[gnso-rds-pdp-wg] @EXT: RE: Use cases: Fundamental, Incidental, and Theoretical

Wed Aug 10 22:01:49 UTC 2016

Hi Terri,

Please see my responses in-line.

Thanks,

Ayden

On 9 August 2016 at 17:51, Terri Stumme <terri.stumme at legitscript.com>
wrote:

> Ayden,
>
> These were *recommendations*; nothing more, nothing less. Although
> included in the 2013 RAA
>

An agreement containing, I have been told, a litany of unintended
consequences.

>
> Multiple stakeholders around the world have compelling reasons and
> competing interests when it comes to accessing electronic data. As does LE
>

Absolutely. I do not mean to suggest otherwise.

>
> I understand that law enforcement and intelligence agencies need the
> ability to fulfil their mission to prevent serious crime (or, failing that,
> to bring the perpetrators to justice).
>
> At the same time, the protection and promotion of civil liberties, human
> rights, and the right to privacy are not equally as strong in every
> territory around the world. Some countries are more authoritarian than
> others. I support a balance here; my personal information, as well as the
> personal information of my family members, as well as thousands of US
> federal employees, was compromised in the hack of the Office of Personnel
> Management federal employee records.
>

I am sorry to hear you were the victim of cybercrime.

And a balance is precisely what I am advocating for, so it seems like we
are on the same page. This shouldn't be a zero-sum game. Privacy and
security should be mutually reinforcing.

In addition, strengthened data and security practices also decrease the
risks associated with personal data collection and processing for both
end-users and businesses. A study from IBM in 2015
<https://securityintelligence.com/cost-of-a-data-breach-2015/> found that
the average data breach cost each impacted company USD $3.79 million,
without factoring in for the consumer confidence lost as a result of their
personally-identifiable data being stolen or misused.

> Attaching themselves to the unquestionably valid objectives that law
> enforcement and intelligence agencies have are private entities who do not
> have the same legal mandates or privileged access to information. There
> is no privileged access to information afforded to LE, and appropriate
> legal processes are abided by throughout investigations.
>

Yes, there is privileged access to information afforded to intelligence
agencies. It is common knowledge that the NSA has a 1-million-square-foot
data centre in Utah sucking up the data of people without warrants, and
without probable cause. The only 'check' that there is on the NSA's
surveillance techniques is that of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court, a secret body of judges that hears arguments from only one side: the
NSA. I would suggest that it is not a beacon of accountability.

As for law enforcement, this varies by country and perhaps in the US law
enforcement does not have such a right (I don't know, but I'd be willing to
bet that "officer discretion", "exigent circumstances", etc. would be
enough to justify a lot of actions.) Their authority, combined with a
badge, a "trusted third party" data sharing agreement, or a simple request,
is likely to be more fruitful than if I was to request the same information
as a private citizen.

> Private entities have become attached to the unquestionably valid
> objectives of law enforcement due to the inherent nature of the beast.
>
>
I take a rather bleak view of companies which gather data on individuals
without their knowledge or consent.

> *"Because the private sector owns and operates a vast majority of the
> nation's critical infrastructure, partnerships between the public and
> private sectors are essential to maintaining critical infrastructure
> security and resilience. These partnerships create an environment to share
> critical threat information, risk mitigation, and other vital information
> and resources." Source: * https://www.dhs.gov/critical-infrastructure-
> sector-partnerships.
>
I would agree that we get better answers to complex questions when a range
of experts and interests can meaningfully take part in the discussions.

However, this quote is referring to the investment made by private sector
actors who invest in, construct, and/or own pieces of critical
infrastructure (things like dams, nuclear reactors, water systems,
satellites). I agree that the public and private sectors, here, need to
work together to identify threats and vulnerabilities in a collaborative
and creative manner.

This quote is not suggesting that all private sector actors should have the
same scope to collect data as intelligence agencies or law enforcement
might be able to. And, I will insist here, they should not. Some private
investigators may like to attach themselves to the "cloak of legitimacy"
which is afforded public actors, but in some instances I find these
perceived associations to be highly problematic. I suppose this is a
conversation for another time.

>
> I think it is important that we make this distinction.
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 8:12 AM, Ayden Férdeline <icann at ferdeline.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Terri,
>>
>> Absolutely, Greg. The 2009 law enforcement recommendations regarding
>> amendments to the RAA addressed Whois data, specifically the need for
>> validating registrant information. The reason this recommendation was
>> included in the recommendations is because LE utilizes the data in cyber
>> investigations. There are many transcripts related to this issue, and LE
>> has conveyed to the ICANN community on several occasions the importance of
>> Whois data, and how LE utilizes the data in cyber investigations.
>>
>>
>> These were *recommendations*; nothing more, nothing less.
>>
>> Multiple stakeholders around the world have compelling reasons and
>> competing interests when it comes to accessing electronic data.
>>
>> I understand that law enforcement and intelligence agencies need the
>> ability to fulfil their mission to prevent serious crime (or, failing that,
>> to bring the perpetrators to justice).
>>
>> At the same time, the protection and promotion of civil liberties, human
>> rights, and the right to privacy are not equally as strong in every
>> territory around the world. Some countries are more authoritarian than
>> others.
>>
>> Attaching themselves to the unquestionably valid objectives that law
>> enforcement and intelligence agencies have are private entities who do not
>> have the same legal mandates or privileged access to information.
>>
>> I think it is important that we make this distinction.
>>
>> - Ayden
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 3:31 PM, Terri Stumme terri.stumme at legitscript.com
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Absolutely, Greg. The 2009 law enforcement recommendations regarding
>>> amendments to the RAA addressed Whois data, specifically the need for
>>> validating registrant information. The reason this recommendation was
>>> included in the recommendations is because LE utilizes the data in cyber
>>> investigations. There are many transcripts related to this issue, and LE
>>> has conveyed to the ICANN community on several occasions the importance of
>>> Whois data, and how LE utilizes the data in cyber investigations.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 8:59 AM, Mounier, Grégory <
>>> gregory.mounier at europol.europa.eu> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear Rob,
>>>
>>> Thanks for sharing the outcome of your chat with ex-FBI and UK LEA
>>> agents. I feel that I need to step in to provide a different perspective
>>> than the one you just gave on the law enforcement use of the WHOIS. It
>>> might be a matter of interpretation but the views expressed by your
>>> interlocutors are not shared by my colleagues working throughout European
>>> police cyber divisions.
>>>
>>> If European cyber investigators are obviously all aware of the fact that
>>> WHOIS registration data can sometime be inaccurate and not up-to-date
>>> (ICANN compliance reported that for the first quarter of 2015, WHOIS
>>> inaccuracy comprised 74.0 % of complaints), in 90% of cases they will start
>>> their investigations with a WHOIS lookup. This is really the first step.
>>>
>>> Despite the lack of accuracy, WHOIS information is useful in so many
>>> different ways. One of the first them is to make correlations and link
>>> pieces of information obtained through other means than from the WHOIS.
>>> This was the point I tried to make on Tuesday during the conference call.
>>>
>>> Accurate and reliable WHOIS data helps crime attribution and can save
>>> precious investigation time (you can rule out wrong investigative leads).
>>> It raises the bar and makes it more difficult for criminals to abuse
>>> domain names. It pushes them to resort to more complex techniques such as
>>> ID theft to register domains for malicious purposes.
>>>
>>> In short, for LEA WHOIS is certainly not the silver bullet to attribute
>>> crime on line but it is an essential tool in the tool box of law
>>> enforcement.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Greg
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: gnso-rds-pdp-wg-bounces at icann.org [mailto:gnso-rds-pdp-wg-bounce
>>> s at icann.org] On Behalf Of Rob Golding
>>> Sent: 04 August 2016 01:46
>>> To: RDS PDP WG
>>> Subject: Re: [gnso-rds-pdp-wg] Use cases: Fundamental, Incidental, and
>>> Theoretical
>>>
>>> >> Theoretical
>>> >> ===========
>>> >> We have seen a couple of proposed use cases that seem to be ideas
>>> >> that people have for useful or harmful ways that RDS can be used, but
>>> >> that do not exist today (at least not that anyone can fully
>>> >> document).
>>> >>
>>> >> For example, there seems to be a desire to use the RDS as a way to
>>> >> issue warrants for information about registrants. While this may be
>>> >> useful, this is not possible today (even with RDAP, I note).
>>>
>>> It not only is possible today, it's also "common" (although thankfully
>>> not frequent)
>>>
>>> Registrars get served warrants for details about registrants, and the
>>> _only_ information from WHOIS that's "needed" or used for such cases is the
>>> name of the Registrar.
>>>
>>> I had the pleasure of meeting Chris Tarbell, ex-FBI Cyber Crime, at
>>> HostingCon last week - asked about WHOIS/domain data he said "we dont use
>>> it"
>>>
>>> Last year at the UKNOF event in Sheffield I spent quite some time
>>> talking with some amazing people from the UK CyberCrime departments - asked
>>> the same questions, they confirmed that although whois _might_ be looked at
>>> to see if it matches _data they already have_ for confirmation, it's not
>>> used or relied on.
>>>
>>> Which beggars the question, should "LawEnforcement" use cases even be
>>> part of the discussions ?
>>>
>>> Rob
>>> --
>>> Rob Golding   rob.golding at astutium.com
>>> Astutium Ltd, Number One Poultry, London. EC2R 8JR
>>>
>>> * domains * hosting * vps * servers * cloud * backups *
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> *Terri Stumme*
>>> *Investigative Analyst*
>>>
>>
>>
>> Ayden Férdeline
>> Statement of Interest
>> <https://community.icann.org/display/gnsosoi/Ayden+Férdeline+SOI>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> *Terri Stumme*
> *Investigative Analyst*
>
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