[address-policy-wg] 2008-08 (Initial Certification Policy in the RIPE NCC Service Region) going to Last Call

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On 05/05/2011 08:36, Randy Bush wrote:
> shall we have a policy that covers black helicopters and sci-fi attacks
> as well as demanding perfection in everything?

Black helicopters in slides presentations are amusing. But if you
seriously think the governments, law enforcement and private litigants
won't see this as a new capability to prevent traffic to certain
networks you haven't (note to self: be polite, Malcolm) all the facts.

Fact 1. In the Co-operation WG where British law enforcement officials
have /already/ been asking for procedures to re-assign netblocks to
their agency because they think that would help prevent traffic flowing
to places where crimes occur. Of course, as a community we could refuse
to cooperate, unless/until the NCC is compelled.

Nonetheless, this demonstrates LEAs do have both the awareness and the
intent; it's not a wild conspiracy theory.

Fact 2. There is draft legislation ALREADY going through the EU that if
passed would require all EU governments (including the Dutch) to
introduce laws to "take the necessary measures to obtain the blocking of
access" to certain Internet locations [1]. It could be argued that this
would give Dutch LEAs sufficient power to require the RIPE NCC to revoke
a certificate - or perhaps not; it probably depends on how the
Netherlands chooses to implement this European law if/when it goes through.

I would say that this shows that the risk, although not certain, is
pressing and immediate, not a vague worry for the distant future.

Fact 3. There is continuous lobbying within the EU, to which Dutch law
is subject, for greater measures to require Internet intermediaries to
prevent the reachability of certain Internet locations. This has mainly
focussed on network operators, but more recently EU officials have
opened dialogue with ccTLD registries and the RIPE NCC too.

There's no end of topics for which some people believe controlling
access to Internet locations would be a useful means of fighting some
social evil - child pornography and copyright infringement have in my
estimation the largest and most organised lobbying in favour of such
measures, but there's also active work in the areas of terrorism,
"cybercrime" generally, gambling, xenophobia racism and hate-speech,
just off the top of my head.

In my view the range of actors who would seek to use any new capability
is wide, and they are outside our control as a technical community. They
operate at the political level, and they have no interest in the
technical community's opinions, apart from an answer to the question
"What is it technically possible for the RIPE NCC to do to impede
reachability to the locations we specify?"

Once the RIPE NCC comes to be seen as a "gateway controller" that can
significantly impact the reachability of "bad" networks, it will
irrevocably become a ongoing target for use as a tool of public policy
enforcement.


Malcolm

[1] I'm referring to Article 21 of the Draft Directive on Child Sexual
Exploitation, which is currently in Trialogue negotiations between the
European Parliament, Commission, and Council of Ministers.
http://bit.ly/9D5cg8

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            Malcolm Hutty | tel: +44 20 7645 3523
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 London Internet Exchange | http://publicaffairs.linx.net/

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