[cooperation-wg] Prism

In message <EAB46D0D-1F32-40AB-BA11-3687635046E9 at frobbit.se>, at 
15:42:46 on Wed, 19 Jun 2013, Patrik Fältström <patrik at frobbit.se> 
writes
>The problem was that the people that want DRD to cover as much as possible claimed also web based messaging (i.e. the HTTP transaction) did
>fall under the directive. My response has all the time been that we have to choose between: (a) requiring DPI so that only webmail http
>transactions are included or (b) treat webmail as any other http transaction, i.e. not be covered. In Sweden we did pick alternative (b) btw.
>
>This discussion completely stalled because some "experts" did claim there is *no* difference from a technical perspective between web based
>access to messages and IMAP or POP based access.

There is of course a technical (operational) difference between IMAP/POP 
and Webmail, which should be fairly easy to demonstrate.

However, from a regulatory (public policy) point of view, it's clear 
that all forms of email are "messages", including webmail.

The objectives of law enforcement would probably be satisfied if logging 
of webmail was restricted to messages to/from a small set of "top 10" 
global providers. They are never looking for universal solutions, just 
to pick the low-hanging fruit.

[I know some people will say "but the criminals will just move to a 
different and less well known webmail provider", but any tech-savvy 
criminal will already be communicating by something other than IMAP/POP 
or Webmail, so they need a different approach anyway.]
-- 
Roland Perry