Trustworthy Location
draft-ietf-ecrit-trustworthy-location-07
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| Document | Type | Active Internet-Draft (ecrit WG) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Hannes Tschofenig , Henning Schulzrinne , Dr. Bernard D. Aboba | ||
| Last updated | 2013-07-30 | ||
| Replaces | draft-tschofenig-ecrit-trustworthy-location | ||
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draft-ietf-ecrit-trustworthy-location-07
ECRIT Working Group H. Tschofenig
INTERNET-DRAFT Nokia Siemens Networks
Category: Informational H. Schulzrinne
Expires: February 14, 2014 Columbia University
B. Aboba (ed.)
Skype
30 July 2013
Trustworthy Location
draft-ietf-ecrit-trustworthy-location-07.txt
Abstract
For some location-based applications, such as emergency calling or
roadside assistance, the trustworthiness of location information is
critically important.
This document describes how to convey location in a manner that is
inherently secure and reliable. It also provides guidelines for
assessing the trustworthiness of location information.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on February 14, 2014.
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Threats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1. Location Spoofing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2. Identity Spoofing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3. Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.1. Signed Location by Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2. Location by Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.3. Proxy Adding Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4. Location Trust Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
7.1. Informative references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
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1. Introduction
Several public and commercial services depend upon location
information in their operations. This includes emergency services
(such as fire, ambulance and police) as well as commercial services
such as food delivery and roadside assistance.
Services that depend on location commonly experience security issues
today. While prank calls have been a problem for emergency services
dating back to the time of street corner call boxes, with the move to
IP-based emergency services, the ability to launch automated attacks
has increased. As the European Emergency Number Association (EENA)
has noted [EENA]: "False emergency calls divert emergency services
away from people who may be in life-threatening situations and who
need urgent help. This can mean the difference between life and
death for someone in trouble."
EENA [EENA] has attempted to define terminology and describe best
current practices for dealing with false emergency calls, which in
certain European countries can constitute as much as 70% of all
emergency calls. Reducing the number of prank calls represents a
challenge, since emergency services authorities in most countries are
required to answer every call (whenever possible). Where the caller
cannot be identified, the ability to prosecute is limited.
Since prank emergency calls can endanger bystanders or emergency
services personnel, or divert resources away from legitimate
emergencies, they can be life threatening. A particularly dangerous
form of prank call is "swatting" - an prank emergency call that draws
a response from law enforcement (e.g. a fake hostage situation that
results in dispatching of a "Special Weapons And Tactics" (SWAT)
team). In 2008 the FBI issued a warning [Swatting] about an increase
in the frequency and sophistication of these attacks.
Many documented cases of "swatting" involve not only the faking of an
emergency, but also the absence of accurate caller identification and
the delivery of misleading location data. Today these attacks are
often carried out by providing false caller identification, since for
circuit-switched calls from landlines, location provided to the PSAP
is determined from a lookup using the calling telephone number. With
IP-based emergency services, in addition to the potential for false
caller identification, it is also possible to attach misleading
location information to the emergency call.
Ideally, a call taker at a Public Service Answering Point (PSAP)
should be put in the position to assess, in real-time, the level of
trust that can be placed on the information provided within a call.
This includes automated location conveyed along with the call and
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location information communicated by the caller, as well as identity
information about the caller. Where real-time assessment is not
possible, it is important to be able to determine the source of the
call in a post-mortem, so as to be able to enforce accountability.
This document defines terminology (including the meaning of
"trustworthy location") in Section 1.1, investigates security threats
in Section 2, outlines potential solutions in Section 3, covers trust
assessment in Section 4 and discusses security considerations in
Section 5.
1.1. Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
The definition for "Target" is taken from "Geopriv Requirements"
[RFC3693].
The term "location determination method" refers to the mechanism used
to determine the location of a Target. This may be something
employed by a location information server (LIS), or by the Target
itself. It specifically does not refer to the location configuration
protocol (LCP) used to deliver location information either to the
Target or the Recipient. This term is re-used from "GEOPRIV PIDF-LO
Usage Clarification, Considerations, and Recommendations" [RFC5491].
The term "source" is used to refer to the LIS, node, or device from
which a Recipient (Target or Third-Party) obtains location
information.
Additionally, the terms Location-by-Value (LbyV), Location-by-
Reference (LbyR), Location Configuration Protocol, Location
Dereference Protocol, and Location URI are re-used from "Requirements
for a Location-by-Reference Mechanism" [RFC5808].
"Trustworthy Location" is defined as location information that can be
attributed to a trusted source, has been protected against
modification in transmit, and has been assessed as trustworthy.
"Location Trust Assessment" refers to the process by which the
reliability of location information can be assessed. This topic is
discussed in Section 4.
The following additional terms apply to location spoofing:
"Place Shifting" is where the attacker constructs a PIDF-LO for a
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location other than where they are currently located. In some cases,
place shifting can be limited in range (e.g., within the coverage
area of a particular cell tower).
"Time Shifting" is where the attacker uses or re-uses location
information that was valid in the past, but is no longer valid
because the attacker has moved.
"Location Theft" is where the attacker captures a Target's location
information and presents it as their own. Location theft can occur
on a one-off basis, or may be continuous (e.g., where the attacker
has gained control over the victim's device). Location theft may
also be combined with time shifting to present someone else's
location information after the original Target has moved. Where the
Target and attacker collude, the term "location swapping" is used.
2. Threats
While previous IETF documents have analyzed aspects of the security
of emergency services or threats to geographic location privacy,
those documents do not cover the threats arising from unreliable
location information.
A threat analysis of the emergency services system is provided in
"Security Threats and Requirements for Emergency Call Marking and
Mapping" [RFC5069]. RFC 5069 describes attacks on the emergency
services system, such as attempting to deny system services to all
users in a given area, to gain fraudulent use of services and to
divert emergency calls to non-emergency sites. [RFC5069] also
describes attacks against individuals, including attempts to prevent
an individual from receiving aid, or to gain information about an
emergency. "Threat Analysis of the Geopriv Protocol" [RFC3694]
describes threats against geographic location privacy, including
protocol threats, threats resulting from the storage of geographic
location data, and threats posed by the abuse of information.
This document focuses on threats from attackers providing false
location information within emergency calls. Since we do not focus
on attackers gaining control of infrastructure elements (e.g.,
location servers, call route servers) or the emergency services IP
network, the threats arise from end hosts. In addition to threats
arising from the intentional forging of caller identification or
location information, end hosts may be induced to provide
untrustworthy location information. For example, end hosts may
obtain location from civilian GPS, which is vulnerable to spoofing
[GPSCounter] or from third party Location Service Providers (LSPs)
which may be vulnerable to attack or may not provide location
accuracy suitable for emergency purposes.
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To provide a structured analysis we distinguish between three
adversary models:
External adversary model: The end host, e.g., an emergency caller
whose location is going to be communicated, is honest and the
adversary may be located between the end host and the location
server or between the end host and the PSAP. None of the
emergency service infrastructure elements act maliciously.
Malicious infrastructure adversary model: The emergency call routing
elements, such as the LIS, the LoST infrastructure, used for
mapping locations to PSAP address, or call routing elements, may
act maliciously.
Malicious end host adversary model: The end host itself acts
maliciously, whether the owner is aware of this or whether it is
acting under the control of a third party.
In this document, we focus only on the malicious end host adversary
model.
2.1. Location Spoofing
An adversary can provide false location information in an emergency
call in order to misdirect emergency resources. For calls
originating within the PSTN or via a fixed Voice over IP service,
this attack can be carried out via caller-id spoofing. For example,
where a Voice Service Provider enables setting of the outbound caller
identification without checking it against the authenticated
identity, forging caller identification is trivial. Where an
attacker can gain entry to a PBX, they can then subsequently use that
access to launch a denial of service attack against the PSAP, or to
make fraudulent emergency calls.
Where location is attached to the emergency call by an end host,
several avenues are available to provide false location information:
1. The end host could fabricate a PIDF-LO and convey it within an
emergency call;
2. The VSP (and indirectly a LIS) could be fooled into using the
wrong identity (such as an IP address) for location lookup,
thereby providing the end host with misleading location
information;
3. Inaccurate or out-of-date information (such as spoofed GPS
signals, a stale wiremap or an inaccurate access point location
database) could be utilized by the LIS or the end host in its
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location determination, thereby leading to an inaccurate
determination of location.
The following represent examples of location spoofing:
Place shifting: Trudy, the adversary, pretends to be at an
arbitrary location.
Time shifting: Trudy pretends to be at a location she was a
while ago.
Location theft: Trudy observes Alice's location and replays
it as her own.
Location swapping: Trudy and Malory collude and swap location
information, pretending to be in each other's location.
2.2. Identity Spoofing
With calls originating on an IP network, at least two forms of
identity are relevant, with the distinction created by the split
between the AIP and the VSP:
(a) network access identity such as might be determined via
authentication (e.g., using the Extensible Authentication Protocol
(EAP) [RFC3748]);
(b) caller identity, such as might be determined from authentication
of the emergency caller at the VoIP application layer.
If the adversary did not authenticate itself to the VSP, then
accountability may depend on verification of the network access
identity. However, this also may not have been authenticated, such
as in the case where an open IEEE 802.11 Access Point is used to
initiate a prank emergency call. Although endpoint information such
as the IP or MAC address may have been logged, tying this back to the
device owner may be challenging.
Unlike the existing telephone system, VoIP emergency calls can
provide a strong identity that need not necessarily be coupled to a
business relationship with the AIP, ISP or VSP. However, due to the
time-critical nature of emergency calls, multi-layer authentication
is undesirable, so that in most cases, only the device placing the
call will be able to be identified, making the system vulnerable to
bot-net attacks. Furthermore, deploying additional credentials for
emergency service purposes (such as certificates) increases costs,
introduces a significant administrative overhead and is only useful
if widely deployed.
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3. Solutions
This section presents three mechanisms which can be used to convey
location securely: signed location by value (Section 3.1), location
by reference (Section 3.2) and proxy added location (Section 3.3).
In order to provide authentication and integrity protection for the
SIP messages conveying location, several security approaches are
available. It is possible to ensure that modification of the
identity and location in transit can be detected by the location
recipient (e.g., the PSAP), using cryptographic mechanisms, as
described in "Enhancements for Authenticated Identity Management in
the Session Initiation Protocol" [RFC4474]. However, compatibility
with Session Border Controllers (SBCs) that modify integrity-
protected headers has proven to be an issue in practice. As a
result, SIP over TLS is currently a more deployable mechanism to
provide per-message authentication and integrity protection hop-by-
hop.
3.1. Signed Location by Value
With location signing, a location server signs the location
information before it is sent to the end host, (the entity subject to
the location determination process). The signed location information
is then verified by the location recipient and not by the target. A
straw-man proposal for location signing is provided in "Digital
Signature Methods for Location Dependability" [I-D.thomson-geopriv-
location-dependability].
Figure 1 shows the communication model with the target requesting
signed location in step (a), the location server returns it in step
(b) and it is then conveyed to the location recipient in step (c) who
verifies it. For SIP, the procedures described in "Location
Conveyance for the Session Initiation Protocol" [RFC6442] are
applicable for location conveyance.
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+-----------+ +-----------+
| | | Location |
| LIS | | Recipient |
| | | |
+-+-------+-+ +----+------+
^ | --^
| | --
Geopriv |Req. | --
Location |Signed |Signed -- Geopriv
Configuration |Loc. |Loc. -- Using Protocol
Protocol |(a) |(b) -- (e.g., SIP)
| v -- (c)
+-+-------+-+ --
| Target / | --
| End Host +
| |
+-----------+
Figure 1: Location Signing
In order to limit replay attacks, [I.D.thomson-geopriv-location-
dependability] proposes the addition of a "validity" element to the
PIDF-LO, including a "from" sub-element containing the time that
location information was validated by the signer, as well as an
"until" sub-element containing the last time that the signature can
be considered valid.
One of the consequences of including an "until" element is that even
a stationary target would need to periodically obtain a fresh PIDF-
LO, or incur the additional delay of querying during an emergency
call.
Although privacy-preserving procedures may be disabled for emergency
calls, by design, PIDF-LO objects limit the information available for
real-time attribution. As noted in [RFC5985] Section 6.6:
The LIS MUST NOT include any means of identifying the Device in
the PIDF-LO unless it is able to verify that the identifier is
correct and inclusion of identity is expressly permitted by a Rule
Maker. Therefore, PIDF parameters that contain identity are
either omitted or contain unlinked pseudonyms [RFC3693]. A
unique, unlinked presentity URI SHOULD be generated by the LIS for
the mandatory presence "entity" attribute of the PIDF document.
Optional parameters such as the "contact" and "deviceID" elements
[RFC4479] are not used.
Also, the device referred to in the PIDF-LO may not necessarily be
the same entity conveying the PIDF-LO to the PSAP. As noted in
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[RFC6442] Section 1:
In no way does this document assume that the SIP user agent client
that sends a request containing a location object is necessarily
the Target. The location of a Target conveyed within SIP
typically corresponds to that of a device controlled by the
Target, for example, a mobile phone, but such devices can be
separated from their owners, and moreover, in some cases, the user
agent may not know its own location.
Without the ability to tie the target identity to the identity
asserted in the SIP message, it is possible for an attacker to cut
and paste a PIDF-LO obtained by a different device or user into a SIP
INVITE and send this to the PSAP. This cut and paste attack could
succeed even when a PIDF-LO is signed, or [RFC4474] is implemented.
To address location-swapping attacks, [I-D.thomson-geopriv-location-
dependability] proposes addition of an "identity" element which could
include a SIP URI (enabling comparison against the identity asserted
in the SIP headers) or an X.509v3 certificate. If the target was
authenticated by the LIS, an "authenticated" attribute is added.
However, inclusion of an "identity" attribute could enable location
tracking, so that a "hash" element is also proposed which could
contain a hash of the content of the "identity" element instead. In
practice, such a hash would not be much better for real-time
validation than a pseudonym.
Location signing is unlikely to deter attacks launched by bot-nets,
since the work required to verify the location signature is
considerable. However, while bot-nets are unlikely to be deterred by
location signing, accurate location information would limit the
subset of the bot-net that could be used for an attack, as only hosts
within the PSAP serving area would be useful in placing emergency
calls.
Location signing is also difficult when the host obtains location via
mechanisms such as GPS, unless trusted computing approaches, with
tamper-proof GPS modules, can be applied. Otherwise, an end host can
pretend to have a GPS device, and the recipient will need to rely on
its ability to assess the level of trust that should be placed in the
end host location claim.
[NENA-i2] Section 3.7 includes operational recommendations relating
to location signing:
Location determination is out of scope for NENA, but we can offer
guidance on what should be considered when designing mechanisms to
report location:
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1. The location object should be digitally signed.
2. The certificate for the signer (LIS operator) should be
rooted in VESA. For this purpose, VPC and ERDB operators
should issue certs to LIS operators.
3. The signature should include a timestamp.
4. Where possible, the Location Object should be refreshed
periodically, with the signature (and thus the timestamp)
being refreshed as a consequence.
5. Anti-spoofing mechanisms should be applied to the Location
Reporting method.
[Note: The term Valid Emergency Services Authority (VESA) refers
to the root certificate authority.]
As noted above, signing of location objects implies the development
of a trust hierarchy that would enable a certificate chain provided
by the LIS operator to be verified by the PSAP. Rooting the trust
hierarchy in VESA can be accomplished either by having the VESA
directly sign the LIS certificates, or by the creation of
intermediate CAs certified by the VESA, which will then issue
certificates to the LIS. In terms of the workload imposed on the
VESA, the latter approach is highly preferable. However, this raises
the question of who would operate the intermediate CAs and what the
expectations would be.
In particular, the question arises as to the requirements for LIS
certificate issuance, and how they would compare to requirements for
issuance of other certificates such as an SSL/TLS web certificate.
3.2. Location by Reference
Location-by-reference was developed so that end hosts can avoid
having to periodically query the location server for up- to-date
location information in a mobile environment. Additionally, if
operators do not want to disclose location information to the end
host without charging them, location-by-reference provides a
reasonable alternative. As noted in "A Location Dereference Protocol
Using HTTP-Enabled Location Delivery (HELD)" [RFC6753], a location
reference can be obtained via HTTP-Enabled Location Delivery (HELD)
[RFC5985] or the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) location
URI option [DHCP-URI-OPT].
Figure 2 shows the communication model with the target requesting a
location reference in step (a), the location server returns the
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reference in step (b), and it is then conveyed to the location
recipient in step (c). The location recipient needs to resolve the
reference with a request in step (d). Finally, location information
is returned to the Location Recipient afterwards. For location
conveyance in SIP, the procedures described in [RFC6442] are
applicable.
+-----------+ Geopriv +-----------+
| | Location | Location |
| LIS +<------------->+ Recipient |
| | Dereferencing | |
+-+-------+-+ Protocol (d) +----+------+
^ | --^
| | --
Geopriv |Req. | --
Location |LbyR |LbyR -- Geopriv
Configuration |(a) |(b) -- Using Protocol
Protocol | | -- (e.g., SIP)
| V -- (c)
+-+-------+-+ --
| Target / | --
| End Host +
| |
+-----------+
Figure 2: Location by Reference
Where location by reference is provided, the recipient needs to
deference the LbyR in order to obtain location. The details for the
dereferencing operations vary with the type of reference, such as a
HTTP, HTTPS, SIP, SIPS URI or a SIP presence URI.
For location-by-reference, the location server needs to maintain one
or several URIs for each target, timing out these URIs after a
certain amount of time. References need to expire to prevent the
recipient of such a URL from being able to permanently track a host
and to offer garbage collection functionality for the location
server.
Off-path adversaries must be prevented from obtaining the target's
location. The reference contains a randomized component that
prevents third parties from guessing it. When the location recipient
fetches up-to-date location information from the location server, it
can also be assured that the location information is fresh and not
replayed. However, this does not address location swapping.
With respect to the security of the de-reference operation, [RFC6753]
Section 6 states:
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TLS MUST be used for dereferencing location URIs unless
confidentiality and integrity are provided by some other
mechanism, as discussed in Section 3. Location Recipients MUST
authenticate the host identity using the domain name included in
the location URI, using the procedure described in Section 3.1 of
[RFC2818]. Local policy determines what a Location Recipient does
if authentication fails or cannot be attempted.
The authorization by possession model (Section 4.1) further relies
on TLS when transmitting the location URI to protect the secrecy
of the URI. Possession of such a URI implies the same privacy
considerations as possession of the PIDF-LO document that the URI
references.
Location URIs MUST only be disclosed to authorized Location
Recipients. The GEOPRIV architecture [RFC6280] designates the
Rule Maker to authorize disclosure of the URI.
Protection of the location URI is necessary, since the policy
attached to such a location URI permits anyone who has the URI to
view the associated location information. This aspect of security
is covered in more detail in the specification of location
conveyance protocols, such as [RFC6442].
For authorizing access to location-by-reference, two authorization
models were developed: "Authorization by Possession" and
"Authorization via Access Control Lists". With respect to
"Authorization by Possession" [RFC6753] Section 4.1 notes:
In this model, possession -- or knowledge -- of the location URI
is used to control access to location information. A location URI
might be constructed such that it is hard to guess (see C8 of
[RFC5808]), and the set of entities that it is disclosed to can be
limited. The only authentication this would require by the LS is
evidence of possession of the URI. The LS could immediately
authorize any request that indicates this URI.
Authorization by possession does not require direct interaction
with Rule Maker; it is assumed that the Rule Maker is able to
exert control over the distribution of the location URI.
Therefore, the LIS can operate with limited policy input from a
Rule Maker.
Limited disclosure is an important aspect of this authorization
model. The location URI is a secret; therefore, ensuring that
adversaries are not able to acquire this information is paramount.
Encryption, such as might be offered by TLS [RFC5246] or S/MIME
[RFC5751], protects the information from eavesdroppers.
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Using possession as a basis for authorization means that, once
granted, authorization cannot be easily revoked. Cancellation of
a location URI ensures that legitimate users are also affected;
application of additional policy is theoretically possible but
could be technically infeasible. Expiration of location URIs
limits the usable time for a location URI, requiring that an
attacker continue o learn new location URIs to retain access to
current location information.
In situations where "Authorization by Possession" is not suitable
(such as where location hiding [RFC6444] is required), the
"Authorization via Access Control Lists" model may be preferred.
Without the introduction of hierarchy, it would be necessary for the
PSAP to obtain client certificates or Digest credentials for all the
LISes in its coverage area, to enable it to successfully dereference
LbyRs. In situations with more than a few LISes per PSAP, this would
present operational challenges.
A certificate hierarchy providing PSAPs with client certificates
chaining to the VESA could be used to enable the LIS to authenticate
and authorize PSAPs for dereferencing. Note that unlike PIDF-LO
signing (which mitigates against modification of PIDF-LOs), this
merely provides the PSAP with access to a (potentially unsigned)
PIDF-LO, albeit over a protected TLS channel.
Another approach would be for the local LIS to upload location
information to a location aggregation point who would in turn manage
the relationships with the PSAP. This would shift the management
burden from the PSAPs to the location aggregation points.
3.3. Proxy Adding Location
Instead of relying upon the end host to provide location, is possible
for a proxy that has the ability to determine the location of the end
point (e.g., based on the end host IP or MAC address) to retrieve and
add or override location information.
The use of proxy-added location is primarily applicable in scenarios
where the end host does not provide location. As noted in [RFC6442]
Section 4.1:
A SIP intermediary SHOULD NOT add location to a SIP request that
already contains location. This will quite often lead to
confusion within LRs. However, if a SIP intermediary adds
location, even if location was not previously present in a SIP
request, that SIP intermediary is fully responsible for addressing
the concerns of any 424 (Bad Location Information) SIP response it
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receives about this location addition and MUST NOT pass on
(upstream) the 424 response. A SIP intermediary that adds a
locationValue MUST position the new locationValue as the last
locationValue within the Geolocation header field of the SIP
request.
A SIP intermediary MAY add a Geolocation header field if one is
not present -- for example, when a user agent does not support the
Geolocation mechanism but their outbound proxy does and knows the
Target's location, or any of a number of other use cases (see
Section 3).
As noted in [RFC6442] Section 3.3:
This document takes a "you break it, you bought it" approach to
dealing with second locations placed into a SIP request by an
intermediary entity. That entity becomes completely responsible
for all location within that SIP request (more on this in Section
4).
While it is possible for the proxy to override location included by
the end host, [RFC6442] Section 3.4 notes the operational
limitations:
Overriding location information provided by the user requires a
deployment where an intermediary necessarily knows better than an
end user -- after all, it could be that Alice has an on-board GPS,
and the SIP intermediary only knows her nearest cell tower. Which
is more accurate location information? Currently, there is no way
to tell which entity is more accurate or which is wrong, for that
matter. This document will not specify how to indicate which
location is more accurate than another.
The disadvantage of this approach is the need to deploy application
layer entities, such as SIP proxies, at AIPs or associated with AIPs.
This requires a standardized VoIP profile to be deployed at every end
device and at every AIP. This might impose interoperability
challenges.
Additionally, the AIP needs to take responsibility for emergency
calls, even for customers they have no direct or indirect
relationship with. To provide identity information about the
emergency caller from the VSP it would be necessary to let the AIP
and the VSP to interact for authentication (see, for example,
[RFC4740]). This interaction along the Authentication, Authorization
and Accounting infrastructure is often based on business
relationships between the involved entities. The AIP and the VSP are
very likely to have no such business relationship, particularly when
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talking about an arbitrary VSP somewhere on the Internet. In case
that the interaction between the AIP and the VSP fails due to the
lack of a business relationship then typically a fall-back would be
provided where no emergency caller identity information is made
available to the PSAP and the emergency call still has to be
completed.
4. Location Trust Assessment
The ability to assess the level of trustworthiness of conveyed
location information is important, since this makes it possible to
understand how much value should be placed on location information,
as part of the decision making process. As an example, if automated
location information is understood to be highly suspect, a call taker
can put more effort into obtaining location information from the
caller.
Location trust assessment has value regardless of whether the
location has been conveyed securely (via signed location, location-
by-reference or proxy-added location) or not (via location-by-value
without location signing), since secure conveyance does not provide
assurance relating to the validity or provenance of location data.
To prevent location-swapping attacks, the "entity" element of the
PIDF-LO is of limited value if an unlinked pseudonym is provided in
this field. However, if the LIS authenticates the target, then the
linkage between the pseudonym and the target identity can be
recovered post-mortem.
As noted in [I.D.thomson-geopriv-location-dependability], if the
location object was signed, the location recipient has additional
information on which to base their trust assessment, such as the
validity of the signature, the identity of the target, the identity
of the LIS, whether the LIS authenticated the target, and the
identifier included in the "entity" field.
Caller accountability is also an important aspect of trust
assessment. Can the individual purchasing the device or activating
service be identified or did the call originate from a non-service
initialized (NSI) device whose owner cannot be determined? Prior to
the call, was the caller authenticated at the network or application
layer? In the event of a prank call, can audit logs be made
available to an investigator, or can information relating to the
owner of an unlinked pseudonym be provided, enabling investigators to
unravel the chain of events that lead to the attack? In practice,
the ability to identify a caller may decrease the likelihood of
caller misbehavior. For example, where emergency calls have been
allowed from handsets lacking a SIM card, or where ownership of the
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SIM card cannot be determined, the frequency of nuisance calls has
often been unacceptably high [TASMANIA][UK][SA].
In practice, the source of the location data is important for
location trust assessment. For example, location provided by a
Location Information Server (LIS) whose administrator has an
established history of meeting emergency location accuracy
requirements (e.g. Phase II) may be considered more reliable than
location information provided by a third party Location Service
Provider (LSP) that disclaims use of location information for
emergency purposes.
However, even where an LSP does not attempt to meet the accuracy
requirements for emergency location, it still may be able to provide
information useful in assessing about how reliable location
information is likely to be. For example, was location determined
based on the nearest cell tower or 802.11 Access Point (AP), or was a
triangulation method used? If based on cell tower or AP location
data, was the information obtained from an authoritative source (e.g.
the tower or AP owner) and when was the last time that the location
of the tower or access point was verified?
For real-time validation, information in the signaling and media
packets can be cross checked against location information. For
example, it may be possible to determine the city, state, country or
continent associated with the IP address included within SIP Via: or
Contact: headers, or the media source address, and compare this
against the location information reported by the caller or conveyed
in the PIDF-LO. However, in some situations only entities close to
the caller may be able to verify the correctness of location
information.
Real-time validation of the timestamp contained within PIDF-LO
objects (reflecting the time at which the location was determined) is
also challenging. To address time-shifting attacks, the "timestamp"
element of the PIDF-LO, defined in [RFC3863], can be examined and
compared against timestamps included within the enclosing SIP
message, to determine whether the location data is sufficiently
fresh. However, the timestamp only represents an assertion by the
LIS, which may or may not be trustworthy. For example, the recipient
of the signed PIDF-LO may not know whether the LIS supports time
synchronization, or whether it is possible to reset the LIS clock
manually without detection. Even if the timestamp was valid at the
time location was determined, a time period may elapse between when
the PIDF-LO was provided and when it is conveyed to the recipient.
Periodically refreshing location information to renew the timestamp
even though the location information itself is unchanged puts
additional load on LISes. As a result, recipients need to validate
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the timestamp in order to determine whether it is credible.
While this document focuses on the discussion of real-time
determination of suspicious emergency calls, the use of audit logs
may help in enforcing accountability among emergency callers. For
example, in the event of a prank call, information relating to the
owner of the unlinked pseudonym could be provided to investigators,
enabling them to unravel the chain of events that lead to the attack.
However, while auditability is an important deterrent, it is likely
to be of most benefit in situations where attacks on the emergency
services system are likely to be relatively infrequent, since the
resources required to pursue an investigation are likely to be
considerable. However, although real-time validation based on PIDF-
LO elements is challenging, where LIS audit logs are available (such
as where a law enforcement agency can present a subpoena), linking of
a pseudonym to the device obtaining location can be accomplished in a
post-mortem.
Where attacks are frequent and continuous, automated mechanisms are
required. For example, it might be valuable to develop mechanisms to
exchange audit trails information in a standardized format between
ISPs and PSAPs / VSPs and PSAPs or heuristics to distinguish
potentially fraudulent emergency calls from real emergencies. While
a CAPTCHA-style test may be applied to suspicious calls to lower the
risk from bot-nets, this is quite controversial for emergency
services, due to the risk of delaying or rejecting valid calls.
5. Security Considerations
IP-based emergency services face a number of security threats that do
not exist within the legacy system. In order to limit prank calls,
legacy emergency services rely on the ability to identify callers, as
well as on the difficulty of location spoofing for normal users. The
ability to ascertain identity is important, since the threat of
punishment reduces prank calls; as an example, calls from pay phones
are subject to greater scrutiny by the call taker.
Mechanically placing a large number of emergency calls that appear to
come from different locations is difficult in a legacy environment.
Also, in the current system, it would be very difficult for an
attacker from country 'Foo' to attack the emergency services
infrastructure located in country 'Bar'.
However, within an IP-based emergency services a number of these
attacks become much easier to mount. Emergency services have three
finite resources subject to denial of service attacks: the network
and server infrastructure, call takers and dispatchers, and the first
responders, such as fire fighters and police officers. Protecting
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the network infrastructure is similar to protecting other high-value
service providers, except that location information may be used to
filter call setup requests, to weed out requests that are out of
area. PSAPs even for large cities may only have a handful of PSAP
call takers on duty, so even if they can, by questioning the caller,
eliminate a lot of prank calls, they are quickly overwhelmed by even
a small-scale attack. Finally, first responder resources are scarce,
particularly during mass-casualty events.
Attackers may want to modify, prevent or delay emergency calls. In
some cases, this will lead the PSAP to dispatch emergency personnel
to an emergency that does not exist and, hence, the personnel might
not be available to other callers. It might also be possible for an
attacker to impede the users from reaching an appropriate PSAP by
modifying the location of an end host or the information returned
from the mapping protocol. In some countries, regulators may not
require the authenticated identity of the emergency caller, as is
true for PSTN-based emergency calls placed from pay phones or SIM-
less cell phones today. Furthermore, if identities can easily be
crafted (as it is the case with many VoIP offerings today), then the
value of emergency caller authentication itself might be limited. As
a consequence, an attacker can forge emergency call information
without the chance of being held accountable for its own actions.
The above-mentioned attacks are mostly targeting individual emergency
callers or a very small fraction of them. If attacks are, however,
launched against the mapping architecture (see [RFC5582] or against
the emergency services IP network (including PSAPs), a larger region
and a large number of potential emergency callers are affected. The
call takers themselves are a particularly scarce resource and if
human interaction by these call takers is required then this can very
quickly have severe consequences.
Although it is important to ensure that location information cannot
be faked there will be many GPS-enabled devices that will find it
difficult to utilize any of the solutions described in Section 3. It
is also unlikely that users will be willing to upload their location
information for "verification" to a nearby location server located in
the access network.
Nevertheless, it should be understood that mounting several of the
attacks described in this document is non-trivial. Location theft
requires the attacker to be in proximity to the location to spoofed,
and location swapping requires the attacker to collude with someone
who was at the spoofed location. Time shifting attacks require that
the attacker visit the location and submit it before the location
information is considered stale, while travelling rapidly away from
that location to avoid apprehension. Obtaining a PIDF-LO from a
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spoofed IP address requires that the attacker be on the path between
the HELD requester and the LIS.
6. IANA Considerations
This document does not require actions by IANA.
7. References
7.1. Informative References
[DHCP-URI-OPT]
Polk, J., "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) IPv4 and
IPv6 Option for a Location Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)",
Internet draft (work in progress), draft-ietf-geopriv-dhcp-
lbyr-uri-option-19, February 2013.
[EENA] EENA, "False Emergency Calls", EENA Operations Document,
Version 1.0, March 2011,
http://www.eena.org/ressource/static/files/
2011_03_15_3.1.2.fc_v1.0.pdf
[GPSCounter]
Warner, J. S. and R. G. Johnston, "GPS Spoofing
Countermeasures", Los Alamos research paper LAUR-03-6163,
December 2003.
[NENA-i2] "08-001 NENA Interim VoIP Architecture for Enhanced 9-1-1
Services (i2)", December 2005.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2818] Rescorla, E., "HTTP over TLS", RFC 2818, May 2000.
[RFC3693] Cuellar, J., Morris, J., Mulligan, D., Peterson, J., and J.
Polk, "Geopriv Requirements", RFC 3693, February 2004.
[RFC3694] Danley, M., Mulligan, D., Morris, J. and J. Peterson, "Threat
Analysis of the Geopriv Protocol", RFC 3694, February 2004.
[RFC3748] Aboba, B., Blunk, L., Vollbrecht, J., Carlson, J., and H.
Levkowetz, "Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP)", RFC
3748, June 2004.
[RFC3863] Sugano, H., Fujimoto, S., Klyne, G., Bateman, A., Carr, W. and
J. Peterson, "Presence Information Data Format (PIDF)", RFC
3863, August 2004.
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[RFC4474] Peterson, J. and C. Jennings, "Enhancements for Authenticated
Identity Management in the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)",
RFC 4474, August 2006.
[RFC4479] Rosenberg, J., "A Data Model for Presence", RFC 4479, July
2006.
[RFC4740] Garcia-Martin, M., Belinchon, M., Pallares-Lopez, M., Canales-
Valenzuela, C., and K. Tammi, "Diameter Session Initiation
Protocol (SIP) Application", RFC 4740, November 2006.
[RFC5069] Taylor, T., Tschofenig, H., Schulzrinne, H. and M. Shanmugam,
"Security Threats and Requirements for Emergency Call Marking
and Mapping", RFC 5069, January 2008.
[RFC5246] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Level Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246, August 2008.
[RFC5491] Winterbottom, J., Thomson, M. and H. Tschofenig, "GEOPRIV
Presence Information Data Format Location Object (PIDF-LO)
Usage Clarification, Considerations, and Recommendations", RFC
5491, March 2009.
[RFC5582] Schulzrinne, H., "Location-to-URL Mapping Architecture and
Framework", RFC 5582, September 2009.
[RFC5751] Ramsdell, B. and S. Turner, "Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (S/MIME) Version 3.2 Message Specification", RFC
5751, January 2010.
[RFC5808] Marshall, R., "Requirements for a Location-by-Reference
Mechanism", RFC 5808, May 2010.
[RFC5985] Barnes, M., "HTTP Enabled Location Delivery (HELD)", RFC 5985,
September 2010.
[RFC6280] Barnes, R., et. al, "An Architecture for Location and Location
Privacy in Internet Applications", RFC 6280, July 2011.
[RFC6442] Polk, J., Rosen, B. and J. Peterson, "Location Conveyance for
the Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 6442, December 2011.
[RFC6444] Schulzrinne, H., Liess, L., Tschofenig, H., Stark, B., and A.
Kuett, "Location Hiding: Problem Statement and Requirements",
RFC 6444, January 2012.
[RFC6753] Winterbottom, J., Tschofenig. H., Schulzrinne, H. and M.
Thomson, "A Location Dereference Protocol Using HTTP-Enabled
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Location Delivery (HELD)", RFC 6753, October 2012.
[SA] "Saudi Arabia - Illegal sale of SIMs blamed for surge in prank
calls", Arab News, May 4, 2010,
http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=1093319384
[Swatting]
"Don't Make the Call: The New Phenomenon of 'Swatting',
Federal Bureau of Investigation, February 4, 2008,
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2008/february/swatting020408
[TASMANIA]
"Emergency services seek SIM-less calls block", ABC News
Online, August 18, 2006,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1717956.htm
[UK] "Rapper makes thousands of prank 999 emergency calls to UK
police", Digital Journal, June 24, 2010,
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/293796?tp=1
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the members of the IETF ECRIT working group,
including Marc Linsner, Henning Schulzrinne and Brian Rosen, for
their input at IETF 85 that helped get this documented pointed in the
right direction. We would also like to thank members of the IETF
GEOPRIV WG, including Andrew Newton, Murugaraj Shanmugam, Martin
Thomson, Richard Barnes and Matt Lepinski for their feedback to
previous versions of this document.
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Authors' Addresses
Hannes Tschofenig
Nokia Siemens Networks
Linnoitustie 6
Espoo 02600
Finland
Phone: +358 (50) 4871445
Email: Hannes.Tschofenig@gmx.net
URI: http://www.tschofenig.priv.at
Henning Schulzrinne
Columbia University
Department of Computer Science
450 Computer Science Building, New York, NY 10027
US
Phone: +1 212 939 7004
Email: hgs@cs.columbia.edu
URI: http://www.cs.columbia.edu
Bernard Aboba
Skype
Redmond, WA 98052
US
Email: bernard_aboba@hotmail.com
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