[gnso-rds-pdp-wg] Principle on Proportionality for "Thin Data"access

Thu Jun 1 19:15:31 UTC 2017

I want to compliment Stephanie and Allison for their very constructive exchange.  The first two messages below serve as good examples of the application of the principles that all of us are asked to follow in our working group efforts.

For those that are new to ICANN and/or new to PDP WGs, I understand why you get frustrated with the process.  Those of us who have been part of the processes for a long time also get very frustrated but we have probably developed a thicker skin as a survival technique.  The Whois issue has been a very volatile topic for almost all of ICANN's 18-year+ history with very little progress made because of near polar opposite views.  And as everyone can tell, the volatility and competing views haven't abated.

The bottom-up multi-stakeholder process is by nature messy and slow and that is magnified several times over when dealing with an issue like domain registration data and when trying to develop policies that have global implications.  To have any hope for success in our WG will require lots of patience, lots of listening to one another and lots of constructive disagreement.  Regarding the latter, I want to emphasize that it is absolutely essential that all points of view are aired and debated, and then we need to collaborate to  try to find ways of bridging the gaps as best as possible.

Thanks to all of you who have volunteered to tackle this huge task.  I sincerely hope that you will stick with us through the good and the bad.

Chuck

From: gnso-rds-pdp-wg-bounces at icann.org [mailto:gnso-rds-pdp-wg-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of allison nixon
Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2017 2:01 PM
To: Stephanie Perrin <stephanie.perrin at mail.utoronto.ca>
Cc: RDS PDP WG <gnso-rds-pdp-wg at icann.org>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [gnso-rds-pdp-wg] Principle on Proportionality for "Thin Data"access

Stephanie, to clarify, my comment was not directed specifically at you but more broadly at this pattern of people bringing up privacy over and over again to push a narrow agenda- ironically arguing with folks who engage in actually implementing privacy. I agree that civility on this list should be improved. I'm told by people that don't post that they abstain from participating due to the hostility, and commentary about this group is closely followed by commentary about its toxicity, and that this is one of the worst ICANN working groups they've seen. I have no history with ICANN working groups and thus nothing compare to, so interpret those comments how you wish.

If people abstain from the process due to a desire not to be treated childishly, then it raises a question of how valid the process really is. When I showed up here several months ago, it was clear that my perspective went against the grain and people did not react positively to that. Someone more sensitive would have left.

You know more about privacy laws than I do, and I'd like to ask that your word use on matters like "personal information" be stated for a layman audience. In the context of the discussions we've already had, when you declare something as "personal information", it carries the implication that it must be private and that queries for it are intrusive in nature. For those of us who want the data to remain open, we're a bit on the defensive about this already as it is frequently insinuated that we want this data open so we can snoop on people. Which is never the case, but such is post-Snowden privacy politics nowadays.

You brought up your work experience, which I do not want to disrespect- and my previous comments were intended to take issue with the idea that years of experience could be used to distract from the facts of an argument. You do have numerous accomplishments and it's clear you know your area of expertise. 

Since we're sharing, I will state my own experience and perspective as well-

I work in the private security industry. But as I stated before, security in infosec largely involves confidentiality, so assuming that's at odds with privacy is absurd. My work involves learning how abuse happens. That is fed into systems that are used to evaluate and block risks. My work is used to reduce the likelihood of data breaches, identity theft, ddos, etc. At no point do we pester domain owners who mind their own business. WHOIS is a major source of information about unknown domains, and its granularity allows us to determine when something is benign. We, collectively, act as gatekeepers to many corporate networks.

I can tell you, based on my professional experience, what happens when no granularity exists. The Tor network is a cautionary tale. Tor is blocked by many sites, as its traffic is ~94% malicious. Amusingly, blocking has caused outrage in the Tor community, but their only answer to the abuse problem is to deny it exists. I see some similarities with this group's direction, not taking the abuse problem seriously. Tor is blocked on a growing number of websites, and Tor blocking tools grow in popularity. The Tor community is completely powerless to stop this.

An outsider's desire for privacy will never override a private network owner's absolute right to block.

Forcing anonymity on ICANN domains invites the same. Domain abuse is a massive problem. If granularity cannot be resolved past the registrar level, you can expect to see more registrar level blocks. The registrar's reputation will have an impact on the value of their domains. Registrars may control ICANN, but on blocklists they are at the mercy of the infosec industry. 

A balance exists right now where a savvy domain owner can maintain their privacy, because they can still be differentiated as benign or malicious. Disrupting this balance threatens the possibility that someone can both be anonymous and treated as benign.  What happened to Tor should be taken much more seriously by people who want to mimic that. 

This isn't because companies want to snoop for vaguely evil reasons. This is because network operators have an absolute right to block risks. Smearing that motive as "profiling people" or "pretending to be cops" misses the point entirely. And denying that abuse has any relevance in this discussion will result in a worse, and more walled off system, as network operators compensate for the loss of these risk detection mechanisms in ways that you definitely won't like.

On Thu, Jun 1, 2017 at 10:23 AM, Stephanie Perrin <stephanie.perrin at mail.utoronto.ca> wrote:

This is not a personal "demand", it is a request that we maintain more civility in this discourse. The allegation that those of us who are trying to explain the privacy perspective on this matter do not understand your work is simply untrue.  Some of us have worked on the issues for years. Please, all I am asking for is that we tone the rhetoric down and treat each other with respect, as is required by ICANN standards of behaviour on working groups.

With respect to your other comments, I have been clarifying in all the calls that I attend, that when I raise an objection it is often on principle because we need caveats or derogations on some of the agreements we reach.  I have clarified several times my position on the technical definition of personal information, and the fact that this in no way means that because information is personal, it cannot be disclosed (eg thin data).  I believe my response to Andrew's latest excellent summary yesterday pretty well encapsulates that so I am not going to respond point by point to what you have said below.

Thanks.

Stephanie Perrin

On 2017-05-31 19:04, allison nixon wrote:

Your e-mail stated:
>>Data that is gleaned from a file related to an individual, ie in this case their registration data, even if it is nameservers and the like, is their personal data. 

And it was stated in support of restricting public access to this information. 

Eliminating the other data elements may make troubleshooting harder, but eliminating nameservers on the basis of privacy means the registrars won't be able to disseminate it at all, and it will literally break the Internet. Were you thinking of the absurd possibilities when you wrote it?

Your references don't change the fact of how DNS resolution works. If you're going to object to that characterization, then I formally object to this one, which is similar to the sentiment that has underpinned this group since the beginning:

>>At a time when increasing imbalance in 'informational power', when governments and business organizations alike amass hitherto unprecedented amounts of data about individuals, and are increasingly in the position to compile detailed profiles that will predict their behavior (reinforcing informational imbalance and reducing their autonomy), it is ever more important to ensure that the interests of the individuals to preserve their privacy and autonomy be protected.

In the context of WHOIS, it's ridiculous borderline conspiracy theory. A tiny percent of the population owns any domains, and an even smaller percent disclose anything in the WHOIS. This isn't intrusive like ad tracking or companies selling health data. This is information that people enter when they stake a claim in a public space. Blinding defenders from being able to judge if we want to interact with inbound traffic reduces our autonomy and only empowers the massive problem of abuse. Mischaracterizing public WHOIS info, which has been public for decades, as some sort of scandalous leak of data is ridiculous. It also falsely shades the motivations of the people who are asking for it to remain open. The truth is that this data is useless for what is insinuated, and we aren't asking to keep the data open so we can snoop on some dissident by knowing what their junk email and domain creation date is. 

And just because someone in the world is(and they certainly are), it doesn't mean we must shut down the whole system.

On top of that, no one is forced to disclose damaging info. If you want to use an ICANN domain, fill out the form. If you don't want to, get an .onion, get a dynamic domain, go somewhere else. Or use WHOIS privacy. Or use junk info.

You can demand respect, but many arguments in this group do not inspire respect. 

*	When people claim to be concerned about spam as a motivation for eliminating WHOIS, and then don't listen when actual anti-spam people tell them it will destroy a major tool in the fight against spam, that does not inspire respect. 
*	When people propose to put basic functionality on the chopping block, that does not inspire respect. 
*	When theoretical edge cases are dreamed up as rebuttals to real and frequent issues, that does not inspire respect.
*	When anti-abuse is judged as anathema to privacy and are disrespected, that does not inspire respect.

I along with many other security professionals here are not opposed to following the law. Collectively much of our work involves ensuring compliance with the law, including privacy laws, HIPAA, data breach laws, et cetera. Despite frequently being mischaracterized as wannabe cops by list members, we are not cops. We actually implement the protection of privacy, including the need to prevent data breaches- which can incur massive fines thanks to some privacy laws. Yet here we are, butting heads with "privacy experts", who by and large don't want to hear about operational issues or the wider impact of their narrow agenda.

This observation isn't solely about you personally, and your work history is irrelevant here. It is an observation about the group as a whole since I became active. This isn't privacy versus security. This is quite literally, privacy versus privacy. And one side of the argument has operational experience. Security in the Internet sense involves- confidentiality, integrity, and availability. And most efforts are focused on the first item. We are not the NSA hunting terrorists or tapping phones or whatever youall imagine we are. We are trying to prevent data breaches and identity theft and phishing and quite literally everything that privacy laws are written to address. That's why these arguments are so ridiculous.

On Wed, May 31, 2017 at 3:42 PM, Stephanie Perrin <stephanie.perrin at mail.utoronto.ca> wrote:

I would like to formally object to this kind of characterization of the people who are working in good faith on this working group:  "self-proclaimed privacy advocates".  I can only speak for myself, so I will do only that.....I am not a self-proclaimed privacy advocate.  I have been working as a privacy professional since 1984, when I became one of the first privacy coordinators for the Department of Communications of Canada.  I was the first president in 1986 of CAPA, the privacy professionals association which we formed and which collaborated for many years with ASAP, the US equivalent.  I could go on and on and if you require references as to whether or not our views should be accepted as having merit, regardless of whether you agree with them or not, I am happy to provide them.  But please, let us treat one another with a bit more respect.

Stephanie Perrin

On 2017-05-31 13:39, allison nixon wrote:

Good faith does not excuse ignorance. Such a mistake reveals the extreme tunnel vision by many self proclaimed privacy advocates here. It shows why they butt heads with people who work every day in the trenches to actually protect privacy of real- not theoretical- victims. 

On Wed, May 31, 2017 at 1:30 PM, Jeremy Malcolm <jmalcolm at eff.org> wrote:

Again, I really think we need to dial down the level of sarcasm here.  The proportionality proposal was made in good faith.

However, I'm from a privacy advocacy organization and even I have agreed that there are operational problems with any proposal to limit unauthenticated access to thin WHOIS data.  I agree that while privacy is an absolutely key principle to be upheld, so is the generativity of the Internet, and that unauthenticated access to thin WHOIS data, much of which just replicates the information that end users make available through their own nameservers, is part of the permissionless innovation that underpins many real world Internet applications. 

On 31/5/17 10:14 am, allison nixon wrote:

Which includes nameservers, which are collected and propagated by the registrars. If this is deemed sensitive information, then the registrars should be careful sharing that data via other outlets without tight restrictions!

On Wed, May 31, 2017 at 1:09 PM, Michael Peddemors <michael at linuxmagic.com> wrote:

On 17-05-31 10:07 AM, allison nixon wrote:

the rest of it can't be. You can't put a DNS query behind a EULA. We
can't pretend there are restrictions on this data.

We aren't discussing DNS or any other places that data is available as part of this working group. Only the informed consent of data held in whois thin data. 

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