Network Working Group                                          A. Cooper
Internet-Draft                                                       CDT
Intended status: Best Current Practice                        S. Farrell
Expires: April 24, 2014                           Trinity College Dublin
                                                               S. Turner
                                                              IECA, Inc.
                                                        October 21, 2013


                Privacy Requirements for IETF Protocols
             draft-cooper-ietf-privacy-requirements-01.txt

Abstract

   It is the consensus of the IETF that our protocols be designed to
   avoid privacy violations to the extent possible.  This document
   establishes a number of protocol design choices as Best Current
   Practices for the purpose of avoiding such violations.

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 April 24, 2014.

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



Cooper, et al.           Expires April 24, 2014                 [Page 1]


Internet-Draft   Privacy Requirements for IETF Protocols    October 2013


   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Examples and Explanation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   7.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   8.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6

1.  Introduction

   The IETF has long-standing principles that support strong security in
   protocol design and a tradition of encouraging protocol designers to
   take these principles into account.  [RFC1984] articulated the view
   that encryption is an important tool to protect the cofidentiality of
   communications, and that as such it should be encouraged and
   available to all.  [RFC3365] requires that all protocols implement
   strong security.  [RFC3552] provides guidance about how to consider
   security in protocol design and how to document security choices.  In
   [RFC2804], the IETF established a policy of not considering
   wiretapping requirements in IETF standards-track protocols.
   [RFC6973] explains the many different aspects of privacy that can be
   affected by Internet protocol design and provides guidance to help
   designers consider privacy in their work.

   This document extends the existing body of IETF principles concerning
   security by articulating Best Current Practices for avoiding privacy
   violations and establishing support for privacy as a principle of
   IETF protocol design.  These principles, old and new, should be
   applied when designing new protocols, and where applicable, should be
   considered for updates of existing protocols.

   It is also the consensus of the IETF that pervasive surveillance is
   an attack on privacy that should be defended against through protocol
   design.

   Discussion of this draft is directed to the ietf-privacy@ietf.org
   list.

2.  Terminology





Cooper, et al.           Expires April 24, 2014                 [Page 2]


Internet-Draft   Privacy Requirements for IETF Protocols    October 2013


   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
   [RFC2119].  These words take their normative meanings only when they
   are presented in ALL UPPERCASE.

   "Opportunistic encryption" is defined as encryption without any pre-
   arrangement specific to the pair of systems involved (e.g., by using
   a Diffie-Hellman exchange).  See [RFC4322].

   Privacy-specific terminology is provided in [RFC6973].  Of particular
   relevance to this document is the term "personal data," defined as
   "any information relating to an individual who can be identified,
   directly or indirectly."  Identifiers such as IP addresses that can
   remain consistent over time or that particular parties associate with
   directly identifiable information (such as a real name or street
   address) are therefore considered to be personal data.

3.  Recommendations

   There are inherent privacy risks with protocols that allow the
   communicating parties to store personal data, transport personal
   data, or are vulnerable to other parties observing the personal data
   in the exchanged communications.  Most Internet communications
   involve such risks, which can allow entities to build large databases
   of information that by themselves or in conjunction with other
   databases can identify people and their actions in invasive ways.

   Therefore, to the extent consistent with basic protocol operation and
   management, standards-track IETF protocols that involve transmission
   of personal data:

   1.  MUST minimize their use of such personal data, and

   2.  where personal data is sent, MUST have well-defined and
       interoperable ways to send such data encrypted for the intended
       recipient(s).

   While existing principles call for strong security, it is important
   to note that strong security only in cases where the other party can
   be authenticated does not by itself solve all privacy problems.  To
   guard against dangers of large-scale privacy attacks, some protection
   is needed also for other situations.

   As a consequence, at minimum, opportunistic encryption MUST be well-
   defined for new IETF standards track protocols.  This requirement can
   be waived only in exceptional circumstances where the protocol's
   utility would be eliminated or severely diminished if opportunistic



Cooper, et al.           Expires April 24, 2014                 [Page 3]


Internet-Draft   Privacy Requirements for IETF Protocols    October 2013


   encryption were defined.  Note that encryption provides one aspect of
   privacy protection, namely confidentiality.  In most cases it will be
   better to (also) specify how to do one-sided (e.g., TLS server
   authentication as commonly used in the web) or mutually authenticated
   encryption.  Where both opportunistic and one-sided or mutually
   authenticated encryption are specified, protocols MUST also protect
   against downgrade attacks so that scenarios where authentication is
   required cannot easily be manipulated into using opportunistic
   encryption which will often be subject to man-in-the-middle attacks.

   Note that these encryption requirements are contingent on
   practicality - if some personal data really has to be sent in clear
   for a protocol to be able to operate, and even opportunistic
   encryption is not possible, then a standards-track protocol that does
   not define how to protect that data will be consistent with this BCP.
   The IETF will have to decide in such cases whether standardising that
   protocol benefits the Internet or not.

   Many IETF protocols allow for some data items to be optionally or
   conditionally sent.  If personal data can be sent, then the
   conditions above apply.

   Specifications that do not meet the criteria above MUST include (or
   reference) an explanation of why they do not conform to this BCP.

4.  Examples and Explanation

   This section has some examples and explanatory material.  [[More,
   including references, will be added as discussion evolves.]]

   DHCP is an example of a protocol where it seems quite hard to provide
   useful confidentiality.  Should a new DHCP option be defined that
   carries personal data, then the IETF would have to decide if the
   benefit of that outweighs the potential privacy cost.

   For some protocols, layering on top of a security protocol like TLS,
   SSH or IPsec can be a useful way to provide confidentiality.
   However, just because it could be possible to do that does not mean
   that that is sufficient to claim conformance with this BCP.  For
   example, claiming that Diameter conformed to this BCP becuase one
   could in principle run Diameter over IPsec would not be credible, as
   it seems that such deployments are rare to non-existent.  In the same
   way that being being realistic is important when we consider a claim
   that sending personal data is unavoidable, it is just as important
   when claiming that layering on top of a security protocol can meet
   the requirements of this BCP.





Cooper, et al.           Expires April 24, 2014                 [Page 4]


Internet-Draft   Privacy Requirements for IETF Protocols    October 2013


   For some protocols, minimizing the use of personal data involves
   limiting the lifetime of identifiers.  In cases where an identifier
   refers to an individual (or a proxy for an individual, such as a host
   device or software instance), the longer that identifier persists and
   the more contexts in which it is used, the more it can facilitate
   correlation and tracking of information related to the individual and
   his or her activities.  Creating identifiers that have limited
   lifetimes by default reduces the possibility that multiple protocol
   interactions or communications can be correlated back to the same
   individual.  [RFC4941] provides an example in the case of stateless
   autoconfiguration of IPv6 interface identifiers.

   Since the goal here is to have a BCP that covers all IETF standards
   track protocols we clearly cannot address all aspects of privacy, for
   example user participation, since that would only be relevant for a
   small proportion of IETF protocols.

   One could consider mininimising the personal data sent by IETF
   protocols as a form being conservative in what you send, one of the
   longest standing principles in IETF protocol design.  There doesn't
   seem to be an equivalent here for being liberal in what you accept.

5.  Security Considerations

   This document articulates a set of Best Current Practices for privacy
   that extend the IETF's existing security principles.  At times,
   privacy and security may appear to be in tension.  For example,
   adherence to the recommendation in this BCP to minimize the use of
   personal data will likely yield less use of persistent identifiers
   associated with individual users.  Reducing the use of persistent
   identifiers can help attackers shield their identities and activities
   just as it can for legitimate users.  However, even relatively
   unsophisticated attackers already have at their disposal a variety of
   tools for cloaking their identities.  Recommending the minimization
   of personal data use at the protocol level can benefit the vast
   majority of legitimate users who depend on IETF protocols without
   materially improving attackers' existing tools for guarding their
   identities.

   Similarly, malware and other attack traffic can generally already be
   transmitted using object encryption or protocol encryption if
   attackers so choose.  Recommending that IETF protocols define
   mechanisms for opportunistic encryption can increase the availability
   of confidentiality protection to legitimate users without
   significantly changing the set of tools that attackers already use to
   shield their traffic from being identified and their attacks from
   being thwarted.




Cooper, et al.           Expires April 24, 2014                 [Page 5]


Internet-Draft   Privacy Requirements for IETF Protocols    October 2013


6.  IANA Considerations

   This document does not require actions by IANA.

7.  Acknowledgements

   Thanks to the following for useful comments.  These folks may or may
   not agree with the content.

   Jari Arkko, Bernard Aboba, Scott Brim, Benoit Claise, Nick Doty,
   Spencer Dawkins, Eliot Lear, Ted Lemon, SM, Avri Doria, Brian
   Trammell, Robin Wilton,

8.  Informative References

   [RFC1984]  IAB, IESG, Carpenter, B., and F. Baker, "IAB and IESG
              Statement on Cryptographic Technology and the Internet",
              RFC 1984, August 1996.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC2804]  IAB IESG, "IETF Policy on Wiretapping", RFC 2804, May
              2000.

   [RFC3365]  Schiller, J., "Strong Security Requirements for Internet
              Engineering Task Force Standard Protocols", BCP 61, RFC
              3365, August 2002.

   [RFC3552]  Rescorla, E. and B. Korver, "Guidelines for Writing RFC
              Text on Security Considerations", BCP 72, RFC 3552, July
              2003.

   [RFC4322]  Richardson, M. and D. Redelmeier, "Opportunistic
              Encryption using the Internet Key Exchange (IKE)", RFC
              4322, December 2005.

   [RFC4941]  Narten, T., Draves, R., and S. Krishnan, "Privacy
              Extensions for Stateless Address Autoconfiguration in
              IPv6", RFC 4941, September 2007.

   [RFC6973]  Cooper, A., Tschofenig, H., Aboba, B., Peterson, J.,
              Morris, J., Hansen, M., and R. Smith, "Privacy
              Considerations for Internet Protocols", RFC 6973, July
              2013.

Authors' Addresses




Cooper, et al.           Expires April 24, 2014                 [Page 6]


Internet-Draft   Privacy Requirements for IETF Protocols    October 2013


   Alissa Cooper
   CDT
   1634 Eye St. NW, Suite 1100
   Washington, DC  20006
   US

   Phone: +1-202-637-9800
   Email: acooper@cdt.org
   URI:   http://www.cdt.org/


   Stephen Farrell
   Trinity College Dublin
   Dublin  2
   Ireland

   Phone: +353-1-896-2354
   Email: stephen.farrell@cs.tcd.ie


   Sean Turner
   IECA, Inc.
   3057 Nutley Street, Suite 106
   Fairfax, VA  22031
   USA

   Phone: +1.703.628.3180
   Email: turners@ieca.com























Cooper, et al.           Expires April 24, 2014                 [Page 7]