headers as
well, and are encoded with the assumption that only these protocols
will be used for data transfer. [spdy] [RFC4303] defines an encrypted
encapsulation of additional protocols, but lacks widespread
deployment and faces the same challenge as any other protocol of
providing sufficient metadata with each message for routers to make
positive policy decisions.  Protocols like [RFC4906] have seen
limited wide-area uptake, and these alternate designs are frequently
re-implemented on top of UDP. [quic]
5.2.3.3.  Address Translation and Mobility
A major structural shift in the Internet which has undermined the
protocol design of IPv4, and has significantly reduced the freedom of
end users to communicate and assemble in the introduction network
address translation.  [RFC1631] Network address translation is a
process whereby organizations and autonomous systems to connect two
networks by translating the IPv4 source and destination addresses
between the two.  This process puts the router performing the
translation into a privileged position, where it can decide which
subset of communications are worthy of translation, and whether an
unknown request for communication will be correctly forwarded to a
host on the other network.
This process of translation has widespread adoption despite promoting
a process that goes against the stated end-to-end process of the
underlying protocol [natusage].  In contrast, the proposed mechanism
to provide support for mobility and forwarding to clients which may
move, encoded instead as an option in the IP protocol in [RFC5944],
has failed to gain traction.  This situation again suggests that the
compromise made in design of the protocol has resulted in a
technology which failed to technical encode the freedom of expression
goals it was designed to promote.
5.2.4.  DNS
The Domain Name System (DNS) [RFC1035], provides service discovery
capabilities, and provides a mechanism to associate human readable
names with services.  The DNS system is organized around a set of
independently operated 'Root Servers' run by organizations around the
web which enact ICANN's policy by answering queries for which
organizations have been delegated to manage registration under each
Top Level Domain (TLD).  Top Level domains are maintained and
determined by ICANN.  These namespaces encompass several classes of
services.  The initial name spaces including '.Com' and '.Net',
provide common spaces for expression of ideas, though their policies
are enacted through US based companies.  Other name spaces are
delegated to specific nationalities, and may impose limits designed
to focus speech in those forums both to promote speech from that
nationality, and to comply with local limits on expression and social
norms.  Finally, the system has been recently expanded with
additional generic and sponsored name spaces, for instance '.travel'
and '.ninja', which are operated by a range of organizations which
may independently determine their registration policies.
DNS has significant privacy issues per [RFC7626].  Most notable are
the lack of encryption to limit the visibility of requests for domain
resolution from intermediary parties, and a limited deployment of
DNSSEC to provide authentication, allowing the client to know that
they have received a correct, "authoritative", answer to a query.
Together, this situation results in ongoing harm to freedom of
expression as interference with the operation of DNS has become one
of the central mechanisms used to block access to websites.  This
interference limits both the freedom of expression of the publisher
to offer their content, and the freedom of assembly for clients to
congregate in a shared virtual space.
There have been several mechanisms used impose these limitations
based on the technical design of the DNS protocol.  These have led to
a number of situations where limits on expression have been imposed
through subversion of the DNS protocol.  Each of these situations has
accompanying aspects of protocol design enabling those limitations.
5.2.4.1.  Removal of records
There have been a number of cases where the records for a domain are
removed from the name system due to real-world events.  Examples of
this removal includes the 'seizure' of wikileaks [bbc-wikileaks] and
the names of illegally operating gambling operations by the United
States ICE unit, which compelled the US-based registry in charge of
the .com TLD to hand ownership of those domains over to the
government.  The same technique has been notably used by Libya to
remove sites in violation of "our Country's Law and Morality (which)
do not allow any kind of pornography or its promotion." [techyum]
At a protocol level, there is no technical auditing for name
ownership, as in alternate systems like [namecoin].  As a result,
there is no ability for users to differentiate seizure from the
legitimate transfer of name ownership, which is purely a policy
decision of registrars.  While DNSSEC addresses network distortion
events described below, it does not tackle this problem, which has
the cooperation of (or compelled action by) the registry.
5.2.4.2.  Distortion of records
The most common mechanism by which the DNS system is abused to limit
freedom of expression is through manipulation of protocol messages by
the network.  One form occurs at an organizational level, where
client computers are instructed to use a local DNS resolver
controlled by the organization.  The DNS resolver will then
selectively distort responses rather than request the authoritative
lookup from the upstream system.  The second form occurs through the
use of deep packet inspection, where all DNS protocol messages are
inspected by the network, and objectionable content is distorted, as
in [turkey].
A notable instance of distortion has occurred in Greece [ververis],
where a study found evidence of both of deep packet inspection to
distort DNS replies, and overblocking of content, where ISPs
prevented clients from resolving the names of domains which they were
not instructed to do through the governmental order prompting the
blocking systems there.
At a protocol level, the effectiveness of these attacks is made
possible by a lack of authentication in the DNS protocol.  DNSSEC
provides the ability to determine authenticity of responses when
used, but it is not regularly checked by resolvers.  DNSSEC is not
effective when the local resolver for a network is complicit in the
distortion, for instance when the resolver assigned for use by an ISP
is the source of injection.  Selective distortion of records has also
been made possible by the predictable structure of DNS messages,
which make it computationally easy for a network device to watch all
passing messages even at high speeds, and the lack of encryption,
which allows the network to distort only an objectionable subset of
protocol messages.  Specific distortion mechanisms are discussed
further in [draft-hall-censorship-tech-01].
5.2.4.3.  Injection of records
Responding incorrectly to requests for name lookups is the most
common mechanism that in-network devices use to limit the ability of
end users to discover services.  A deviation which accomplishes a
similar objective, though may be seen as different from a freedom of
expression perspective, is the injection of incorrect responses to
queries.  The most prominent example of this behavior occurs in
China, where requests for lookups of sites which have been deemed
inappropriate will trigger the network to respond with a bogus
response, causing the client to ignore the real response when it
subsequently arrives. [greatfirewall] Unlike the other forms of
discussion discussed above, injection does not stifle the ability of
a server to announce it's name, it instead provides another voice
which answers sooner.  This is effective because without DNSSEC, the
protocol will respond to whichever answer is received first, without
listening for subsequent answers.
5.2.5.  HTTP
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), described in its version 1.1
in RFC 7230 to 7237, is a request-response application protocol
developed throughout the 1990s, and factually contributed to the
exponential growth of the Internet and the inter-connection of
populations around the world.  Because of its simple design, HTTP has
become the foundation of most modern Internet platforms and
communication systems, from websites, to chat systems, and computer-
to-computer applications.  In its manifestation with the World Wide
Web, HTTP has radically revolutionized the course of technological
development and the ways people interact with online content and with
However, HTTP is also a fundamentally insecure protocol, that doesn't
natively provide encryption properties.  While the definition of the
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), and later of Transport Layer Security
(TLS), also happened during the 1990s, the fact that HTTP doesn't
mandate the use of such encryption layers to developers and service
providers, caused a very late adoption.  Only in the middle of the
2000s we observed big Internet service providers, such as Google,
starting to provide encrypted access to their web services.
The lack of sensitivity and understanding of the critical importance
of securing web traffic incentivized malicious and offensive actors
to develop, deploy and utilize at large interception systems and
later active injection attacks, in order to swipe large amounts of
data, compromise Internet-enabled devices.  The commercial
availability of systems and tools to perform these types of attacks
also led to a number of human rights abuses that have been discovered
and reported over the years and that painted a dark picture on the
current state of control over the Internet.
Generally we can identify in Traffic Interception and Traffic
Manipulation the two most problematic attacks that can be performed
against applications employing a clear-text HTTP transport layer.
5.2.5.1.  Traffic Interception
While we are seeing an increasing trend in the last couple of years
to employ SSL/TLS as a secure traffic layer for HTTP-based
applications, we are still far from seeing an ubiquitous use of
encryption on the World Wide Web. It is important to consider that
the adoption of SSL/TLS is also a relatively recent phenomena.
Google introduced an option for its GMail users to navigate with SSL
only in 2008 [Rideout], and turned SSL on by default later in 2010
[Schillace].  It took an increasing amount of scandalous security
breaches and revelations on global surveillance from Edward Snowden
to have other Internet service providers to follow Google's lead.
For example, Yahoo enabled SSL/TLS by default on its webmail services
only towards the end of 2013 [Peterson].
As we learned through the Snowden's revelations, intelligence
agencies have been intercepting and collecting unencrypted traffic at
large for many years.  There are documented examples of such mass
surveillance programs with GCHQ's TEMPORA and NSA's XKEYSCORE.
Through these programs NSA/GCHQ have been able to swipe large amounts
of data including email and instant messaging communications which
have been transported by the respective providers in clear for years,
unsuspecting of the pervasiveness and scale of governments' efforts
and investment into global mass surveillance capabilities.
However, similar mass interception of unencrypted HTTP communications
is also often employed at a nation-level by less democratic countries
by exercising control over state-owned Internet Service Providers
(ISP) and through the use of commercially available monitoring,
collection, and censorship equipment.  Over the last few years a lot
of information has come to public attention on the role and scale of
a surveillance industry dedicated to develop interception gear of
different types.  We have several records of such equipment being
sold and utilized by oppressive regimes in order to monitor entire
segments of population especially at times of social and political
distress, uncovering massive human rights abuses.  For example, in
2013 the group Telecomix revealed that the Syrian regime was making
use of BlueCoat products in order to intercept clear-text traffic as
well as to enforce censorship of unwanted content [RSF].  Similarly
in 2012 it was found that the French Amesys provided the Gaddafi's
government with equipment able to intercept emails, Facebook traffic,
and chat messages ad a country level.  The use of such systems,
especially in the context of the Arab Spring and of civil uprisings
against the dictatorships, has caused serious concerns of significant
human rights abuses in Libya.
5.2.5.2.  Traffic Manipulation
The lack of a secure transport layer over HTTP connections not only
exposes the users to interception of the content of their
communications, but is more and more commonly abused as a vehicle for
active compromises of computers and mobile devices.  If an HTTP
session travels in clear over the network, any node positioned at any
point in the network is able to perform man-in-the-middle attacks and
observe, manipulate, and hijack the session and modify the content of
the communication in order to trigger unexpected behavior by the
application generating the traffic.  For example, in the case of a
browser the attacker would be able to inject malicious code in order
to exploit vulnerabilities in the browser or any of its plugins.
Similarly, the attacker would be able to intercept, trojanize, and
repackage binary software updates that are very commonly downloaded
in clear by applications such as word processors and media players.
If the HTTP session would be encrypted, the tampering of the content
would not be possible, and these network injection attacks would not
be successful.
While traffic manipulation attacks have been long known, documented,
and prototyped especially in the context of WiFi and LAN networks, in
the last few years we observed an increasing investment into the
production and sale of network injection equipment both available
commercially as well as deployed at scale by intelligence agencies.
For example we learned from some of the documents provided by Edward
Snowden to the press, that the NSA has constructed a global network
injection infrastructure, called QUANTUM, able to leverage mass
surveillance in order to identify targets of interests and
subsequently task man-on-the-side attacks to ultimately compromise a
selected device.  Among other attacks, NSA makes use of an attack
called QUANTUMINSERT [Haagsma] which intercepts and hijacks an
unencrypted HTTP communication and forces the requesting browser to
redirect to a host controlled by NSA instead of the intended website.
Normally, the new destination would be an exploitation service,
referred in Snowden documents as FOXACID, which would attempt at
executing malicious code in the context of the target's browser.  The
Guardian reported in 2013 that NSA has for example been using these
techniques to target users of the popular anonymity service Tor
[Schneier].  The German NDR reported in 2014 that NSA has also been
using its mass surveillance capabilities to identify Tor users at
large [Appelbaum].
Recently similar capabilities of Chinese authorities have been
reported as well in what has been informally called the "Great
Cannon" [Marcak], which raised numerous concerns on the potential
curb on human rights and freedom of speech due to the increasing
tighter control of Chinese Internet communications and access to
Network injection attacks are also made widely available to state
actors around the world through the commercialization of similar,
smaller scale equipment that can be easily acquired and deployed at a
country-wide level.  Companies like FinFisher and HackingTeam are
known to have network injection gear within their products portfolio,
respectively called FinFly ISP and RCS Network Injector
[Marquis-Boire].  The technology devised and produced by HackingTeam
to perform network traffic manipulation attacks on HTTP
communications is even the subject of a patent application in the
United States [Googlepatent].  Access to offensive technologies
available on the commercial lawful interception market has been
largely documented to have lead to human rights abuses and
illegitimate surveillance of journalists, human rights defenders, and
political activists in many countries around the world.  Companies
like FinFisher and HackingTeam have been found selling their products
to oppressive regimes with little concern for bad human rights
records [Collins].  While network injection attacks haven't been the
subject of much attention, they do enable even unskilled attackers to
perform silent and very resilient compromises, and unencrypted HTTP
remains one of the main vehicles.
5.2.6.  XMPP
The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), specified in
[RFC6120], provides a standard for interactive chat messaging, and
has evolved to encompass interoperable text, voice, and video chat.
The protocol is structured as a federated network of servers, similar
to email, where users register with a local server which acts one
their behalf to cache and relay messages.  This protocol design has
many advantages, allowing servers to shield clients from denial of
service and other forms of retribution for their expression, and
designed to avoid central entities which could control the ability to
communicate or assemble using the protocol.
None-the-less, there are plenty of aspects of the protocol design of
XMPP which shape the ability for users to communicate freely, and to
assembly through the protocol.  The protocol also has facets that may
stifle speech as users self-censor for fear of surveillance, or find
themselves unable to express themselves naturally.
5.2.6.1.  User Identification
The XMPP specification dictates that clients are identified with a
resource (node@domain/home [1] / node@domain/work [2]) to distinguish
the conversations to specific devices.  While the protocol does not
specify that the resource must be exposed by the client's server to
remote users, in practice this has become the default behavior.  In
doing so, users can be tracked by remote friends and their servers,
who are able to monitor presence not just of the user, but of each
individual device the user logs in with.  This has proven to be
misleading to many users, [pidgin] since many clients only expose
user level rather than device level presence.  Likewise, user
invisibility so that communication can occur while users don't notify
all buddies and other servers of their availability is not part of
the formal protocol, and has only been added as an extension within
the XML stream rather than enforced by the protocol.
5.2.6.2.  Surveillance of Communication
The XMPP protocol specifies the standard by which communication of
channels may be encrypted, but it does not provide visibility to
clients of whether their communications are encrypted on each link.
In particular, even when both clients ensure that they have an
encrypted connection to their XMPP server to ensure that their local
network is unable to read or disrupt the messages they send, the
protocol does not provide visibility into the encryption status
between the two servers.  As such, clients may be subject to
selective disruption of communications by an intermediate network
which disrupts communications based on keywords found through Deep
Packet Inspection.  While many operators have commited to only
establishing encrypted links from their servers in recognition of
this vulnerability, it remains impossible for users to audit this
behavior and encrypted connections are not required by the protocol
itself [xmppmanifesto].
In particular, section 13.14 of the protocol specification [RFC6120]
explicitly acknowledges the existence of a downgrade attack where an
adversary controlling an intermediate network can force the inter
domain federation between servers to revert to a non-encrypted
protocol were selective messages can then be disrupted.
5.2.6.3.  Group Chat Limitations
Group chat in the XMPP protocol is defined as an extension within the
XML specification of the XMPP protocol (https://xmpp.org/extensions/
xep-0045.html).  However, it is not encoded or required at a protocol
level, and not uniformly implemented by clients.
The design of multi-user chat in the XMPP protocol suffers from
extending a protocol that was not designed with assembly of many
users in mind.  In particular, in the federated protocol provided by
XMPP, multi-user communities are implemented with a distinguished
'owner', who is granted control over the participants and structure
of the conversation.
Multi-user chat rooms are identified by a name specified on a
specific server, so that while the overall protocol may be federated,
the ability for users to assemble in a given community is moderated
by a single server.  That server may block the room and prevent
assembly unilaterally, even between two users neither of whom trust
or use that server directly.
5.2.7.  Peer to Peer
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) is a network architecture (defined in [RFC7574])
in which all the participant nodes are equally responsible engaged
into the storage and dissemination of information.  A P2P network is
a logical overlay that lives on top of the physical network, and
allows nodes (or "peers") participating to it to establish contact
and exchange information directly from one to each other.  The
implementation of a P2P network may very widely: it may be structured
or unstructured, and it may implement stronger or weaker
cryptographic and anonymity properties.  While its most common
application has traditionally been file-sharing (and other types of
content delivery systems), P2P is increasingly becoming a popular
architecture for networks and applications that require (or
encourage) decentralization.  A prime example is Bitcoin (and similar
cryptocurrencies), as well as Skype, Spotify and other proprietary
multimedia applications.
In a time of heavily centralized online services, peer-to-peer is
often seen as an alternative, more democratic, and resistant
architecture that displaces structures of control over data and
communications and delegates all peers equally to be responsible for
the functioning, integrity, and security of the data.  While in
principle peer-to-peer remains critical to the design and development
of future content distribution, messaging, and publishing systems, it
poses numerous security and privacy challenges which are mostly
delegated to individual developers to recognize, analyze, and solve
in each implementation of a given P2P network.
5.2.7.1.  Network Poisoning
Since content, and in some occasions peer lists, are safeguarded and
distributed by its members, P2P networks are prone to what are
generally defined as "poisoning attacks".  Poisoning attacks might be
directed directly at the data that is being distributed, for example
by intentionally corrupting it, or at the index tables used to
instruct the peers where to fetch the data, or at routing tables,
with the attempt of providing connecting peers with lists of rogue or
non-existing peers, with the intention to effectively cause a Denial
of Service on the network.
5.2.7.2.  Throttling
Peer-to-Peer traffic (and BitTorrent in particular) represents a high
percentage of global Internet traffic and it has become increasingly
popular for Internet Service Providers to perform throttling of
customers lines in order to limit bandwidth usage [torrentfreak1] and
sometimes probably as an effect of the ongoing conflict between
copyright holders and file-sharing communities [wikileaks].
Throttling the peer-to-peer traffic makes some uses of P2P networks
ineffective and it might be coupled with stricter inspection of
users' Internet traffic through Deep Packet Inspection techniques
which might pose additional security and privacy risks.
5.2.7.3.  Tracking and Identification
One of the fundamental and most problematic issues with traditional
peer-to-peer networks is a complete lack of anonymization of its
users.  For example, in the case of BitTorrent, all peers' IP
addresses are openly available to the other peers.  This has lead to
an ever-increasing tracking of peer-to-peer and file-sharing users
[ars].  As the geographical location of the user is directly exposed,
and so could be his identity, the user might become target of
additional harassment and attacks, being of physical or legal nature.
For example, it is known that in Germany law firms have made
extensive use of peer-to-peer and file-sharing tracking systems in
order to identify downloaders and initiate legal actions looking for
compensations [torrentfreak2].
It is worth nothing that there are varieties of P2P networks that
implement cryptographic practices and that introduce anonymization of
its users.  Such implementations proved to be successful in resisting
censorship of content, and tracking of the network peers.  A primary
example is FreeNet [freenet1], a free software application designed
to significantly increase the difficulty of users and content
identification, and dedicated to foster freedom of speech online
[freenet2].
5.2.7.4.  Sybil Attacks
In open-membership P2P networks, a single attacker can pretend to be
many participants, typically by creating multiple fake identities of
whatever kind the P2P network uses [Douceur].  Attackers can use
Sybil attacks to bias choices the P2P network makes collectively
toward the attacker's advantage, e.g., by making it more likely that
a particular data item (or some threshold of the replicas or shares
of a data item) are assigned to attacker-controlled participants.  If
the P2P network implements any voting, moderation, or peer review-
like functionality, Sybil attacks may be used to "stuff the ballots"
toward the attacker's benefit.  Companies and governments can use
Sybil attacks on discussion-oriented P2P systems for "astroturfing"
or creating the appearance of mass grassroots support for some
position where there is none in reality.
5.2.7.5.  Conclusions
Encrypted P2P and Anonymous P2P networks already emerged and provided
viable platforms for sharing material, publish content anonymously,
and communicate securely [bitmessage].  If adopted at large, well-
designed and resistant P2P networks might represent a critical
component of a future secure and distributed Internet, enabling
freedom of speech and freedom of information at scale.
5.2.8.  Virtual Private Network
5.2.8.1.  Introduction
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a point-to-point connection that
enables two computers to communicate over an encrypted tunnel.  There
are multiple implementations and protocols used in provisioning a
VPN, and they generally diversify by encryption protocol or
particular requirements, most commonly in proprietary and enterprise
solutions.  VPNs are used commonly either to enable some devices to
communicate through peculiar network configurations, or in order to
use some privacy and security properties in order to protect the
traffic generated by the end user; or both.  VPNs have also become a
very popular technology among human rights defenders, dissidents, and
journalists worldwide to avoid local illegitimate wiretapping and
eventually also to circumvent censorship.  Among human rights
defenders VPNs are often debated as a potential alternative to Tor or
other anonymous networks.  Such comparison is misleading, as some of
the privacy and security properties of VPNs are often misunderstood
by less tech-savvy users, which could ultimately lead to unintended
As VPNs increased in popularity, commercial VPN providers have
started growing in business and are very commonly picked by human
rights defenders and people at risk, as they are normally provided
with an easy-to-use service and sometimes even custom applications to
establish the VPN tunnel.  Not being able to control the
configuration of the network, and even less so the security of the
application, assessing the general privacy and security state of
common VPNs is very hard.  Often such services have been discovered
leaking information, and their custom applications have been found
flawed.  While Tor and similar networks receive a lot of scrutiny
from the public and the academic community, commercial or non-
commercial VPN networks are way less analyzed and understood, and it
might be valuable to establish some standards to guarantee a minimal
level of privacy and security to those who need them the most.
5.2.8.2.  False sense of Anonymity
One of the common misconception among users of VPNs is the level of
anonymity VPN can provide.  This sense of anonymity can be betrayed
by a number of attacks or misconfigurations of the VPN provider.  It
is important to remember that, contrarily to Tor and similar systems,
VPN was not designed to provide anonymity properties.  From a
technical point of view, the VPN might leak identifiable information,
or might be subject of correlation attacks that could expose the
originating address of the connecting user.  Most importantly, it is
vital to understand that commercial and non-commercial VPN providers
are bound by the law of the jurisdiction they reside in or in which
their infrastructure is located, and they might be legally forced to
turn over data of specific users if legal investigations or
intelligence requirements dictate so.  In such cases, if the VPN
providers retain logs, it is possible that the information of the
user is provided to the user's adversary and leads to his or her
identification.
5.2.8.3.  Logging
With VPN being point-to-point connections, the service providers are
in fact able to observe the original location of the connecting users
and they are able to track at what time they started their session
and eventually also to which destinations they're trying to connect
to.  If the VPN providers retain logs for long enough, they might be
forced to turn over the relevant data or they might be otherwise
compromised, leading to the same data getting exposed.  A clear log
retaining policy could be enforced, but considering that countries
enforce very different levels of data retention policies, VPN
providers should at least be transparent on what information do they
store and for how long is being kept.
5.2.8.4.  3rd Party Hosting
VPN providers very commonly rely on 3rd parties to provision the
infrastructure that is later going to be used to run VPN endpoints.
For example, they might rely on external dedicated server hosting
providers, or on uplink providers.  In those cases, even if the VPN
provider itself isn't retaining any significant logs, the information
on the connecting users might be retained by those 3rd parties
instead, introducing an additional collection point for the
adversary.
5.2.8.5.  IPv6 Leakage
Some studies proved that several commercial VPN providers and
applications suffer of critical leakage of information through IPv6
due to improper support and configuration [PETS2015VPN].  This is
generally caused by a lack of proper configuration of the client's
IPv6 routing tables.  Considering that most popular browsers and
similar applications have been supporting IPv6 by default, if the
host is provided with a functional IPv6 configuration, the traffic
that is generated might be leaked if the VPN application isn't
designed to manipulate such traffic properly.
5.2.8.6.  DNS Leakage
Similarly, VPN services that aren't handling DNS requests and are not
running DNS servers of their own, might be prone to DNS leaking which
might not only expose sensitive information on the activity of the
user, but could also potentially lead to DNS hijacking attacks and
following compromises.
5.2.8.7.  Traffic Correlation
As revelations of mass surveillance have been growing in the press,
additional details on attacks on secure Internet communications have
come to the public's attention.  Among these, VPN appeared to be a
very interesting target for attacks and collection efforts.  Some
implementations of VPN appear to be particularly vulnerable to
identification and collection of key exchanges which, some Snowden
documents revealed, are systematically collected and stored for
future reference.  The ability of an adversary to monitor network
connections at many different points over the Internet, can allow
them to perform traffic correlation attacks and identify the origin
of certain VPN traffic by cross referencing the connection time of
the user to the endpoint and the connection time of the endpoint to
the final destination.  These types of attacks, although very
expensive and normally only performed by very resourceful
adversaries, have been documented [spiegel] to be already in practice
and could completely vanify the use of a VPN and ultimately expose
the activity and the identity of a user at risk.
5.2.9.  HTTP Status Code 451
Every Internet user has run into the '404 Not Found' Hypertext
Transfer Protocol (HTTP) status code when trying, and failing, to
access a particular website.  It is a response status that the server
sends to the browser, when the server cannot locate the URL. '403
Forbidden' is another example of this class of code signals that
gives users information about what is going on.  In the '403' case
the server can be reached, but is blocking the request because the
user is trying to access content forbidden to them.  This can be
because the specific user is not allowed access to the content (like
a government employee trying to access pornography on a work-
computer) or because access is restricted to all users (like social
network sites in certain countries).  As surveillance and censorship
of the Internet is becoming more commonplace, voices were raised at
the IETF to introduce a new status code that indicates when something
is not available for 'legal reasons' (like censorship):
The 451 status code would allow server operators to operate with
greater transparency in circumstances where issues of law or public
policy affect their operation.  This transparency may be beneficial
both to these operators and to end-users [Bray].
The status code would be named '451', a reference to Bradbury's
famous novel on censorship
During the IETF meeting in Dallas, there was discussion about the
usefulness of '451'.  The main tension revolved around the lack of an
apparent machine-readable technical use of the information.  The
extent to which '451' is just 'political theatre' or whether it has a
concrete technical use was heatedly debated.  Some argued that 'the
451 status code is just a status code with a response body' others
said it was problematic because 'it brings law into the picture'.
Again others argued that it would be useful for individuals, or
organizations like the 'Chilling Effects' project, crawling the web
to get an indication of censorship (IETF discussion on '451' -
author's field notes March 2015).  There was no outright objection
during the Dallas meeting against moving forward on status code
'451', and on December 18, 2015 the Internet Engineering Steering
Group approved publication of 'An HTTP Status Code to Report Legal
Obstacles'.  It is still in the process of becoming an RFC, but could
effectively be used from the day of approval.
What is interesting about this particular case is that not only
technical arguments but also the status code's outright potential
political use for civil society played a substantial role in shaping
the discussion, and the decision to move forward with this
It is however important to note that 451 is not a solution to detect
all occasions of censorship.  A large swath of Internet filtering
occurs in the network rather than the server itself.  For these forms
of censorship 451 plays a limited role, as the servers will not be
able to send the code, because they haven't received the requests (as
is the case with servers with resources blocked by the Chinese Golden
shield).  Such filtering regimes are unlikely to voluntarily inject a
451 status code.  The use of 451 is most likely to apply in the case
of cooperative, legal versions of content removal resulting from
requests to providers.  One can think of content that is removed or
blocked for legal reasons, like copyright infringement, gambling
laws, child abuse, et cetera.  The major use case is thus clearly on
the Web server itself, not the network.  Large Internet companies and
search engines are constantly asked to censor content in various
jurisdictions. 451 allows this to be easily discovered, for instance
by initiatives like the Lumen Database.  In the case of adversarial
blocking done by a filtering entity on the network 451 is less
Overall, the strength of 451 lies in its ability to provide
transparency by giving the reason for blocking, and giving the end-
user the ability to file a complaint.  It allows organizations to
easily measure censorship in an automated way, and prompts the user
to access the content via another path (e.g.  TOR, VPNs) when (s)he
encounters the 451 status code.
Status code 451 impact human rights by making censorship more
transparent and measurable.  The status code increases transparency
both by signaling the existence of censorship (instead of a much more
broad HTTP error message like HTTP status code 404) as well as
providing details of the legal restriction, which legal authority is
imposing it, and what class of resources it applies to.  This
empowers the user to seek redress.
5.2.10.  Middleboxes
On the current Internet, transparency on how packets reach a
destination is no longer a given.  This is due to the increased
presence of firewalls, spam filters, and network address translators
networks (NATs) - or middleboxes as these hosts are often called -
that make use of higher-layer fields to function [Walfish].  This
development is contentious.  The debate also unfolded at the IETF,
specifically at the Session Protocol Underneath Datagrams (SPUD)
Birds of a Feather (BOF) meeting held at the IETF conference in March
2015.  The discussion at the BOF focused on questions about adding
meta-data, or other information to traffic flows, to enable the
sharing of information with middleboxes in that flow.  During the
sessions two competing arguments were distilled.  On the one hand
adding additional data would allow for network optimization, and
hence improve traffic carriage.  On the other hand, there are risks
of information leakage and other privacy and security concerns.
Middleboxes, and the protocols guiding them, influence individuals'
ability to communicate online freely and privately.  Repeatedly
mentioned in the discussion was the danger of censorship that comes
with middleboxes, and the IETF's role to prevent such censorship from
happening.  Middleboxes are becoming a proxy for the debate on the
extent to which commercial interests are a valid reason to undermine
the end-to-end principle.  The potential for abuse and censoring, and
thus ultimately the impact of middleboxes on the Internet as a place
of unfiltered, unmonitored freedom of speech, is real.  It is
impossible to make any definitive statements about the direction the
debate on middleboxes will take at the IETF.  The opinions expressed
in the SPUD BOF and by the various interviewees indicate that a
majority of engineers are trying to mitigate the negative effects of
middleboxes on freedom of speech, but their ability to act is limited
by their larger commercial context that is expanding the use of
middleboxes.
5.2.11.  DDOS attacks
Are Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks a legitimate form of
online protest protected by the right to freedom of speech and
association?  Can they be seen as the equivalent to 'million-(wo)men
marches', or sit-ins?  Or are they a threat to freedom of expression
and access to information, by limiting access to websites and in
certain cases the freedom of speech of others?  These questions are
crucial in our day and age, where political debates, civil
disobedience and other forms of activism are increasingly moving
Many individuals, not excluding IETF engineers, have argued that DDoS
attacks are fundamentally against freedom of speech.  Technically
DDoS attacks are when multiple computers overload the bandwidth or
resources of a website (or other system) by flooding it with traffic,
causing it to temporarily stop being available to users.  In their
2010 report Zuckerman et al argue that DDoS attacks are a bad thing
because they are increasingly used by governments to attack and
silence critics.  Their research demonstrates that in many countries
independent media outlets and human rights organizations are the
victim of DDoS attacks, which are directly or indirectly linked to
their governments.  These types of attacks are particularly
complicated because attribution is difficult, creating a situation in
which governments can effectively censor content, while being able to
deny involvement in the attacks [Zuckerman].  DDoS attacks can thus
stifle freedom of expression, complicate the ability of independent
media and human rights organizations to exercise their right to
(online) freedom of association, while facilitating the ability of
governments to censor dissent.  When it comes to comparing DDoS
attacks to protests in offline life, it is important to remember that
only a limited number of DDoS attacks involved solely willing
participants.  In most cases, the clients are hacked computers of
unrelated parties that have not consented to being part of a DDoS
(for exceptions see Operation Abibil [Abibil] or the Iranian Green
Movement DDoS [GreenMovement]).
In addition, DDoS attacks are increasingly used as an extortion
tactic, with criminals flooding a website - rendering it inaccessible
- until the owner pays them a certain amount of money to stop the
attack.  The costs of mitigating such attacks, either by improving
security to prevent them or paying off the attackers, ends up being
paid by the consumer.
All of these issues seem to suggest that the IETF should try to
ensure that their protocols cannot be used for DDoS attacks.
Decreasing the number of vulnerabilities in the network stacks of
routers or computers, reducing flaws in HTTPS implementations, and
depreciating non-secure HTTP protocols could address this issue.  The
IETF can clearly play a role in bringing about some of these changes,
and has indicated in [RFC7258] its commitment to mitigating
'pervasive monitoring (...) in the design of IETF protocols, where
possible.'  This means the use of encryption should become standard.
Effectively, for the web this means standardized use of HTTPS.  The
IETF could redirect its work such that HTPPS becomes part-and-parcel
of its standards.  However, next to the various technical trade-offs
that this might lead to it is important to consider that DDoS attacks
are sometimes seen as a method for exercising freedom of speech.
DDoS although disruptive, and silencing at times, can also enable as
protest and speech.  Or as Sauter [Sauter] argues: 'though DDoS as a
tactic is still relatively novel, it fits within a centuries- long
tradition of breaking laws and disrupting business as usual to make a
political point.  These actions aren't simply disruption for
disruption's sake.  Rather they serve to help the activist or
dissenter to direct the attention of the public through the
interpolation of difference into routine.' (30-31).  An often heard
argument against DDoS attacks is that you cannot construe it as a
means to exercise your right to freedom of speech, when the means
used effectively impede the right of the party on the receiving end
of the attack to exercise that same right.  The problem with this
line of argumentation is that it conveniently ignores the fact that
online DDoS attacks are often one of the few effective ways for
activists to gain the attention of the media, the government or other
parties of interest.  Simply putting up a website for a cause won't
garner the same amount of attention as directly confronting the issue
via the website of the individual or organization at the heart of the
issue.  The ability of activists to do so should be protected,
especially considering the fact that as Sauter (2014:4) explains:
'Collectively, we have allowed the construction of an entire public
sphere, the Internet, which by accidents of evolution and design, has
none of the inherent free speech guarantees we have come to expect.
Dissenting voices are pushed out of the paths of potential audiences,
effectively removing them from the public discourse.  There is
nowhere online for an activist to stand with her friends and her
sign.  She might set up a dedicated blog--which may or may not ever
be read--but it is much harder for her to stand collectively with
others against a corporate giant in the online space.'  Although the
Internet is often compared to public space, it is not.  Rather the
opposite.  The Internet is almost entirely owned by private entities.
And the IETF plays a crucial role in developing this privatized
commercialized Internet.
From a legal and political perspective, the IETF does not have the
legitimacy to determine when a DDoS is legitimate (in legal or
political terms).  It does not have the capability to make this
judgment as a matter of public policy and subsequently translate it
to code.  Nor should the IETF try to do so.  From a technical
perspective, the difference between a 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate'
DDoS attack is meaningless because it would be extremely difficult
for the IETF to engineer a way to detect that difference.  In
addition, there is a need for the IETF to be consistent in the face
of attacks (an attack is an attack is an attack) to maintain the
viability of the network.  Arguing that some DDoS attacks should be
allowed, based on the motivation of the attackers complicates the
work of the IETF.  Because it approaches PM regardless of the
motivation of the attackers (see [RFC7258]) for reasoning), taking
the motivation of the attackers into account for DDoS would
indirectly undermine the ability of the IETF to protect the right to
privacy because it introduces an element of inconsistency into how
the IETF deals with attacks.
David Clark recently published a paper warning that the future of the
Internet is in danger.  He argues that the private sector control
over the Internet is too strong, limiting the myriad of ways in which
it can be used [Daedalus], including for freedom of speech.  But just
because freedom of speech, dissent, and protest are human rights, and
DDoS is a potential expression of those rights, doesn't mean that
DDoS in and of itself is a right.  To widen the analogy, just because
the Internet is a medium through which the right to freedom of
expression can be exercised does not make access to the Internet or
specific ICTs or NCTs a human right.  Uses of DDoS might or might not
be legitimate for political reasons, but the IETF has no means or
methods to assess this, and in general enabling DDoS would mean a
deterioration of the network and thus freedom of expression.
In summation, the IETF cannot be expected to take a moral stance on
DDoS attacks, or create protocols to enable some attacks and inhibit
others.  But what it can do is critically reflect on its role in
creating a commercialized Internet without a defacto public space or
inherent protections for freedom of speech.
5.3.  Model for developing human rights protocol considerations
Having established how human rights relate to standards and
protocols, a common vocabulary of technical concepts that impact
human rights and how these technical concept can be combined to
ensure that the Internet remains an enabling environment for human
rights means the contours of a model for developing human rights
protocol considerations has taken shape.  This subsection provides
the last step by detailing how the technical concepts identified
above relate to human rights, and what questions engineers should ask
themselves when developing or improving protocols.
5.3.1.  Human rights threats
The human rights threats on the Internet come in a myriad of forms.
Protocols and standards can harm or enable the right to freedom of
expression, right to non-discrimination, right to equal protection,
right to be presumed innocence, right to participate in cultural
life, arts and science, right to freedom of assembly and association,
and the right to security.  An end-user who is denied access to
certain services, data or websites may be unable to disclose vital
information about the malpractices of a government or other
authority.  A person whose communications are monitored may be
prevented from exercising their right to freedom of association.  In
a worst-case scenario, protocols that leak information can lead to
physical danger.  A realistic example to consider is when opposition
leaders in totalitarian regimes are subjected to torture on the basis
of information gathered by the regime through information leakage in
This sections details several 'common' threats to human rights,
indicating how each of these can lead to human rights violations/
harms and present several examples of how these threats to human
rights materialize on the Internet.  This threat modeling is inspired
by [RFC6973] Privacy Considerations for Internet Protocols, which
bases itself on security threat analysis.  This method is by no means
a perfect solution for assessing human rights risks in Internet
protocols and systems; it is however the best approach currently
available.  Certain human rights threats are indirectly considered in
Internet protocols as part of the standard privacy and security
considerations [RFC3552].  Others suggested are tailored specifically
to human rights, and represents considerations not currently
considered in other RFCs.
Many threats, enablers and risks are linked to different rights.
This is not unsurprising if one takes into account that human rights
are interrelated, interdependent and universal.  Here however we're
not discussing all human rights because not all human rights are
relevant to ICTs in general and protocols and standards in
particular.  This is by no means an attempt to cherry picks rights,
if other rights seem relevant, please contact the authors and/or the
hrpc mailinglist.
5.3.2.  Guidelines for human rights considerations
This section provides guidance for document authors in the form of a
questionnaire about a protocol being designed.  The questionnaire may
be useful at any point in the design process, particularly after
document authors have developed a high-level protocol model as
described in [RFC4101].
Note that the guidance provided in this section does not recommend
specific practices.  The range of protocols developed in the IETF is
too broad to make recommendations about particular uses of data or
how human rights might be balanced against other design goals.
However, by carefully considering the answers to each question
mentioned under 7.3, document authors should be able to produce a
comprehensive analysis that can serve as the basis for discussion of
whether the protocol adequately protects against human rights
threats.  This guidance is meant to help the thought process of a
human rights analysis; it does not provide specific directions for
how to write a human rights protocol considerations section
(following the example set in [RFC6973]).
5.3.2.1.  Technical concepts as they relate to human rights
5.3.2.1.1.  Connectivity
Does your protocol honor the end-to-end principle?
-  Right to freedom of expression
-  Right to freedom of assembly and association
5.3.2.1.2.  Privacy
Did you have a look at the Guidelines in the Privacy Considerations
for Internet Protocols [RFC6973] section 7?  Does your protocol in
any way impact the confidentiality of protocol metadata?  Does your
protocol countering traffic analysis, or data minimisation?
-  Right to non-discrimination
-  Right to be presumed innocent
5.3.2.1.3.  Content agnosticism
If your protocol impacts packet handling, does it look at the packet
content?  Is it making decisions based on the content of the packet?
Is the protocol transparent about its decision?  Does your protocol
prioritize certain content or services over others?
-  Right to equal protection
5.3.2.1.4.  Security
Did you have a look at Guidelines for Writing RFC Text on Security
Considerations [RFC3552]?
-  Right to non discrimination & Right to be presumed innocent)
5.3.2.1.5.  Internationalization
Does your protocol have text strings that are readable or entered by
humans?  Does your protocol allow Unicode encoded in UTF-8 only,
thereby shifting conversion issues away from individual choices?  Did
you have a look at [RFC6365]?
-  Right to political participation
-  Right to participate in cultural life, arts and science
5.3.2.1.6.  Censorship resistance
Does this protocol introduce new identifiers that might be associated
with persons or content?  Does your protocol make it apparent or
transparent when filtering happens?
Identifiers of content exposed within a protocol might be used to
facilitate censorship, as in the case of HTTP in this particular
scenario [...].
5.3.2.1.7.  Open Standards
Is your protocol fully documented in a way that it could be easily
implemented, improved, build upon and/or further developed.  Is there
any proprietary code needed for the implementation, running or
further development of your protocol?
5.3.2.1.8.  Heterogeneity Support
Does your protocol support heterogeneity by design?  Does your
protocol allow for multiple types of hardware?  Does your protocol
allow for multiple types of application protocols?
5.3.2.1.9.  Anonymity
Did you have a look at the Privacy Considerations for Internet
Protocols [RFC6973], especially section 6.1.1 ?
-  Right to security
5.3.2.1.10.  Pseudonymity
5.3.2.1.11.  Accessibility
When websites, web technologies, or web tools are badly designed,
they can create barriers that exclude people from using the Web. Is
your protocol designed to provide an enabling environment for people
with disabilities?  It might be relevant to look at the W3C Web
Accessibility Initiative for examples and guidance.Is your protocol
optimized for low bandwidth and high latency connections?  Could your
protocol also be developed in a stateless manner?
-  Right to education
5.3.2.1.12.  Localization
Does your protocol live up to standards of internationalization?
Have you considered localizing your protocol for relevant audiences?
5.3.2.1.13.  Decentralization
Does your protocol contribute to more centralized points of control?
Can your protocol be implemented without one single point of control?
If applicable, can your protocol be deployed in a federated manner?
What is the potential for discrimination against users of your
protocol?  How can use of your protocol be used to implicate users?
5.3.2.1.14.  Reliability
Is your protocol fault tolerant?  Does it degrade gracefully?  Do you
have a documented way to announce degradation?  Do you have measures
in place for recovery or partial healing from failure?  Is your
protocol able to maintain dependability and performance in the face
of unanticipated changes or circumstances?
5.3.2.1.15.  Confidentiality
(cf [RFC6973] ) Which information related to identifiers or data is
exposed to each other protocol entity (i.e., recipients,
intermediaries, and enablers)?  Are there ways for protocol
implementers to choose to limit the information shared with each
entity?  Are there operational controls available to limit the
information shared with each entity?
What controls or consent mechanisms does the protocol define or
require before personal data or identifiers are shared or exposed via
the protocol?  If no such mechanisms or controls are specified, is it
expected that control and consent will be handled outside of the
protocol?
Does the protocol provide ways for initiators to share different
information with different recipients?  If not, are there mechanisms
that exist outside of the protocol to provide initiators with such
control?
Does the protocol provide ways for initiators to limit which
information is shared with intermediaries?  If not, are there
mechanisms that exist outside of the protocol to provide users with
such control?  Is it expected that users will have relationships that
govern the use of the information (contractual or otherwise) with
those who operate these intermediaries?
Does the protocol provide ways for initiators to express individuals'
preferences to recipients or intermediaries with regard to the
collection, use, or disclosure of their personal data?
5.3.2.1.16.  Integrity
Does your protocol maintain and assure the accuracy of data?  Does
your protocol maintain and assure the consistency of data?  Does your
protocol in any way allow for the data to be (intentionally or
unintentionally) altered?
5.3.2.1.17.  Authenticity
Do you have enough measures to confirm the truth of an attribute of a
single piece of data or entity?  Can the attributes get garbled along
the way (see security)?  If relevant have you implemented IPsec and
other Standard Security Best Practices?
5.3.2.1.18.  Acceptability
Do your protocols adhere to the principle of non-discrimination?  Do
your protocols adhere to the principle of content agnosticism?
5.3.2.1.19.  Availability
Do your protocols use or depend on proprietary code?  Also see 'Open
Standards' above.  Also see 'Connectivity' above.
5.3.2.1.20.  Adaptability
Could your protocol stifle or hinder permissionless innovation in any
way?  See 'Connectivity' above
6.  Acknowledgements
A special thanks to all members of the hrpc RG who contributed to
this draft.  The following deserve a special mention:
-  Joana Varon for helping draft the first iteration of the
methodology, previous drafts and the direction of the film Net of
Rights and working on the interviews at IETF92 in Dallas.
-  Daniel Kahn Gillmor (dkg) for helping with the first iteration of
the glossary as well as a lot of technical guidance, support and
language suggestions.
-  Claudio Guarnieri for writing the first iterations of the case
studies on VPN, HTTP, and Peer to Peer.
-  Will Scott for writing the first iterations of the case studies on
DNS, IP, XMPP.
-  Avri Doria for proposing writing a glossary in the first place,
help writing the initial proposals and Internet Drafts and
contributing to the glossary.
and Stephane Bortzmeyer, Barry Shein, Joe Hall, and Tim Sammut who
made a lot of excellent suggestions, many of which found their way
directly into the text.  We would also like to thank Molly Sauter,
Arturo Filasto, Eleanor Saitta and all others who provided input on
the draft or the conceptualization of the idea.
As this document concerns a research document, there are no security
This document has no actions for IANA.
9.  Research Group Information
The discussion list for the IRTF Human Rights Protocol Considerations
proposed working group is located at the e-mail address hrpc@ietf.org
[3].  Information on the group and information on how to subscribe to
the list is at https://www.irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/hrpc
Archives of the list can be found at: https://www.irtf.org/mail-
archive/web/hrpc/current/index.html
[RFC6973]  Cooper, A., Tschofenig, H., Aboba, B., Peterson, J.,
Morris, J., Hansen, M., and R. Smith, "Privacy
Considerations for Internet Protocols", RFC 6973, DOI
10.17487/RFC6973, July 2013,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6973>.
[Abbate]   Abbate, J., "Inventing the Internet", MIT Press , 2000,
<https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/inventing-internet>.
[Abibil]   Danchev, D., "Dissecting 'Operation Ababil' - an OSINT
Analysis", 2012, <http://ddanchev.blogspot.be/2012/09/
dissecting-operation-ababil-osint.html>.
[Appelbaum]
Appelbaum, J., Gibson, A., Kabish, V., Kampf, L., and L.
Ryge, "NSA targets the privacy-conscious", 2015,
<http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/aktuell/
nsa230_page-1.html>.
[Babbie]   Babbie, E., "The Basics of Social Research", Belmont CA
Cengage , 2010.
[Benkler]  Benkler, Y., "The wealth of Networks - How social
production transforms markets and freedom", New Haven and
London - Yale University Press , 2006,
<http://is.gd/rxUpTQ>.
Berners-Lee, T. and M. Fischetti, "Weaving the Web,",
HarperCollins p 208, 1999.
[Bless]    Bless, R. and C. Orwat, "Values and Networks", 2015.
[Blumenthal]
Blumenthal, M. and D. Clark, "Rethinking the design of the
Internet: The end-to-end arguments vs. the brave new
world", ACM Transactions on Internet Technology, Vol. 1,
No. 1, August 2001, pp 70-109. , 2001.
[Bray]     Bray, T., "A New HTTP Status Code for Legally-restricted
Resources", 2016, <https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-
httpbis-legally-restricted-status-04>.
[Broeders]
Broeders, D., "The public core of the Internet", WRR ,
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de-publieke-kern-van-het-internet-1/>.
[Brown]    Brown, I. and M. Ziewitz, "A Prehistory of Internet
Governance", Research Handbook on Governance of the
Internet. Cheltenham, Edward Elgar. , 2013.
[BrownMarsden]
Brown, I. and C. Marsden, "Regulating code", MIT Press ,
2013, <https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/regulating-code>.
[Brownetal]
Brown, I., Clark, D., and D. Trossen, "Should specific
values be embedded in the Internet Architecture?", Sigcomm
, 2010, <http://conferences.sigcomm.org/co-
next/2010/Workshops/REARCH/ReArch_papers/10-Brown.pdf>.
[Clark]    Clark, D., "The Design Philosophy of the DARPA Internet
Protocols", Proc SIGCOMM 88, ACM CCR Vol 18, Number 4,
August 1988, pp. 106-114. , 1988.
[Clarketal]
Clark, D., Wroclawski, J., Sollins, K., and R. Braden,
"Tussle in cyberspace - defining tomorrow's Internet", ACM
Digital Library , 2005, <https://dl.acm.org/
citation.cfm?id=1074049>.
[Collins]  Collins, K., "Hacking Team's oppressive regimes customer
list revealed in hack", 2015,
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hacking-team-spyware-company-hacked>.
[Daedalus]
Clark, D., "The Contingent Internet", Daedalus Winter
2016, Vol. 145, No. 1. p. 9-17 , 2016,
<http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/daed/current>.
[Davidsonetal]
Davidson, A., Morris, J., and R. Courtney, "Strangers in a
strange land", Telecommunications Policy Research
Conference , 2002,
<https://www.cdt.org/files/publications/piais.pdf>.
[Denardis14]
Denardis, L., "The Global War for Internet Governance",
Yale University Press , 2014,
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vkz4n>.
Denardis, L., "The Internet Design Tension between
Surveillance and Security", IEEE Annals of the History of
Computing (volume 37-2) , 2015, <http://is.gd/7GAnFy>.
[Denzin]   Denzin, N. and Y. Lincoln, "Handbook of Qualitative
Research", Thousand Oaks CA Sage , 2000,
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Handbooks/dp/1412974178>.
[Doty]     Doty, N., "Automated text analysis of Requests for Comment
(RFCs)", 2014, <https://github.com/npdoty/rfc-analysis>.
[Douceur]  Douceur, J., "The Sybil Attack", 2002,
<http://research.microsoft.com:8082/pubs/74220/
IPTPS2002.pdf>.
[Elahi]    Elahi, T. and I. Goldberg, "CORDON - A taxonomy of
Internet Censorship Resistance Strategies", 2012,
<http://cacr.uwaterloo.ca/techreports/2012/
cacr2012-33.pdf>.
[FIArch]   "Future Internet Design Principles", January 2012,
<http://www.future-internet.eu/uploads/media/
FIArch_Design_Principles_V1.0.pdf>.
[FRAMEWORK]
ISO/IEC, ., "Information technology - Framework for
internationalization, prepared by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG
20 ISO/IEC TR 11017", 1997.
[Geertz]   Clifford, G., "Kinship in Bali", Chicago University of
Chicago Press. , 1975,
<http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/K/
bo3625088.html>.
[Googlepatent]
Google, ., "Method and device for network traffic
manipulation", 2012, <https://www.google.com/patents/
EP2601774A1?cl=en>.
[GreenMovement]
Villeneuve, N., "Iran DDoS", 2009,
<https://www.nartv.org/2009/06/16/iran-ddos/>.
[HRC2012]  United Nations Human Rights Council, "UN General Assembly
Resolution "The right to privacy in the digital age"
(A/C.3/68/L.45)", 2011,
<http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/554342.120885849.html>.
[Haagsma]  Haagsma, L., "Deep dive into QUANTUM INSERT", 2015,
<http://blog.fox-it.com/2015/04/20/
deep-dive-into-quantum-insert/>.
[ICCPR]    United Nations General Assembly, "International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights", 1976,
<http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/
CCPR.aspx>.
[ICESCR]   United Nations General Assembly, "International Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights", 1966,
CESCR.aspx>.
[Jabri]    Jabri, V., "Discourses on Violence - conflict analysis
reconsidered", Manchester University Press , 1996.
[King]     King, C., "Power, Social Violence and Civil Wars",
Washington D.C. United States Institute of Peace Press ,
[Lessig]   Lessig, L., "Code - And Other Laws of Cyberspace, Version
2.0.", New York Basic Books , 2006, <http://codev2.cc/>.
[Marcak]   Marcak, B., Weaver, N., Dalek, J., Ensafi, R., Fifield,
D., McKune, S., Rey, A., Scott-Railton, J., Deibert, R.,
and V. Paxson, "China's Great Fire Cannon", 2015,
<https://citizenlab.org/2015/04/chinas-great-cannon/>.
[Marquis-Boire]
Marquis-Boire, M., "Schrodinger's Cat Video and the Death
of Clear-Text", 2014, <https://citizenlab.org/2014/08/cat-
video-and-the-death-of-clear-text/>.
[Mueller]  Mueller, M., "Networks and States", MIT Press , 2010,
<https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/networks-and-states>.
[Musiani]  Musiani, F., "Giants, Dwarfs and Decentralized
Alternatives to Internet-based Services - An Issue of
Internet Governance", Westminister Papers in Communication
and Culture , 2015, <http://doi.org/10.16997/wpcc.214>.
[NETmundial]
NETmundial, "NETmundial Multistakeholder Statement", 2014,
<http://netmundial.br/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/
NETmundial-Multistakeholder-Document.pdf>.
[PETS2015VPN]
Pera, V., Barbera, M., Tyson, G., Haddadi, H., and A. Mei,
"A Glance through the VPN Looking Glass", 2015,
<http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~hamed/papers/
PETS2015VPN.pdf>.
[Peterson]
Peterson, A., Gellman, B., and A. Soltani, "Yahoo to make
SSL encryption the default for Webmail users. Finally.",
2013, <http://gmailblog.blogspot.de/2010/01/
default-https-access-for-gmail.html>.
[RFC0226]  Karp, P., "Standardization of host mnemonics", RFC 226,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc226>.
[RFC0760]  Postel, J., "DoD standard Internet Protocol", RFC 760, DOI
10.17487/RFC0760, January 1980,
[RFC0791]  Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", STD 5, RFC 791, DOI
10.17487/RFC0791, September 1981,
[RFC0793]  Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", STD 7, RFC
793, DOI 10.17487/RFC0793, September 1981,
[RFC0894]  Hornig, C., "A Standard for the Transmission of IP
Datagrams over Ethernet Networks", STD 41, RFC 894, DOI
10.17487/RFC0894, April 1984,
specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, DOI 10.17487/RFC1035,
November 1987, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1035>.
[RFC1122]  Braden, R., Ed., "Requirements for Internet Hosts -
Communication Layers", STD 3, RFC 1122, DOI 10.17487/
RFC1122, October 1989,
[RFC1631]  Egevang, K. and P. Francis, "The IP Network Address
Translator (NAT)", RFC 1631, DOI 10.17487/RFC1631, May
1994, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1631>.
[RFC1958]  Carpenter, B., Ed., "Architectural Principles of the
Internet", RFC 1958, DOI 10.17487/RFC1958, June 1996,
[RFC1984]  IAB and , "IAB and IESG Statement on Cryptographic
Technology and the Internet", BCP 200, RFC 1984, DOI
10.17487/RFC1984, August 1996,
[RFC2277]  Alvestrand, H., "IETF Policy on Character Sets and
Languages", BCP 18, RFC 2277, DOI 10.17487/RFC2277,
January 1998, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2277>.
[RFC2460]  Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
(IPv6) Specification", RFC 2460, DOI 10.17487/RFC2460,
December 1998, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2460>.
[RFC2606]  Eastlake 3rd, D. and A. Panitz, "Reserved Top Level DNS
Names", BCP 32, RFC 2606, DOI 10.17487/RFC2606, June 1999,
[RFC2775]  Carpenter, B., "Internet Transparency", RFC 2775, DOI
10.17487/RFC2775, February 2000,
[RFC3365]  Schiller, J., "Strong Security Requirements for Internet
Engineering Task Force Standard Protocols", BCP 61, RFC
3365, DOI 10.17487/RFC3365, August 2002,
[RFC3552]  Rescorla, E. and B. Korver, "Guidelines for Writing RFC
Text on Security Considerations", BCP 72, RFC 3552, DOI
[RFC3724]  Kempf, J., Ed., Austein, R., Ed., and IAB, "The Rise of
the Middle and the Future of End-to-End: Reflections on
the Evolution of the Internet Architecture", RFC 3724, DOI
10.17487/RFC3724, March 2004,
[RFC4084]  Klensin, J., "Terminology for Describing Internet
Connectivity", BCP 104, RFC 4084, DOI 10.17487/RFC4084,
May 2005, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4084>.
[RFC4101]  Rescorla, E. and IAB, "Writing Protocol Models", RFC 4101,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4101, June 2005,
[RFC4303]  Kent, S., "IP Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)", RFC
4303, DOI 10.17487/RFC4303, December 2005,
[RFC4906]  Martini, L., Ed., Rosen, E., Ed., and N. El-Aawar, Ed.,
"Transport of Layer 2 Frames Over MPLS", RFC 4906, DOI
10.17487/RFC4906, June 2007,
[RFC4949]  Shirey, R., "Internet Security Glossary, Version 2", FYI
36, RFC 4949, DOI 10.17487/RFC4949, August 2007,
[RFC5944]  Perkins, C., Ed., "IP Mobility Support for IPv4, Revised",
RFC 5944, DOI 10.17487/RFC5944, November 2010,
[RFC6120]  Saint-Andre, P., "Extensible Messaging and Presence
Protocol (XMPP): Core", RFC 6120, DOI 10.17487/RFC6120,
March 2011, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6120>.
[RFC6365]  Hoffman, P. and J. Klensin, "Terminology Used in
Internationalization in the IETF", BCP 166, RFC 6365, DOI
[RFC7258]  Farrell, S. and H. Tschofenig, "Pervasive Monitoring Is an
Attack", BCP 188, RFC 7258, DOI 10.17487/RFC7258, May
[RFC7574]  Bakker, A., Petrocco, R., and V. Grishchenko, "Peer-to-
Peer Streaming Peer Protocol (PPSPP)", RFC 7574, DOI
[RFC7626]  Bortzmeyer, S., "DNS Privacy Considerations", RFC 7626,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7626, August 2015,
[RSF]      RSF, ., "Syria using 34 Blue Coat Servers to spy on
Internet users", 2013, <https://en.rsf.org/syria-syria-
using-34-blue-coat-servers-23-05-2013,44664.html>.
[Rachovitsa]
Rachovitsa, A., "Engineering "Privacy by Design" in the
Internet Protocols - Understanding Online Privacy both as
a Technical and a Human Rights Issue in the Face of
Pervasive Monitoring", International Journal of Law and
Information Technology , 2015, <https://www.ietf.org/mail-
archive/web/hrpc/current/pdfRBnRYFeVsm.pdf>.
[Richie]   Richie, J. and J. Lewis, "Qualitative Research Practice -
A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers",
London Sage , 2003, <http://www.amazon.co.uk/
Qualitative-Research-Practice-Students-Researchers/
dp/0761971106>.
[Rideout]  Rideout, A., "Making security easier", 2008,
<http://gmailblog.blogspot.de/2008/07/
making-security-easier.html>.
[Saltzer]  Saltzer, J., Reed, D., and D. Clark, "End-to-End Arguments
in System Design", ACM TOCS, Vol 2, Number 4, November
1984, pp 277-288. , 1984.
[Sauter]   Sauter, M., "The Coming Swarm", Bloomsbury, London , 2014.
[Schillace]
Schillace, S., "Default https access for Gmail", 2010,
[Schneier]
Schneier, B., "Attacking Tor - how the NSA targets users'
online anonymity", 2013,
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/
tor-attacks-nsa-users-online-anonymity>.
[Schroeder]
Schroeder, I. and B. Schmidt, "Introduction - Violent
Imaginaries and Violent Practice", London and New York
Routledge , 2001, <http://resourcelists.st-
andrews.ac.uk/items/
BFC20363-67B0-B3EF-EA48-13E5230E7899.html>.
[UDHR]     United Nations General Assembly, "The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights", 1948,
<http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/>.
[UNGA2013]
United Nations General Assembly, "UN General Assembly
<http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/1133732.05065727.html>.
[W3Ci18nDef]
W3C, "Localization vs. Internationalization", 2010,
<http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-i18n.en>.
"Debugging", n.d., <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Debugging>.
[WP-Stateless]
"Stateless protocol", n.d.,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stateless_protocol>.
[Walfish]  Walfish, M., Stribling, J., Krohn, M., Balakrishnan, H.,
Morris, R., and S. Shenker, "Middleboxes No Longer
Considered Harmful", 2004, <http://nms.csail.mit.edu/doa>.
[Zittrain]
Zittrain, J., "The Future of the Internet - And How to
Stop It", Yale University Press , 2008,
<https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/4455262/
Zittrain_Future%20of%20the%20Internet.pdf?sequence=1>.
[Zuckerman]
Zuckerman, E., Roberts, H., McGrady, R., York, J., and J.
Palfrey, "Report on Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
Attacks", The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at
Harvard University , 2010,
<https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/
cyber.law.harvard.edu/
files/2010_DDoS_Attacks_Human_Rights_and_Media.pdf>.
[ars]      Anderson, N., "P2P researchers - use a blocklist or you
will be tracked... 100% of the time", 2007,
<http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/10/p2p-
researchers-use-a-blocklist-or-you-will-be-tracked-100-of-
the-time/>.
[bbc-wikileaks]
BBC, "Whistle-blower site taken offline", 2008,
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7250916.stm>.
[bitmessage]
Bitmessage, "Bitmessage Wiki?", 2014,
<https://bitmessage.org/wiki/Main_Page>.
[caida]    Dainotti, A., Squarcella, C., Aben, E., Claffy, K.,
Chiesa, M., Russo, M., and A. Pescape, "Analysis of
Country-wide Internet Outages Caused by Censorship", 2013,
<http://www.caida.org/publications/papers/2014/
outages_censorship/outages_censorship.pdf>.
[draft-hall-censorship-tech-01]
Hall, J., Aaron, M., and B. Jones, "A Survey of Worldwide
Censorship Techniques", 2015,
<https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hall-censorship-tech-
01>.
[freenet1]
Freenet, "What is Freenet?", n.d.,
<https://freenetproject.org/whatis.html>.
Ian Clarke, ., "The Philosphy behind Freenet?", n.d.,
<https://freenetproject.org/philosophy.html>.
[greatfirewall]
Anonymous, ., "Towards a Comprehensive Picture of the
Great Firewall's DNS Censorship", 2014,
<https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/foci14/
foci14-anonymous.pdf>.
[namecoin]
Namecoin, "Namecoin - Decentralized secure names", 2015,
<https://namecoin.info/>.
[natusage]
Maier, G., Schneider, F., and A. Feldmann, "NAT usage in
Residential Broadband networks", 2011,
<http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/pubs/networking/
NATusage11.pdf>.
[pidgin]   js, . and Pidgin Developers, "-XMPP- Invisible mode
violating standard", July 2015,
<https://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/4322>.
[quic]     The Chromium Project, "QUIC, a multiplexed stream
transport over UDP", 2014, <https://www.chromium.org/
quic>.
[spdy]     The Chromium Project, "SPDY - An experimental protocol for
a faster web", 2009, <https://www.chromium.org/spdy/spdy-
whitepaper>.
[spiegel]  SPIEGEL, "Prying Eyes - Inside the NSA's War on Internet
Security", 2014,
<http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/
inside-the-nsa-s-war-on-internet-security-a-1010361.html>.
[techyum]  Violet, ., "Official - vb.ly Link Shortener Seized by
Libyan Government", 2010, <http://techyum.com/2010/10/
official-vb-ly-link-shortener-seized-by-libyan-
government/>.
[torproject]
The Tor Project, ., "Tor Project - Anonymity Online",
2007, <https://www.torproject.org/>.
[torrentfreak1]
Van der Sar, E., "Proposal for research on human rights
protocol considerations", 2015, <https://torrentfreak.com/
is-your-isp-messing-with-bittorrent-traffic-find-out-
140123/>.
Andy, ., "LAWYERS SENT 109,000 PIRACY THREATS IN GERMANY
DURING 2013", 2014, <https://torrentfreak.com/lawyers-
sent-109000-piracy-threats-in-germany-during-
2013-140304/>.
[turkey]   Akguel, M. and M. Kirlidoğ, "Internet censorship in
Turkey", 2015,
<http://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/
internet-censorship-turkey>.
[ververis]
Vasilis, V., Kargiotakis, G., Filasto, A., Fabian, B., and
A. Alexandros, "Understanding Internet Censorship Policy -
The Case of Greece", 2015,
foci15-paper-ververis-update.pdf>.
[wikileaks]
Sladek, T. and E. Broese, "Market Survey - Detection &
Filtering Solutions to Identify File Transfer of Copyright
Protected Content for Warner Bros. and movielabs", 2011,
<https://wikileaks.org/sony/docs/05/docs/Anti-Piracy/CDSA/
EANTC-Survey-1.5-unsecured.pdf>.
[xmppmanifesto]
Saint-Andre, P. and . XMPP Operators, "A Public Statement
Regarding Ubiquitous Encryption on the XMPP Network",
<https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stpeter/manifesto/
master/manifesto.txt>.
10.3.  URIs
[1] mailto:node@domain/home
[2] mailto:node@domain/work
[3] mailto:hrpc@ietf.org
Niels ten Oever
EMail: niels@article19.org
Corinne Cath
EMail: corinne.cath@oii.ox.ac.uk

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl